DOUG STEVENSON: Well, welcome back to #MeetFirebase.
My name is Doug Stevenson.
And I'm in the middle of an interview with Ryan Vernon.
So what's your biggest gripe with mobile UIs today?
I imagine you're opinionated about this
because you build them, right?
RYAN VERNON: With mobile UIs?
I love big hotspots.
So I think mobile does a pretty good job of having
big hotspots, actually.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK, what's a hotspot?
Define that for me.
RYAN VERNON: A large button.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
RYAN VERNON: So if you want to edit your draft in an email,
that entire pane is hot for you to edit in iOS email app
whereas on a desktop--
I don't know why, it just seems more of my pet peeves
are on desktop.
Firebase is primarily desktop.
We don't have as many--
DOUG STEVENSON: You mean the console, the Firebase console.
RYAN VERNON: Yeah, Firebase consoles.
DOUG STEVENSON: Because the SDKs are primarily mobile.
RYAN VERNON: Right.
DOUG STEVENSON: But most of the time, developers
are using the console on desktop, right?
RYAN VERNON: Yes.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
RYAN VERNON: Yes.
So I don't know why some of the more advanced design
and interactions that happen on mobile-- why haven't they
helped to evolve desktop design?
So that's one thing I hope to--
because when you're using a mouse,
you have your entire arm.
It's a coarse motor control, whereas a phone
is your fingers, and it's a finer motor control.
Every time I tap a button and it just doesn't work--
it's more about complaints with interaction
than the way things look.
Here's a good one.
You have two photos, and you put them in order from the newest--
there's one that's new and one that's old.
Which order would you put them in?
DOUG STEVENSON: Which order?
RYAN VERNON: Yeah.
How would you place them on the table
here, if you were to talk to me about your vacation?
DOUG STEVENSON: Well, if I was going
to tell a story, the story, presumably, is chronological,
so you would go oldest to newest.
If you're telling a story.
RYAN VERNON: And you just moved your arm left to right.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
RYAN VERNON: Yeah.
So the fact that Google Photos goes
right to left, that kills me.
DOUG STEVENSON: Really?
Really?
RYAN VERNON: But then, when you make an album--
it goes left to right when you make an album.
I always find myself like, where am I?
So it's not so much how the UI looks.
It's about how it works.
In other platforms, they keep direction consistent so
that the user's mental map of time doesn't flip directions.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, OK.
That sounds like a problem, then,
if you're trying to consume in different concepts.
RYAN VERNON: Yeah.
DOUG STEVENSON: So it sounds like you have
an extreme attention to detail.
It's kind of necessary, to do this kind of work, right?
RYAN VERNON: Yeah.
It's overwhelming.
You have to separate what the small things are
from the big things.
That's the challenge.
You can't pay attention to all the details.
DOUG STEVENSON: What's the big thing that
needs to be solved first, rather than the small thing?
Just for example.
RYAN VERNON: Well, we usually divide things up
into critical user journeys.
It has to be intuitive and it has to make sense.
Smaller things might be like, how does it look?
At least from the start.
Form follows function.
They're related, but in general, form follows function.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
Now, I understand, also, you have some patents.
Is that true?
What are these patents for?
RYAN VERNON: Mostly my mechanical engineering
industrial design patents.
I worked at Oxo.
They're mostly known for kitchenware gadgets.
And I have some old patents on a trash can,
pushpins, highchairs.
DOUG STEVENSON: So you have one thing
in particular that is a little more famous than highchairs
and trash cans and stuff like that.
It's an object that you might have seen on "Silicon Valley"
called Always Blue.
Tell me about that.
RYAN VERNON: It's called the Switch Pitch.
The game that they play in the show is Always Blue.
So it's a ball, and you throw it up and you catch it,
and it changes color.
It's like flipping a coin.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
RYAN VERNON: Yeah.
Same company made the Hoberman Sphere--
opens up really big.
And a lot of people have those on their desk.
So that was the first hit.
I came in after that and it was a big hit,
and I worked on a second spherical toy,
which was the Switch Pitch.
Chuck Hoberman made the original prototype.
Another engineer, Matt Davis, and I
helped to bring it to something that could be mass produced
and then looked really nice.
A lot went into it.
DOUG STEVENSON: Wow.
So you had a hand in creating that thing that now is probably
on a lot of people's desks, and you see it on TV.
That sounds pretty cool.
RYAN VERNON: Yeah, it's one of my favorites.
DOUG STEVENSON: Well, Ryan, thanks for coming on the show
and joining us from the New York office.
And thank you for tuning in and watching today.
Be sure to subscribe right here to the Firebase channel
on YouTube to get more great video content and more guests
on #MeetFirebase.
And I'll see you here next time.
RYAN VERNON: What if we pretend that it's the Ryan Show?
DOUG STEVENSON: Come again?
RYAN VERNON: Let's just do paper, rock, scissors for it.
One two, three, shoot.
I am the host now.
It's called Meet Ryan.
And I am Ryan.
DOUG STEVENSON: That's freaky.