Category Archives: Design

Are we really going to accept an Interface Of The Future that is less expressive than a sandwich?

Written by jason. Filed under Interaction Design, Mobile. Comments Off.

Are we really going to accept an Interface Of The Future that is less expressive than a sandwich?

Please do give Bret Victor’s post, “A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design“. The post primarily focuses on expanding our ideas about interaction beyond the “picture under glass” metaphor. It definitely got me thinking:

Q. Human beings have the amazing capacity to ‘think’ an experience and physiologically experience what we thought. The downside of this capability is the stress we feel in our day to day lives. That said, do we need to offload the expressiveness of our minds to a new technology like a tactile mobile device? Zebra loosing its stripes over stress.

Q. How do we designers go about building upon the capabilities of our hands (and bodies) in new interfaces? Software and UI development is so much easier and cheaper to do. There are business models that support our efforts. Hardware innovation is very expensive. I’d love to explore new types of interactions but how does a small player compete with a Microsoft Kinect?

Just some open-ended questions. If you have any thoughts, please do share them.

Make sure to read the follow-up responses at the bottom of his post. Pretty interesting.

Augmented Reality Book: Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde

Written by jason. Filed under Book Design, Design, Interaction Design. Tagged , . Comments Off.

A very interesting example of an augmented reality book. Although we have the iPad (and a slew of tablets coming soon), this experiment excites me regarding the potential of digital ink. Of course, maybe I’m stuck in the “book” format paradigm whereas the new digital generation have no nostalgic ties. That said, there’s something comforting about a book and with digital ink, the interactive experience you see with Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde wouldn’t be so disjointed. Nice job though!

Covers from our latest book series project

Written by jason. Filed under Book Design, Children & Youth, Latest News, Nonprofits. Comments Off.

Here are the covers from the booklet series we designed for Save the Children Sweden, War Child Holland and Plan International. The goal of the series is to teach young people about various terms and concepts related to the UN. I’m pretty excited to see the published versions.

Children and the iPad is like Peanut Butter and Jelly? Maybe.

Written by jason. Filed under Children & Youth, Interaction Design. Comments Off.

If you’re a product designer/interaction designer, this video is a must see.

Also, please read the insightful post made by this little girl’s father here.

The future of ebooks on the iPad?

Written by jason. Filed under Interaction Design, Technology. Comments Off.

A nice demo by Penguin Books. If you get a chance, please read some of the comments on Gizmodo. The one strange thing about the demo is the lack of actual “reading” on the iPad. Are these examples actually “books”? The other thing this demo makes me wonder is what will future authors of ebooks look like?

Saul Bass: The relationship between quality of work and perceived value

Written by jason. Filed under Design. Tagged , , . Comments Off.

Design legend, Saul Bass discusses his commitment to designing beautiful things regardless of whether or not the client cares or values beauty. Now I’ve been in the consulting business for over thirteen years and it is only within the last few that I’ve been able to truly wrap my head around this issue. I remember a passionate conversation with my father on the topic, and he reminded me that the average amount of time a visitor spends at the Grand Canyon is fifteen minutes. Only fifteen minutes! If you’ve ever visited the Grand Canyon, then you know that fifteen minutes hardly does it justice.

It’s been my experience that beauty does matter in the eyes of businesses however businesses do not value beauty as much as designers. This makes sense of course, however it does create a bit of an antagonistic dynamic between the designer and the client – especially around issues of compensation. Maybe Saul Bass is right, as designers maybe we should only be concerned about meeting our own standards versus that of our clients. On the other hand, maybe we should be working harder to educate our clients on the value of good design. Or maybe still, we should be working harder to identify potential clients who appreciate the value of good design. What do you think?

(re)Design: Olympic organizers modify fence around Olympic cauldron

Written by jason. Filed under Design, Marketing, UX. Tagged , , , . Comments Off.

 

Photograph by: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images,

When I first heard that spectators were complaining about the fence around the Olympic cauldron, I immediate thought, “All that money and the organizers put a crappy fence around the iconic Olympic flame?” I mean really, couldn’t they have afforded a security guard or two instead? Fortunately, organizers corrected this design oversight and made the area around the cauldron more visitor friendly.

I am however quite surprised organizers didn’t think of the people who would actually visit the site in the first place. Clearly, the organizers’ concerns were with how the cauldron looked on tv, as well as avoiding potential lawsuits. Such a shame. Although I understand these concerns, organizers failed to think about the long-term opportunity: These folks travelled a long way – at great expense – to have an authentic Olympic experience. Instead of alienating them, organizers should have thought of these visitors as partners. After all, once these visitors return home, their stories and images will remain long after the corporate partners have rolled up their tents. These lasting images will remind them of their Olympic experience and remind friends of what they missed. I’m sure the value of this free advertising far outweighs the money saved by putting up a crappy fence.

Kid-centric Search

Written by jason. Filed under Design, UX. Tagged , . Comments Off.

Here’s an interesting NYT article on the user interaction design efforts made by companies like Google and Microsoft to make search easier and more intuitive for children. A couple of interesting points:

    Children respond positively to query results situated at the bottom of the screen as it is closer to where they are typing and looking.
    43 percent of queries at Ask Kids use the question format to search (e.g. Who is the president?) instead of keywords.

You can read the article here.