Hokkaido Archives
Gear Test
Jan 10, 2009 | 2 Comments
A few days in Hokkaido, a chance to test some new camera gear - including movies on the Canon 5D II, and whether the GPS on the Nikon is feasible in the heat/cold of the moment. Internal GPS is only a generation away from a bunch of D-SLRs so it's not particularly representative.
A number of reader's have asked about the gear we use for conducting the research a short write up in the coming weeks.
A Body of Language
Mar 05, 2008
A Japanese phone user (in the shadows, center) conducts a call facing the wall - the body language of making a phone call.
Seasonal Activities as Cultural Time Capsules
Jan 14, 2006
Seasonal activities such as skiing and snowboarding often lead to a non-trivial investment in equipment - a new deck, gloves, goggles, jackets, boots, trousers, hats, bags and so on. Most people don't (perceive the) need to, don't want to, or can't afford to buy new equipment every year so as a result the places where people gather to carry out these activities are in effect cultural time capsules. Whilst having lunch in a mountain restaurant we sometimes watched in quiet appreciation/awe trying to guess the year when particular colours or styles were in fashion on the slopes.
The snowboard scene in Japan is now being pitched as 95% fashion 5% sport. From a sales point of view it makes sense - the criteria for owning and being satisfied with a sports object changes more slowly compared to fashions which, without fail will change once a year. The North Face shop in Harajuku is a good bell weather of sports-fashion-brand's shift to fashion-sports. An evening shopper is more likely to stumble into a hip-hop DJed spray painting competition than a seminar on the hazards of climbing at altitude (camouflage North Face puffer jackets had some cred amongst the Tokyo hip hop crowd last year).
One regret from last week was not having the time to systematically document people, their equipment and in particular how they custonmised what they had. But it got me thinking about the logistics of setting up a photo studio on the mountain and being with people in one place long enough for them not to freeze. Perhaps this is an activity for the spring?
How long should/do product's last? What can be done to slow down or speed up the replacement cycle?
DRM In A Different Age
Jan 09, 2006 | 2 Comments
What are your mental triggers to remember where you've been? What you've done? With whom?
In Japan stamps are a common way of providing proof of having been somewhere. Train stations, mountain huts, sea ports, and airports often have a work bench where you can add an additional stamp. The designs are often simple and perhaps because of the format have an element of 'classic' about them - the stamp for Chitose Airport, Hokkaido shown below.
The tools to take photographs are widely accessible. But what are the properties that make physical and digital photographs so accessible to communicate experiences? As more and more about how the human brain works is understood what will be the next major content format shift? Can and will experiences be piped more directly into and out of the brain? Assuming people will want to carry tangible triggers for those memories, what form will they take? Why? What is the essence of an experience to be captured and communicated? How will the essence change as the tools to communicate the experiences change? And in a world where this is possible is the ultimate DRM the ability to totally remove or add memories of experiences to enable us to have that first/most recent experience again and again?
Giving away (implanting) content/experiences for free may not seem like a great way to enforce DRM, but if the value of an experience is in doing something for the first time for example a watching a cliff-hanger movie or perhaps falling in love, users may well be willing to pay to have those experiences removed.
Visualisation
Jan 09, 2006 | 0 Comments
2D/3D visualisation aided by unique characteristics of what is communicated. Perspective in poster below.
Welcoming
Jan 08, 2006
Mechanism for welcoming guests to room - the name of the arriving party is clipped next to the door. Suitable for displaying other status or preference information?
Icon, Frivolity
Jan 04, 2006 | 1 Comment
Sweet icon on tumble dryer, used by (multi-cultural) members of the public. Whilst its common to see badly designed and inappropriate icons, it's relatively rare to see cheeky icons make it into physical product design. (Yes, all three categories are not mutually exclusive)
Ideal Height
Jan 04, 2006
Simple mechanical design to optimise the height of the top-most tray.
Information At The Tips Of Your Fingers
Jan 03, 2006 | 1 Comment
Today her finger nail is a means of expression, decoration, drawing attention.
Finger nail decoration machines already exist to allow a customer to choose a design, then automatically decorate and dry those nails. Embedding digital information on those nails would be a relatively trivial step (though generating a critical mass of device to read what is on the nails is non-trivial). If you could store and communicate information through your finger nails what would you want to store and what would you want communicate? Is one kind of infomration more suited to thumbs or particular fingers than others? The number of digits is one natural parameter, combined with issues such as biting nails, locations where finger tips can and will end up, and how long users would expect a finger nail design to last before being refurbished offer interesting user interface possibilities and forms of interaction.
The broader issue is - what is possible without going down the routes of embedding technology under the skin, personal area networks or alternatives like bone induction?
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