Thoughts, ramblings and experiments in making sense of a complex Future

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The Story of Stuff Project was created by Annie Leonard to leverage and extend the film’s impact. We amplify public discourse on a series of environmental, social and economic concerns and facilitate the growing Story of Stuff community’s involvement in strategic efforts to build a more sustainable and just world. Our on-line community includes over 150,000 activists and we partner with hundreds of environmental and social justice organizations worldwide to create and distribute our films, curricula and other content.

Probably old news to most design colleagues, but I thought I’d post it on the blog for keepsakes.

Link here.

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This was a project done by my dear friend Sara Tunheden at the Interactive Institute in Stockholm.

BoEL is an experimental social ambient interface and web service that presents daily consumption figures to home owners and neighbours to promote joint savings and foster competitive energy saving behaviours. The service includes an ambient lamp that provides feedback on the energy consumption in the household and these interfaces are installed so that the neighbours can observe each others energy status.

This is one of the many projects the II is working on to spread awareness about energy consumption through design provocations and probes that affect behavior positively.

Oh, and I happened to play a cameo in her amazing video too! This is an edited version. Hopefully I’ll get my hands on the full version soon!

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Sources: Cisco estimates based on CAIDA publications, Andrew Odlyzko.

Read the full article here.

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Lets hope we get to use these guidelines and rules soon to build some kickass apps!

via Engadget.

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This infographic shows how to get rid of a tattoo quite nicely and with a nod to one of my favorite art styles, Art Nouveau. It looks as if an actual photograph was used of a woman and then stylized to resemble an illustration or computer graphic. In any case, it is done very well and is certainly eye-catching. Sex sells and this infographic does that with cheeky success, showing us just enough of the lower back and her lower back tattoo to garner the visual interest that all infographics crave. But this graphic isn’t all style, there is plenty of substance too. The procedure for removing tattoos islabeled and illustrated on the right using multiple tattoo removal methods.

source: http://www.reflectionscenter.com

Artist: http://cooljerk.com/hornographics

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via JohnnyHolland

Great interaction design is a delicious soup. You boil a variety of different ingredients and spices in the right proportion,  and voila – pure bliss! Unlike other branches of design, however,  it’s extremely hard to write a recipe for interaction design. By its very nature, the interaction design process needs to be fluid and dynamic.

Interaction design tingles the complete experience over time. It tastes most satisfying in conditions when multifaceted flavors and ingredients are brought together. The bigger the challenges are —the more diverse and mixed the ingredients need to be. This beautiful paradox sits at the heart of the interaction design menu, very differently from other design cuisines.

During my time as a Master’s degree student in Interaction Design at Umeå (Sweden), I often found our group repeatedly doing the following:

• Obsessing with finding the ‘perfect’ solution to a problem.
• Frequently questioning the value of having mixed, diverse groups of professionals studying Interaction Design together. Were frustrating debates stemming from disparate backgrounds and differences of opinion really the most efficient way to designing interactions?

I haven’t found ’the perfect solution’ yet, but I do believe the process is a lot more interesting. Having experienced the inherent value of a multifaceted approach professionally, I believe that mastery in the interaction design process lies in perfecting those moments when the room is packed with people who won’t share your views and probably don’t have your skills.

Mastering the science of ‘We, not I’.

The quest for perfection and the myth of genius are timeless aspirations that meet with sporadic and rare success. Genius chefs (like genius designers) never seem to be able to cook the same dish twice.  Some modern authors, such as Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers: The Story of Success, debunk the notion of genius altogether. According to Gladwell, even geniuses like Mozart, The Beatles and Bill Gates had more than 10,000 hours of practice at doing what they did—iteratively—constantly improving their craft while focused on process. I believe that a mastery of interaction design process does not rest in divine inspiration and confined sketching (read: genius!). The key probably rests in learning to churn together – a pool of motley professions, backgrounds, skills and interests. Interaction design is a team-sport at its most intense, meaningful climax, and we need to change the way we train for this sport. We need to rearrange our kitchen in order to cook this soup – and we need to do it often, depending on what we’re cooking.

The big hurdle – we’re conditioned to think and act as individuals, not as groups. Could this be the un-learning needed in order to be able to synthesize truly well-rounded experiences?

As a former architect, the process of design was inevitably intensely personal. My colleagues in architecture were all inspired by the singular genius of Corbusier, van der Rohe and Gehry. Moments of solitary and inspired sketching were thought to be the catalysts for the ‘eureka’ moment. Graphic and product design Masters of that era worked in much the same way. Processes in interaction design, on the other hand, seemed to work in quite stark opposites. After migrating to interaction design, students from very different backgrounds were thrown amidst multifaceted peer groups—something many struggled to cope with. A group of motley backgrounds, each with their own stubborn opinions, conflicting ideas, dissimilar skills oft resulted in frustrated groups and heated differences of opinion during projects. Many were left questioning the value and efficiency of such a process. Product and transportation design classmates seldom faced this problem. They were still relatively blissful in the peaceful confines of their work-spaces, diligently pursuing that perfect sketch.

Wouldn’t too many cooks in the interaction design kitchen spoil the broth?

Read more HERE

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This is sheer awesomeness. It delights me when services map themselves onto our environments in such delightful ways. 

For more on Ovi Maps, see here.

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I’ve been thinking and working alot lately about Service Design, and questions about the Dabbawallahs in India have often popped up.

An article I read on Meena Kadri’s blog really delighted me.

Excerpts:

“What do laundry and lunch delivery have to do with my favoured intersection of communication, culture and creativity? Well, in the case of Mumbai’s Dabbawallas and Dhobi Ghats – quite a lot. Via their respective coding systems, both enterprises are able to track items within their service chain to ensure accurate delivery.”

The Dabbawalla service entails collection of freshly prepared meals from the residences of suburban office workers from vast reaches of the city, delivery to their workplaces and the return of empty lunch boxes (dabba or tiffin) to its original home – all for a reasonable monthly fee. Delivering over 200,000 lunch boxes each day to workers who have diverse eating habits (often governed by religion) requires an accurate system – especially as each lunch box commonly passes through the hands of at least six men, in quick exchange, on its path from home to office and back again. Most tiffins are collected by bicycle, sorted into destination groups, then carried together on trains and cycled to the offices of their respective customers. In between they are commonly carried on hand pushed carts and large head-balanced trays – all while jostling with chaotic Mumbai rail and road traffic.

Read more here.

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