designswarm thoughts

It’s a well known fact I have way too many Stickies which over the weekend I managed to reduce to 15 (i think i had at least double that) and found this lovely list of vegetables with the wittiest names.
Since I can always use a bit of typeface practice, I thought I’d do something more interesting that make a ta-da list out of it.

From Stamen design.

Is this a trend or the byproduct of the fact that most often than not, people can’t commit to defining their field? So now after my earlier rant about the RCA’s new name for it’s interaction design program, i read that former IDII Bill Moggridge is publishing a book called Designing interactions.

Sounds so artsy… “oh honey, i design interactions”

PS: I find it funny he took Bill Verplank’s diagrams for the cover of his book : )

Oh yes and let’s not forget Dan Saffer’s Design for interaction.

NordiCHI is coming up next week in Oslo and although I won’t make it to the conference (too expensive for my post-graduation budget at the moment ) I will make it to the Blogject workshop organized once more by Timo, Julian and Nicholas, after a first successful workshop at LIFT in Geneva last spring.

We’re supposed to put together 5 minute pitches in the form of 3 slides and a rant about what we do, what our position is and conclusions, but Timo has also asked me to do a longer 15 minutes presentation of my ideas in the afternoon. I’m really excited about presenting to my peers and getting a conversation going about the stuff that’s been eating away at me and lead to my thesis project. Now all i have to do is make it digestible for others : )

My position paper for the workshop was the following:

“This position paper will attempt to illustrate how the new paradigm of the “internet of things” will support a shift in thinking in users and professionals towards more responsible and sustainable practices and behaviors, using “Stint”, a service designed around a collectivity of connected objects.

If we dig a little further into the current trend of the “experience economy” and PSS (UNEP) i.e. a product service society, we are encouraged to address sustainability by encouraging people to seek value from what they have access to and not what they own. On the opposite end of the spectrum however, mass customization and rapid prototyping are also on the rise as business practices follow the user-generated trend. Easy access to material goods, however personalized they might be, might lead to what one might call “moral hazard” (Reid J. Lifset, 2005) as our thirst for new and exciting products and material-based experiences have increased tenfold (J.Chapman, 2005). The semantics of objects is lost and disposal is easier because ownership is no longer valuable. This is where connected objects might play an important part.

“The internet of things” seeks to illustrate the value of connectivity and ubiquitous computing by tagging and keeping track of our surrounding everyday objects. This will become relevant in the objects we will design in the future. This means that a layer of retrievable, virtual and linkable meaning can be associated to any given object and as designers we might start to consider objects as part of an eco-system, a collective, a society of objects. This might in turn address how we design such objects and the interactions we have with them. What are a user’s expectations of a connected object and it’s capabilities? Would the use of an object change when it is semantic understood as belonging to a family? In the case of “Stint”, that question was addressed and offered one of many solutions.

Stint is a music sharing service made of physical tokens that link to people’s music. The way that a person collects and interacts with those tokens is communicated to a widget that also talks to the main music application online. Each physical object links to someone’s musical donations. A typical user would therefore collect all these tokens as representations and physical links to the music that each person would send them, in real time. To have access to that music as it reaches each token the user has to push each one. This physical connection with the object itself allows the system to record and track what content is accessed, but also allows the object to take an active part in the system. As time goes by each stint will get used and show who are the people whose collection that person has interacted most with. Inversely she will be able to identify if her friends are listening to her music by looking at their objects or their virtual and connected counterparts.

In this case study, the connected objects were treated in such a way as to physically show and display the use which matched the data being collected. The design approach goes far beyond what is traditionally considered product design (ergonomics, aesthetics, industrial processes) but starts to scratch the surface of new ways in which practitioners could use technology to infuse life and meaning into objects that make people want to build relationships with them that are more meaningful and rich than what is currently available. A new set of behaviors and semantics will change people’s understanding of the material world and eventually change their consumption habits as each object’s history becomes as precious as the object itself.

In conclusion we can expect to see a change in the practice of product design as connected objects become more popular. The interconnectedness of physical elements is bound to play a part in how we will design the behaviors and interactions they will have with each other , with their users and between users.

References:

Chapman, Jonathan. Emotionally Durable Design – Objects, Experiences & Empathy, Earthscan ed., London, 2005.

Manzini, Ezio. Jégou, Francois. Sustainable everyday, scenarios of urban life, Edizioni Ambiente, Italy, 2003.

“UNEP and Product Service Systems.” UNEP. Jan 2005. United Nations Environmental program. .”

Hanging out in London cafés as i am these days, i often position myself next to windows (whenever i’m in buses, i always somehow unconsciously end up next to the emergency exit windows but that’s another story) and find myself staring out and observing how people interact with their surroundings. I’ve started noticing the way that people use architecture for flirtatious reasons or as a way to play out dramatic events of their personal lives… for example:

1. Sitting in the bus, I saw a young 20-something couple crouched at the foot of 2 marble columns, each of them sitting in that little space that somehow became suddenly private having one of those “we need to talk” conversations. The woman was lecturing while the young man was staring at his feet.

2. Sitting in Starbucks at Bishopsgate, where i can usually be found, I was staring out onto the huge office building in front. Every woman that would come out to smoke would ultimately turn to the glass-plated windows and stare at themselves as in a mirror in that “do i look fat in this?” kind-of-way, oblivious to what was going on around them.

3. Waiting for the train last week, I observed as a woman talking on her cell phone on the platform opposite me, in a business suit, leaned head first on the brick wall in front of her, shielding herself from being heard i guess, for about 15 minutes. It was almost like a praying position that the Jewish take on the Wall of Complaints in Jerusalem…

People, architecture, technology, all intertwine.

Not sure how I feel about this latest announcement of the RCA‘s new Head of Department Tony Dunne. The Interaction design department (which apart from IDII and Umea was the only other school teaching a less Xerox park approach to the field is renaming itself “Design Interactions”.

“The focus of the department is shifting, and although electronics and computing will remain at the heart of the course, we will begin to explore how design can connect with other technologies, such as biotechnology and nanotechnology. The course has been restructured to reflect this shift and was validated in March 2006.

Design Interactions is a small change, but we think it is significant. It reflects our emphasis on designing interactions of all kinds – not just between people and digital technologies, or even other emerging technologies, but also between people and possible futures, and between design and other fields of art and science.

At the last summer show, we characterised the thrust of the department as follows: ‘Design Interactions explores new roles, contexts and approaches for design in relation to the social, cultural and ethical impact of existing and emerging technologies. Projects, which are often speculative and critical, aim to inspire debate about the human consequences of different technological futures – both positive and negative. Students work closely with people outside the College, designing for the complex, troubled people we are, rather than the easily satisfied consumers and users we are supposed to be. Project outcomes are expressed through a variety of media including prototypes, simulations, video and photography. The students have backgrounds in art and design, computer science, engineering and psychology.” from Regine’s wmmna.

I think there is something very sad here which is the loss of a focus on making technology more usable and more human in every form. Physical computing is one of the ways in which that can present itself. And a field which turn inwardly toward catering to less and less consumer-relevant ideas, quickly slips into the realm of art. If the disappearance of IDII and this shift in the RCA are to indicate a trend in my field, then i wish everyone would support CIID‘s growth even more.

In Europe and the UK, there needs to be a space for professionals to learn to understand people, their needs, the business opportunities that design can bring, that fosters the growth of user-centered design in meaningful and playful ways, instead of veering towards the edges of the Bell curve and become design “comments” like the world of product design has become.

Empty…

Originally uploaded by alexandra666.

Is a very “quebecer” expression that means that too much is like too little. This is a concept that truly and most definitely applies to communication in large corporations. Having spent the past month in what i will brand as one of the world’s “major communications company” it actually amazed me to witness people’s use of communication channels.

Firstly you’d be lucky if anyone answered their phones, most people would rather let it ring and at some point listen to all their voicemail messages, than deal with information straight away. Oh sure they would phone you back at some point, but its interesting to to see phone technologies being used as a sort of log more than anything.

Then there’s the question of meetings, because you’d be able to see people’s agendas, other people can book and therefore flood your time for you. A result of this is that people will book themselves “fake” meetings to make sure they actually have time to do actual work and not spend all their times in meetings. Meeting rooms were always booked which begged the questions why are people meeting in the first place? Might this be related to the open-space office model? Before, you had your own office space with a door, you could have a quick chat with someone about something that didn’t need more than a few minutes, or you could shut your door and blinds if you were having an affair with your secretary, i mean, working ; )

So what does this say about people and communications technology…i think the lesson here is that people will always find a way around technology, a way to get their way, control it and shape it to fit their attention span or ability to deal with information. I think there is therefore a real need for working structures that cater to that, instead of evading them, shouldn’t we enjoy and positively use the communication channels we are given?

In the meantime, i’ll just watch the office people around me having informal meetings at the Starbucks where i’m picking up wifi.

I am on vacation… which is another way to say i’m not working full time, which is another way of saying i’m looking for more work, which just means I’m bored. After just 2 days “off”, I’m getting antsy again, looking for the next thing. Somehow inactivity does not suit me well and I’m not sure that’s such a good thing. Normal people know how to snap out of it usually no?

Anyway, I’ve been thinking of what kind of work i want to get involved in and it’s very curious to find myself talking 2 different languages that don’t usually speak to each other… on one had there’s the product designer in me and on the other hand, the “web geek” part of me as well… how do i make these 2 parts of me converge? Somehow the market’s expectation of what i do as an “interaction designer” is only web-based… but i don’t have a hard-core web background… i am learning certainly but i could never claim to be able to properly code anything other than HTML sites at this point…i was described recently as a “creative architect” which i think is funni… corporate environment love to find a box for you and they still couldn’t fit me into one.

On the industrial design side, well i certainly have some experience and am now concentrating on my next product project for the Salone 2007, but i am not interested in designing a chair and considering that the highlight of my career… So what am i? What do i do?

Well i think i’m something of an interpreter, i can talk to people from various backgrounds and make a project come together. I can understand people’s skills and where they fit in a project. I’m not sure what that is: strategic designer? project manager? design researcher? any other non-descipt terms out there could apply really, but then i love to work on my own stuff… hmm…
Maybe i should just keep freelancing… or freefalling… that sounds more like it feels right now..