Geneva Archives
Shared Appreciation
Jun 08, 2009
Shared appreciation of what is required for a face/body, or at least what takes to turn a fire hydrant into a face/body. From Brentwood above and Geneva below.
The ability to see faces in (almost) any shape is well known. How might the link between shapes and faces be leveraged in a design process? Can the satisfying closure that comes from making-a-face-whole be used to drive the user's next action? If facial-recognition in it's various forms is a human universal, could this be a part-solution for illiterate user interfaces?
What is the equivilent for sight impaired people?
Mobile literacy research here and video here.
What You See, What You Are Expected To See
Feb 15, 2007
Those little design details that help you see what your brain is trained to see. Photo from Geneva.
When (Design) Rules Are Made to Be Broken
Feb 15, 2007
Do cultural attitudes towards obeying and breaking rules - not crossing a road except using pedestrian crossings also extend to the rules by which things are designed - say not creating a pedestrian crossing unless there is sufficient room for at least three stripes. Seems imbalanced to me. Also from Geneva.
Transgression Transparency
Feb 11, 2007
Transgressions that become more obvious as the context changes - the parking equivilent of saying the punchline to a rude joke just as the room goes quiet.
Today's notion of car parking changes when the roads are full of automated vehicles - if yours can't find a parking space it simply cruises the neighbourhood until required by its owner (along of course with the rest of the driver-less vehicles - boy that will be a quality-of-life kind of neighbourhood to hang out in). When gridlock is merely an ad-hoc car park who has a vested interest and power to create then dissapate gridlock? Given the wide variety of vested interests to what extent will car parking become a centrally co-ordinated activity - the Central Traffic Authority relying on real-time schedule updates to micro-coordinate the delivery of your personal or personal-shared vehicle.
Assuming that a self-driving, self-parking car is programmed to park within legal boundaries, how much would you pay for the make-the-most-of-what's-out-there hack?
Linear Progression
Feb 11, 2007
If galleries were built to the same design rules would more people be exposed to more art?
Message Complexity
Feb 11, 2007
Keyholes as Entry Point to Nodes in the System
Feb 10, 2007
But what functionality does the key hole represent? And what is the cost of finding out?
The way in which an object is inserted into another object affecting the way that the data on that object is treated by the device it is inserted into. Simple example? Your home computer has 2 USB slots - attaching your digital camera cable to the 'secure' slot automatically carries out a sequence of tasks such as copying and encrypting the data before wiping the memory card. Yes, potentially it severely limits the host device functionality - in what contexts is this beneficial?
Need more options? The ways in which memory cards (yeah, gosh, keys) are inserted into their host affecting what happens next. Variables? Whether the memory card is squeezed, rammed, pinched, stroked, caressed, or even held during insertion and copying process. Beyond the obvious what effect for memory card coitus interruptus? Hmm, definitely time to head out.
Last thought for the day: to what extent do memory cards remain embedded in one device or 'migrate' between devices? Between owners?
Ta Ben for the loan of the finger.
Our Heroes, Who Are They?
Feb 10, 2007
Heroes? Heroines more likely.
LIFT Presentation Download
Feb 09, 2007
The slides to today's LIFT presentation on Literacy, Communication & Design can be found here [6MB PowerPoint] with a related essay here. The presentation was long on highlighting issued raised by the design research and short on showing solutions that have been proven to work beyond what is currently possible with well designed simple mobile phones. I can understand this probably disappointed a number of the audience, but ask yourself why. I'm not yet convinced that the obvious solutions - spoken menus and more comprehensive use of icons particularly work and the complexity and subtlety of the design solutions don't translate well to this presentation format in the time available.
A summary? Illiterate consumers are in many ways lead users for the rest of us.
The MotoFone mentioned in the question and answer session can be found here, and related Nokia products here and here. Related research can be downloaded from here.
And the photos? The first two were used in the presentation - field research in Delhi from 2006, snow falling on Helsinki from earlier this year and a presenter on the podium from an earlier session.
Suggested Interaction
Feb 09, 2007
Shoe glove.
Thought Delivery
Feb 08, 2007
Yesterday's LIFT Conference workshop on the City of the Future hosted by Bill Cockayne and Nicolas Nova. A chance to see how others figure out how the future will turn out, and reflect on how we can do it better ourselves.
And the thread about objects becoming less and less fixable? Hmm, depends where you look - try this essay + presentation [4MB PowerPoint] on informal repair cultures.
How it is Communicated
Feb 07, 2007
The Line Between L'Humor and
Feb 07, 2007
Looking for What You Expect To Find
Feb 07, 2007
A fly poster plasters the only available flat surface on a car park wall, pausing to keep a keyhole uncovered.
It's Switzerland, and I expect to find order. So I find order (regardless of its merit).
Task Flow: Who Does What?
Feb 06, 2007
Train ticket printed by the rail traveller rather than the train company. Similarly with the EasyJet flight from London to Geneva the ticket was likewise self-printed and also functioned as a boarding pass. A simple and now common example of the spread of technologies changing flow of the buying and using a ticket task: convenient for passengers and presumably cost savings for the train company - lower print costs and less staff time required to issue physical tickets.
Hmm, in a world of ubiquitous handheld devices how can the buying/referringto/presenting the ticket task be furthered shortened? Hmm indeed.
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