1 Polite Computing Software that respects the user Brian Whitworth © 2002, [email protected].

1

Polite Computing

Software that respects the user

Brian Whitworth © 2002, [email protected]

© Brian Whitworth 2005

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Selfish Software Installations that take over your computer

– Run themselves at start-up, and use memory– Fill task bar and desktop– Take over your file associations

Spam that takes over your inbox Software that dials up when it wants to Pop-ups that take over your browser Spyware/stealthware uses your computer to

record your actions unknown to you, etc

The common issue? Selfish Software


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The Effect? Internet is becoming an unpleasant place to be Not by lack of usability, but lack of sociability Success requires social and technical

development– Can technology benefits work without civil society?

Online trade benefits both buyer and seller– Yet it remains under 10% of all trade, e.g. for

stationary goods, it is 7%– This is one reason the “dotcoms” failed

The generally accepted cause – lack of trust Reduced willingness to interact online


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Our Response? Two approaches:

– Attack the problem: declare war on spam, develop laws to declare popups illegal, privacy movements to demand user rights, use firewalls, filters, anti-spyware..

– Develop a solution, or “antidote”:POLITE COMPUTING

Society developed politeness because it has real evolutionary value


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What is politeness? Webster:

– “Exhibiting in manner or speech a considerate regard for others.”

Being considerate to others is the opposite of selfishness

Considering others is socially productive!– Compare the productivity of civilization vs no

rules of conduct Every society has rules for politeness – should

not online society have the same?


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Etiquette vs Politeness Etiquette: Polite behaviors (proscribed

and prescribed), that vary from culture to culture– Etiquettes cannot be transferred to the

online setting, as they are all different Politeness: The general goal of

consideration for others, is common While etiquette varies between cultures,

the goal, of politeness, does not


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Is politeness agreeability? Reeves and Nass:

– When another says “I think I’m a good teacher; what do you think?”, polite people must respond “You’re great”, even if they don’t think so (Nass, 2004).

Is politeness just fake niceness? Being agreeable does not define politeness if one can

be polite but not agreeable, & agreeable but not polite– One can politely refuse, beg to differ, respectfully object

and humbly criticize, i.e. disagree, but still be polite.

– Giving money to the poor is kind and agreeable to them, but philanthropists may not be polite


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The general form A general politeness form can arise if the person being

considered knows what considers them. Then it is always considerate to give them choices

– This does not presume to know what they want For example

– Hold a door open for a mother with a baby, and say “After you”, this offers choice, and is polite.

– If the baby needs attention, the mother may say “No thank you”, and attend the baby not the door.

– Without choice, any “good” act can be bad, including helping little old ladies cross the street.


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Examples In conversation, the interaction locus of control

passes back and forth – Interrupting is impolite, as it takes choice – Letting another finish is polite, as they choose when

to stop. – Asking permission is polite, as it gives choice

“Please” and “Thank you” imply choice. – Please implies the choice to say no - one does not

ask “Please” if the other has no choice – “Thank you” also implies the other had choice


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Politeness aspects

To offer choice to another Not to disable the choice of another Cf Brown & Levinson- politeness is

– Maintain positive “face”, by giving choice– Avoid negative “face”, by not wrongfully

taking another’s choice


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Details Offending another is impolite if it forces a

negative state on the other person– But politeness is not just not offending

Can one offer choice when one has no choice oneself?– Politeness is a human property

It can be polite to talk if the other person prefers that– Giving the locus of control does not mean forcing the

locus (and burden) of action upon another. Is the “consideration” of illegal acts polite?


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Politeness Definition

Politeness is any unrequired support for situating the locus of choice control of a

social interaction with another party to it, given that control is desired, rightful and

optional.


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Politeness & Legitimacy

Polite

Legitimate

Anti-Social

Degree of choice offered

Note: The law is the current formal legitimacy requirements.

Politeness is offering more than the law requires


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Research Question

In a computer-human interaction involving valued physical, informational

and cognitive resources, will polite software be used and accepted more, and deleted and disabled less, than impolite

software?


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Polite Benefit Successful online businesses are polite

– Google– E-Bay– Amazon

They avoid pop-up ads, screaming ads, spam, privacy abuses, secret spyware, and all illegitimate PC use

Politeness pays because customers given choices come back


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Specifying Politeness In the example of someone politely

holding open a door for another, there are four elements to the politeness

1. Respect user choices. Do not preempt end-user choices

2. Disclose yourself. Declare oneself, be visible

3. Offer choice. Offer useful choices 4. Remember past choices. Don’t force

users to choose continuously


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1. Respect user choices. In social interaction choices may overlap, e.g.

one party’s choice may prevent another’s. Polite computing means programs don’t try to

dominate the computer-human interaction Polite software should not act unilaterally on

common resources without permission, including the desktop, registry, hard drive, task bar, file associations, quick launch or other settings.

If people own the computers they purchase, applications should only act with user consent


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2. Disclosure To act secretly behind another’s back, to

sneak or hide for any reason, is impolite. Why is it polite to introduce yourself? Non self-disclosure reduces another’s

interaction choices. A hidden party is untouchable, and thus

unaccountable for their actions. If polite people introduce themselves, polite

software should do the same


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3. Offer choice To be useful, a choice must be understood

as well as desired. To confuse with complex options is impolite

and inconsiderate. A choice misunderstood is not a choice at all

Are we too ignorant to understand the complexities of a software install? - the same argument could apply to installing satellite TV.

A complex act, like an installation, can be made simple by analyzing choice dependencies


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4. Remember past choices It is not enough to give choices now but

forget them later. If previous responses are forgotten, the user

must redo them, which is inconsiderate It is polite to remember

– Yet every time I open Explorer it goes to its preferred directory forcing me to wait, as it finds and fills it’s list panel with innumerable files I don’t want to see.

– Each time I interact with Explorer, it acts as if it were the first time I had used it - though I am the only person it has ever known.


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Social Error A logic error can cause an information

flow failure that in turn causes a system failure or “crash”.

A social “error”, like impoliteness, can cause a social failure, which causes the user to end the interaction

The end effect of compiler and user rejection are the same - the application does not run.


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Mr Clippy Mr. Clippy was Office ‘97’s assistant, a

paper clip figure who guessed you were having a problem and stepped in to lend a hand.

Using advanced Bayesian logic, he was touted as the future of smart help.

His most famous line: “It looks like your writing a letter…” came when you typed “Dear …”.


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Die Clippy Die! According to a 2001 PC Magazine survey,

Mr. Clippy was the third biggest software flop of the year, with same concept Microsoft Bob as the first (PC Magazine, 2001)

Chris Pratley, a Microsoft designer asks “If you think the Assistant idea was bad, why exactly?”

If Microsoft and other designers have not yet figured it out – Mr. Clippy was impolite


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Polite Help Mr. Clippy broke the first rule of politeness by

preemptively taking control of the cursor. By opening a modal window and forcing a

dialogue, Mr. Clippy chose the impolite way to offer help.

The polite way is to present an optional side block, as Amazon and Google do

Offering to help (giving choice) vs Demanding to help (taking choice)


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What rejection? Mr. Clippy was a selfish application.

– Close his window and he came back next time happy as ever – Choose the “Hide” option and he seemed to run away, but when

Word started again, he was right back in your world. – He was like a guest who would not leave, no matter how many

times you asked Mr. Clippy’s designers assumed they knew best (while

politeness assumes the user knows their needs best). Mr. Clippy could watch your document actions, but had

no memory whatsoever of his interaction with you. “Smart” software should be smart enough to recognize

rejection.


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The Mr Clippy Lesson Despite 25,000 hours of user testing, Mr. Clippy was

so notable a failure that his removal was a Windows XP sales pitch

By the usability theories of the day, Mr. Clippy should have been a slam-dunk winner. He had multi-media animation and Bayesian logic.

None of this made him any the less rude - Mr. Clippy was a know-it-all who took over, and did not listen.

The failure was not of friendliness, cleverness or usefulness.

It was a failure of politeness in design.


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Operating System Support Like citizens in a society, most computer

applications are useful, some are idle, but a few are thieves who abuse common resources

“Disorder” occurs when social parties act by what they can do, not what they should do

Software disorder occurs when software “might” prevails over user “right”.

We need the operating system “Sheriff” to maintain order

If the operating system can protect its kernel from applications, it can do the same for users


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PC Disorder Social disorder causes instability Windows degrades over time due to the “freedom”

applications have– Programs put files wherever they like– Uninstalled applications are not removed cleanly.

Over time, Windows becomes bloated by a “residue” of left-over files and registry records.

Eventually, only reinstalling the entire operating system (and reinstalling all applications and resetting all preferences), recovers system performance.


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O/S Support for choice

1. An application source registry (ASR)1. That declares the social source of every PC

resource, e.g. Adobe, Microsoft or System

2. A general meta-choice console (GMCC)1. To manage meta-choices (choices about

choices)


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An application source registry

The MSConfig Service lets users control startup applications– Names like CTSysVol don’t tell “Who?” and “Why?”, so

users could stop a system critical process by mistake An application source registry would create a source

record for each new application, and link applications to information resources. – “Source” could be a property of every desktop icon, menu

item, taskbar icon and hard drive listing. Applications could then be removed cleanly


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A general meta-choice console

When Zone-Alarm asks permission it offers: 1. Always accept 2. Always reject 3. Let me choose Users need only set access permissions once A GMCC would manage all choices about choices

– The GMCC Desktop tab could put back a deleted desktop icon

– An application that insisted on putting icons on the desktop every update could be denied.


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Politeness & Security OK, politeness is valid, but security comes first –

then politeness– If so, politeness will never come – Politeness and security are two sides of the same coin of

social health. By analogy, a gardener defends his or her crops from

weeds, but does not wait for every weed to be killed before fertilizing.

Security reduces anti-social acts, while politeness encourages social acts. Complementary forces.

Politeness reduces the causes of hacking at its source


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The Alternative The unpleasant alternative to politeness is war Today, many users feel at war with their PC

– Removing what they didn’t want added– Resetting changes they didn’t want changed– Closing windows they didn’t want opened– Deleting e-mails they didn’t want to receive.

User weapons in this war include third party tools like Black Ice, SpyBot, Spam-Killer, Pop-up blocker and Zone Alarm. At download sites, these are the most popular accesses.

The user goal is to wrestle a semblance of control from selfish programs.


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Polite Computing Customer conflict is not the norm of brick and

mortar businesses, and should not be so for online business.

Social-technical systems are both social and technical. Their success depends on the user response as well as the compiler response

Making choices is what computers do, but it is also what people do. To avoid choice conflict, software must be polite.

That people control their computers, not the reverse, is a non-negotiable HCI requirement.


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A Seal of Politeness Software designers should not

underestimate the importance of choice to people.

In human history, freedom and choice have been the stuff of revolutions

A grass-roots Internet movement against impolite software is not inconceivable.

Perhaps a “seal of politeness” could credit those designers who respect user choices


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Summary Impolite software acts preemptively, hides

itself, confuses users and forgets past choices

Polite software allocates resources with permission, discloses itself and its source, enables easy and simple choices, and remembers past interactions.


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Final Word

Polite acts

Legitimate acts

Criminal acts

Social Benefit

Selfish Benefit

Giving Choice

Taking Choice

Where in the above space does your software fit?


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ENDSee brianwhitworth.com for example papers: 1. Polite Computing2. The Web of System Performance3. Spam and the Social-Technical Gap4. Legitimate by design5. Voting before discussing6. Generating agreement in computer-mediated

groups

1 Polite Computing Software that respects the user Brian Whitworth © 2002, [email protected].

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Transcript of 1 Polite Computing Software that respects the user Brian Whitworth © 2002, [email protected].