Monthly Archives: March 2010

Bruce Sterling, Bill Moggridge, Dunne and Raby at Potsdam 2007

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Presentation at the conference »Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign« in Potsdam, Germany. The talk was held on 31. March 2007.

The Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign was organised by the Interface Design programme of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Conference web site: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de/innoforum

Interface Design programme: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de

Presentation at the conference »Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign« in Potsdam, Germany. The talk was held on 30. March 2007.

The Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign was organised by the Interface Design programme of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Conference web site: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de/innoforum

Interface Design programme: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de

Presentation at the conference »Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign« in Potsdam, Germany. The talk was held on 31. March 2007.

The Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign was organised by the Interface Design programme of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Conference web site: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de/innoforum

Interface Design programme: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de

A Brief History of Treemap Visualization

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What is a Treemap? A treemap is a way of analysing large amounts of data in a small space.

A fantastic writeup about Treemaps and their History by the University of Maryland is available here.

I’m trying to use Circular Treemaps as a visualization tool for a project I’m working on. Since I’m not allowed to show it yet, I’ll borrow from another source.

Information visualization using Circular Treemaps: link

An interesting article on this by BBC.

Windows Phone 7 and Metro

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More Windows Phone 7 observations, and appreciation.

Windows have released their design guidelines (via Luke Wroblewski’s blog) for the Windows Phone 7 series.

I also recently stumbled on this nugget via IStartedSomething.

Excerpt: 

A number of concept screenshots of early Metro concepts for Windows Phone 7 Series was published in the slides of the “Windows Phone UI and Design Language” session at Microsoft MIX10 this week giving us a rare peek into what Metro could have been.

If one thing’s for sure, large fonts and a text-driven layout was a sure-thing since the beginning. It appears they experimented with a much larger time display and diagonal-placed controls which look kind of cool but one could imagine to be a usability nightmare. Take a look for yourself.

I’m drooling at this because of  its:-

  • Beautiful, brilliant use of typography.
  • Content as UI.
  • Effective and striking use of color.
  • A great way of presenting the common task of UI-Design Language.
  • Its brutal simplicity, and total disregard for decoration in UI.

Of course we’re still waiting to see how it resonates with users, but it already seems like a dream project come true to have worked with.

Iron Man comics, Sleep Cycle apps and some recent reads.

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Iron Man, I have you now. The illustrations look mindblowing, and I cannot wait to dig deeper.

I’ve also be exploring the Sleep Cycle app on the iPhone and must say I’m hugely impressed at it’s simplicity and effectiveness.

… and this awesome article which dissects a very relevant discussion articulately.

I especially like the section where he shows examples of the physicality of books, which the iPad cannot replace.

Good stuff to keep in mind when attempting to plunge into this pool.

Objects Lessons in the Primacy of Interaction @chochinov

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This is Alan Chochinov’s presentation at IxD10 (Savannah).

Allan Chochinov-Girls and Women: Objects Lessons in the Primacy of Interaction from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.

I posted the video to the blog for 2 reasons

a) It is hugely inspiring. To quote 4 key learnings by Chochinov (during his course at the SVA, New York) in the closing parts of his presentation -

  • Raise the Stakes: Make it Personal, Make it Urgent
  • Intervene: Design your products as if they were props in an intervention.
  • Dont Play Fair: Act like a design thinker, but think like a design activist.
  • Facilitate: Its not what you design, its not what you make – its what you facilitate.

b) The work shown in the presentation is yet another indicator toward ‘Design Fiction’ explorations which we currently need more of perhaps at Umea. (sorry, US keyboard!)

—

Less problem solving by design alone, and more of design-intentions explicit through fiction. For want of a better word – storytelling. (…puke!)

6 Trends & The Gods Must Be Crazy.

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via Trendwatching

I love that they use an ethnographic approach to identify trends. Reminds me of the movie ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’ and the way the Coca Cola bottle was perceived by a bunch of tribesfolk in remote Africa. Our urbanfolk arent so different! :) View the trailer below.

The End of the Classical: Is ‘Re-’ the new ‘New’?

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via article titled ‘Authenticity’ from the blog of Lebbeus Woods.

This image reminded me of an article I read sometime ago called ‘The End of the Classical’ by Peter Eisenman

I loved this poster because it illustrates how notions of ‘experiencing the classical’ have deconstructed themselves. We’re living in an era where rehashing is the classical. McDonald’s, remixes, rehashes, relinks, rethinks – The word ‘Re’ is the new ‘New’. Or is it?

via Photosynth.

Or this…

Today our notions of ‘classical’ (or the ‘original-itself’) are constantly being reinvented and hence removed incrementally from the Original itself.

In the near future, would our tagged, augmented, rehashed, recollective memory of a place, thing or experience itself become a new notion of classical?

The State of the Internet Infographic @infosthetics

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via Information Aesthetics

The infographic movie “The State of the Internet” by creative agency Jess3 conveys exactly what is meant by its title, with a special focus on highlighting a lot of numbers and statistics, ranging from the general demographics of Internet usage to launch dates of popular online social network sites.

You can watch the movie below.