Nike Lab live
One of the projects I did the ID work for is now live.
NikeLab!
July 02, 2008
May 03, 2008
Big in Italy
The project I worked on has yet more press.
This time en Italiano.
March 27, 2008
Waterfall Design Process
From one of my favorite talks at the IASummit 2007
March 25, 2008
Wisdom of the Crowd
An article about the project I worked on on Christian Science Monitor...
February 21, 2008
designers
"If a designer asks for more time, they aren't being lazy, they are trying to figure out the variables in the potential solutions so that you don't have to deal with regression and you can truly layer on additional features in a way that will not break the system or the interaction behavioral patterns being established from a well thought out master plan, which if done right, will be flexible enough to accommodate future features.
The simplest way to achieve this is to really have business objectives clearly spelled out before design begins. If you hear complaints from designers, or anybody on a team, it usually means folks aren't sure of what they are aiming for. Understanding team dependencies is important, and can be tackled at different speeds depending on the size of the team/ organization."
- from a poster on LinkedIn
There is a very interesting thread going on LinkedIn What Do You Never Want to Never Hear A Designer Say Again. From the sound of the comments on the thread (with the exception of the quote above) it is unfortunately clear that there is still misconceptions about what a good designer can bring to the table.
I think a reoccurring theme is the notion that designers do not need to know about or are not privy to the business objectives.
While it is true traditional visual/graphic/motion designers are not taught or used to this kind of information, this is rapidly changing and designers quite often have years of business experience, and have traversed in large organizations.
Another great quote:
"What intrigues me about most of these answers is that they all seem to come *after* the opportunities for planning and communication. So... if there was a breakdown along the line, is it all on the designer? Usually not. "
I sincerely hope this is just a sign of growing pains in the industry and things will get better as people who work in that nebulous area currently called "interaction, UX, product design" and live in that are between visual design, research, strategy, technology and product management are more frequently seen.
February 19, 2008
Sketching and design
This month Coroflot has an article on designers and sketching called Questioning the Cult of the Sketch. .
As someone who has been in the design business for longer than i care to admit here, I can say sketching is an invaluable tool, hand lettering and photography are also excellent are also invaluable skills.
Lots of paper, some good pencils and pens and a fast scanner are necessary.
February 12, 2008
IXDA2008 videos
are online and listed on Experientia's site
January 23, 2008
Compost Modern 2008
Since I was too busy running around with the other AIGA-SF volunteers working at the event to see many of the sessions..
here is a wrap up from Media Bistro.
November 20, 2007
Internationalization
Found in an old notebook I have:
Some character sets:
Arabic
Cyrillic
Latin
Greek
Roman
Slavic
Use
given name:
family name:
to express first, last name for localization
Year Formats:
Gregorian: 2007
Japan (emperor) 19 Heisei era
Taiwan 2550 (Buddhist year)
Hebrew 96 (1911 based)
Hijri - Islam
Lunar- Asia
ISO 86-01 universal standard for numerical data.
For time zones use GMT/UTC + Offset
Examples of how numbers are expressed:
England: 15,345.67
Japan: 15.345,67
Switzerland: 15'345,67
France: 15 345,67
India 15,34,567.89
Phone numbers:
USA +1 (555) 555-1212
France: 33.1.6172.8075
Japan and Russian address go from Least Granular to Most granular top to bottom:
Japan
104-0032 Tokyo
Hacchorbori 3-11-11
Miki Building
Shibuya
Toyko
for efficient internationalization:
- avoid using text in images
- don't use flags for countries
- Make room for expansion
- Make the design flexible and sparse
115% for Japanese
124% for Korean
Hinigan- Kanji - Japanese idiographs
Double Byte characters
radicals - 214 radicals
A-Z Pick list will not localize well.
Unicode.org
ASCII
latin-1
Latin-2
Greek Cyrillic
Thai
CJK
Korean
UTF-8 is most used on the web.
November 07, 2007
The More We Design The Less We Experience
Virtual revolution –
Celebrities vs. spectators vying for attention
This is the currency and resource
See article about this on Washington Post
Thomas De Zengotita Draper Grad School New York.
Affects of print on modernity
Next to food drink and sleep the need to be significant the need for attention
There is only so much that fits on the screen of human consciousness.
People are staging their own lives and are the stars.
Me worlds – flatter people in their network- keep attention on yourself
Mediated world
Flattery of representation –representations of all things by their nature address you.
To call attention to itself and pay attention to you
The rise of the flattered self
Rise of mediated entities addressing us
The flattered self is deluded into thinking he or she is the center of the universe.
Reflecting back to us about who we are.
Announcing to yourself who you are
The age of fusion
Fashion, music, entertainment
genre-breaking
fact-fiction mashups
a large phenomenon
all the little creators
there no Picassos anymore…
everyone thinks they are a little Picasso and everyone is trying to be original and feel special
everyone is special
everyone is making stuff out of what is around them
hundred and millions of people trying to be original.
You are not a unique flower (my note)
There is no such things as real experience it has always been mediated via language
Sheer quantity
Quantity, quality, ubiquity
Difference between now and before post-modern turn
Realizing that everything is mediate became common sense.
(in the 1960’s this really happened)
Media puts distance between experience.
The one who makes himself
agermensch ubermensch
environment of options
Decartes - the modern individual -
project of self-making
we make the world we live in
we make the ourselves
Whats left of reality and if we lost it what was it to begin with?
Everything is Miscellaneous
Dux Notes 3
When worlds collide – Second Life:
Stephany Filimon – Linden Lab
Comfortable mixed reality
Social Virtual World – virtual currency linden dollar
CSI-NY had a virtual crime scene and interactive crime solving activity happen on Second Life.
Fashion is a huge industry in SL
Only the money is real in Second Life.
Job Ha.net
Mixed reality fundraisers
Spectrum of acceptance
People who like it
Usually intentional
Extension of real to virtual
Association with real-world identity
Well understood some precedent
People who like voice in virtual worlds
Often unintentional
Intrusion of real upon virtual
Primarily s “fantasy user”
Skepticism of association with real world identtty
Not well understood little or no precedent
Center for Interactive Spaces – Denmark
Responsive vs reactive technologies.
Personal Training
Asymptote –
Trust on the web-
Peer to peer trust –
Mutual incremental disclosure
Share information over time
Second channel
Move information from unverified sources to known communication touch points
Verifying network messages via email strengthens the credibility of both channels.
Seven strategies for creating Individual Trust
Individual endorsement
LinkedIn provide venues for feedback that allow users to keep each other honest
Institutional reputation
Leverage strength of external authority affiliate with larger institutions
Wisdom of crowds
Aggregate a large number of people’s evaluations
eBay feedback sense of reputation.
Visual verification
Use of personal non-public photo and other media – photos on Facebook to ensure a profile belongs to the person
Faith in Humanity
The craigslist approach…
November 06, 2007
Dux Notes 2
Using Pragmatist Philosophy to Design for Aesthetic Experience -
form and material
natural and instrumental
overall impact
embodied and intellectual
socio-cultural effects
continuity thesis
primacy of practice
and a critique about the conference
October 26, 2007
egoist vs empathy in design
Observed in Design Observer:
"designers are either empathizers or egotists. Most of us are empathizers; we want to please our clients and we are happy to forgo some personal gratification in favour of giving them what they are expecting. But egotists are only interested in getting what they want: they have a fundamentalist certainty about themselves and their abilities. Their work is often better than the work of the empathisers."
June 24, 2007
Twillight
June 22, 2007
Shadowplay
A video I am working on.
It is meant to be projected against sheets.
Six projectors playing simultaneously with the contrast slightly adjusted on all.
May 29, 2007
4-D Design? What are you talking about?
I often get asked why I am taking classes and going back to school.
What is this thing you keep talking about?
Why do you think you need to go back to school?
To which I always answer: because I want to work on stuff that doesn't (always) involve a keyboard or a monitor or even a computer.
At least in the way we have been used to interfaces thus far.
This could be interacting with a touch screen or a device that has different ways of inputing or retrieving data.
I guess I am a Web 4.0 person living in a Web 2.0 world...
I found a passage from a book that says what I am going to study much more eloquently than I ever could:
"In the next few years, emerging practices in interactive architecture are set to transform the built environment. ‘Smart’ design was once regarded as the preserve of museum exhibits or Jumbotrom advertising screens, but 'multi-mediated' interactive design has started entering into every domain of public and private life as a spatial medium, interactive architecture is revolutionizing and reinventing our work, leisure and domestic spaces.
Fast-changing social contexts are dominated by the blurring of boundaries between work and play, information retrieval and use. Pliable and responsive digital environments raise the haptic and intuitive threshold of public and private space by harnessing physical and mental responses. Will interactive architecture embrace a wider scope of functions and experiences – from sensing mechanisms, to the info-lounge, to the ambient home environment and the holistic hospital – through customizable design possibilities? "
- from 4dspace: Interactive Architecture by Lucy Bullivant
Shamlessly stolen
A quote from a friend's blog:
"if you managed to open a door successfully today, hug your local designer... or at least buy them a cocktail."
_ Erik Gibb