Reflections

When it really comes down to it, saying that I learned a lot this semester just does not seem like I have summed it up entirely. This semester not only taught me a great deal about design, but helped me to make connections with great people, people I now call friends. These friends I hope to keep for the rest of my life. We have a lot to learn from each other, and I believe that our growth will continue beyond just these two years, as long as we stay in touch.

I also look back and realize that for the first time in a good deal of time, I am overjoyed in what I am doing. I have had moments where I have enjoyed my work, or the schooling that I was working on, but I genuinely love what I am doing now. I wonder how the rest of you feel after this semester has ended. Maybe you would indulge me and comment here.

Super/Killer Computer Imagination

So I have been thinking about this for quite sometime now trying to get some real insights on super/killer computer imaginative use. Through the about week and a half, several ideas have passed through my mind, but few struck me as a design or artifact that “fundamentally transforms the way people do things.” So I dug deep..

…and deeper and even a bit beyond that.

After all that probing I realized I was looking past things in life that are, what I think, are superb examples of super/killer computer imagination. They follow with brief explanations:

1. Micro-invasive computer assisted surgery: That is right folks, the days of open-heart surgery are nearly in the past! All chuckles aside, the development of a assisted surgery have changed the way that medicine practices today. Surgery is less-intrusive, recovery is not only faster but comes at a higher success rate, and helps to lower deaths on the gurney (as you are not sawing through peoples skeletal protection).

2. IRC (internet relay chat): I can talk to my friends through my computer?? and transfer files through?!?: With IRC being developed in 1988, it was officially the first chat/transfer client know to the interwebz. Making a ground breaking development in the way that people communicate, IRC revolutionized the way that people communicate and its interface is still in place in many different applications taking advantage of the internet, i.e. MMORPG’s and the base for the AIM concept.

3. Peer-produced/peer-assisted development: I was not exactly sure how to title this one, but it is important none the less. How many years would it take to research cures for cancer, find life in the stars, or even study the genome? The answer, I am not sure, but much much much longer than it would without peer-assistance. Computers and the internet have allowed for massive research projects to take advantage of sedentary computing power, ie screen-saver data crunching. When your computer “sleeps” it starts to process data to assist in the research project of your choice. Not only can you possibly find a cure for cancer, you can also feel better about leaving your computer on all the time!

This is a list in progress, and I will come back and update it when a brilliant concept decides to smack me in the brain again. Enjoy.

computer imagination

When we were talking in class about computer imaginitive things, I started to think of all the things I use and tried to think about the things that make my life significantly easier.  Maybe it’s because I’m in an academic environment, but 4 of the 5 things I thought of are academic related.  I’m not sure which category these fit in, but they all exploit the medium (computers).

1. Calculators (any kind…but particularly graphing).

I personally have never used an adding machine (thankfully) and that is because some wonderful person invented the calculator.  I can’t imagine having to calculate everything by hand or have only the primitive help offered by an adding machine (which I’m sure was itself a marvel at the time).  Computers, which is essentially what a calculator is on a smaller scale, are great at crunching numbers, so the calculator is certainly an example of exploiting the medium.

2. Electronic card catalogues in libraries.

In elementary school I remember spending weeks learning the intricacies of the card catalogue (not the electronic one).  You had to look up the book (and hope the card was there) and then you had to look up the section and the number on the card and navigate to the correct shelf while remembering the title/author of the book (you weren’t supposed to take the card).  Now electronic catalogues (often online…sometimes not) do the searching for you.  There is no card to lose and in many cases there is a map directing you to the section in which the book is located.  Computers can store information much better than drawers.

3 . Books 24×7.

Brings part of the library into the home.

4. JSTOR (The Scholarly Journal Archive)

Again with the libraries.  Actually I have an aversion to libraries so anytime I can avoid going for long periods of time, I jump at it.  JSTOR is a perfect example.  Journal articles are notoriously difficult to track down in the library.  With JSTOR, you type in what you’re looking for and you are directed to a bunch of relevent journal articles (abstracts and full text).  There are other similar databases but I’ve found JSTOR to be particularly useful.  Why store journals in a building where only a few people can access them when you can store them online for everyone to use (assuming they have a subscription …many schools do).

5. iTunes.

I am somewhat of a music junkie so I used to have tons of cds stacked in every corner.  However, iTunes found a way for people to get music onto their computer (which is where I played music anyway) without the unnecessary cases.  I can’t remember the last time I (or anyone I know) bought an actual cd…downloading straight to the computer is easier.  Plus the browsing and preview features make it easier to find music and the recommendations (”people who bought X also bought Y”) often suggest cds I would actually be interested in (although sometimes not).  In short, iTunes changed the way people think about purchasing music.

Widernet

The other day I was talking to someone (can’t remember who) and I mentioned a project called the Widernet Project that takes an interesting approach to spreading the internet to developing nations (Nigeria is a main focus).  The organization does a number of things to spread the internet but I’ll hightlight two that I’m familiar with.

First, in many places the internet simply isn’t available yet, for whatever reason.  However, the Widernet Project has a pretty smart solution aimed at schools (universities I believe).  Basically, it’s a portion of the internet in a box (amazingly called “internet-in-a-box”).  They take millions of scholarly articles and websites, stores them and ships them to the school.  Once the box is hooked up to a computer (or a network of computers) it can be searched as if it was the internet (it’s essentially an intranet).  Of course you are severly limited in your searches but it’s better than nothing.  Plus the articles can be easily updated and added to as needed.  This is obviously a temporary band-aid but I think it’s a creative approach.

The second part I’d like to highlight is an intriguing question: how do you convince someone that their internet connection is painfully slow if there is nothing to compare it to?  This may seem like an odd question but it is a real problem encountered by Widernet.  Basically when they go to an institution they are told “our internet connection is fine…we have the internet.”  Sometimes Widernet has trouble convincing institutions that there internet connection is poor because they have no frame of reference.  If you’ve never had the internet before, any connection seems fast.

To help demonstrate the discrepancies in bandwidth, Widernet developed the bandwidth tester (still in development stage).  When you test your bandwidth, you download a file and the tester uses the file size and download time to determine the approximate bandwidth.  The hope is that by showing a comparison of bandwidth speeds across the world, it will become clear that certain areas are desperately lagging.  It can also be used to convince institutions in developing nations that they don’t have to settle for simply having the internet.

If anyone is interested in learning more, here’s the website:

http://www.widernet.org/

it’s all in the story

First off, I’ll admit that I had already seen the Project Runway episode we watched in class so I already knew what was going to happen and therefore it lost some of its drama.  However, I had never looked at the show from the design aspect, only as a viewer.  Since we were watching it during class, I figured there had to be a reason and I tried to watch the episode from a different perspective.  I immediately noticed the intricacies I had never noticed before.

First, the contestants took the time to critique each other’s designs even though they were focused on their own designs.  I see this happening in class as well, as many of us have critiqued and been critiqued by other groups.  Sometimes a fresh perspective is all you need.

Second, the story is key.  Every designer had a story (some more elaborate than others) about how and why they designed what they did.  The designers who had a solid story and rationale for their design sounded much more confident and ultimately faired better than the designers who tried to salvage some rationale after the fact.  Does that mean that the final design was better?  Not necessarily, but it certainly sounded better and it’s easier to get behind a confident designer with a good solid product than a designer with a great design and no confidence.

The final parallel I noticed between the show and project 5 is that there is no such thing as “done”.  There is always more that can be done, but at a certain point you have to stop working.  Is that last detail really going to make that much of a difference?

Close Encounters

If you’ve ever doubted your intuition, you’ve got to check out Spielberg’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND.  It really is the wonderful (metaphorical) story of an artist’s struggle with knowing his intuition is ‘more correct’ than the answers he is getting from his loved ones, neighbors, and authority figures.

Richard Dreyfus just gets this image stuck in his mind - and it keeps repeating - and he knows it means something - “it means something,” he says over-again, “this is something important.”

Noowowoww, for a real design perspective though, check out the director’s edition.  It’s in fact in the Wells Library, downstairs, already fast-forwarded to the part where they interview Speilberg and the cast about the production and development of this story.  It’s an excellent illumination of design problems, design choices, design-changing, the limits of what you can accomplish, and the (mean) tricks directors play to get the most out of their actors.

 … anyway, just throwing it out there.  Go downstairs in wells, head to the videos section, look under ‘C’, and you’ll find the VHS tape. 
(no DVD)

Drama

Okay, here’s the funny thing:

 Like most everyone I said, “Oh my God, why are we watching Top Model for class today?”   However - you know me - I love the design-by-analogy thing.   I love visualizations.  I consider clothing a visualization.  So all this stuff fits right up my alley content wise (I also believe, sewing ability aside, we can use the same talents from our discipline to create meaningul haute couture - possibly for the homeless).

 Content-wise aside, I just assumed it would be boring -

 And that’s what I want to post about - DRAMA.

 Brunetti and I were up front discussing this during the final elimination. And I couldn’t help but think that if Sir Siegel were turn off the television now, we would all flip out even though I know — I know! — literally nobody wanted to watch that show in the beginning.

 It’s drama.

Now, we can put drama into static visualizations - and, we should - but the interesting thing is that drama plays out best over time. Conflict plays out over time. Juxtaposition, over time, is conflict. 

And conflict is what drama is made of.

 Now, do I mean that for web portals we design we should have some analgous procedure as a “walk off?”  No!

 Well, not exactly - but it is interesting to note that ratings, rankings, flaggings, taggings, and social interactions are the new buzz-fun enabled by social networking.  it’s interesting that, to the creators of online content - whether you get popular or not is HIGH DRAMA.

When you go to static websites — websites that just sit there and stay the same — there’s no drama.  it does what I know it can do.  it’s functional.  I probably investigated the heck out of it when I began, but once I mastered the site, I just have it is a possible resource.

But what about web places that live, breed, and multiply?  What about wikipedia, with it’s never ending array of new information.  What about Google labs? Google mail?  Google earth? 

 Or social networks — social networks are inherently dramatic.  Will people respond to my comments? Will they like my photography? Will they judge me well or judge me poor?  Should I even build a site that allows people to fight, argue, distress, or insult?

Well, yes.  How else are you going to build a real interaction?

It seems to me, in the post 2006 era, that there are two types of websites.   Websites that stay there and never change - and - websites that are dynamic (and I don’t mean via Flash).   For that matter too, I find that some of the most popular websites are the subtle ones that seduce you with their inital charm - and reveal ever greater depths of action and interaction.  And I notice that the websites that shout and blare their every functionality are the one’s I immediately reject and leave behind.

There *is* a walk-off.  It’s called “every other the designer out there but you.”  And you know what?  You may be the thinnest blondest bluest-eyest buxomed beach babe of a website, but if the audience doesn’t feel a subtle confidence in your walk then we’re going to call you a column of marshmallow and walk off.

“

What makes iPhone the “Invention of the Year”?

TIME unveiled the “Invention of the Year” winner yesterday. It is iPhone. (http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1677329_1678542,00.html)
It is not a surprise that iPhone is one of “The Best Inventions of the Year”, but actually it won the best of the Bests - “Invention of the Year”. It got me to think. What makes it to stand out of so many amazing designs, stand out those may have “more” impact on the society, such as Sony’s bio cell or the Autonomous automobile.
iPhone is pretty, but not perfect in every aspect. It doesn’t employ 3G technology which is important for high speed internet access. It uses build-in battery which means you cannot have a backup battery and should watch the remaining charge carefully. Moreover, the large LCD screen is not as sturdy as described. (The screen of one of my friends’ iPhone broken when it happens hit the table when he walks by the table with his iPhone in his pocket. As he described, it is not a hard hit.)
The article had presented five reasons for why iPhone won this prize: it’s pretty; it’s touchy-feely; it will make other phones better; it’s a not a phone, it’s a platform; it is but the ghost of iPhones yet to come. I agree with these reasons, but I do not think these points could make it stands out of all other best inventions. I was confused when thinking about what make it the best of bests. I cannot say there isn’t any now, but the confusion does become less after I go through all other best inventions.
Other inventions do make the “WOW” any less than for iPhone. Some of the inventions are what we dreamed to have. We dreamed to have a car that could “runs solely on wind and solar power”, dreamed to have an eco-friendly battery that runs on something such as sugar. These things even make more “WOW” than iPhone does. What makes iPhone stands out these amazing competitors?
It is not something we dreamed to have. We have got used to the phones we have, but when you have it on hand, you’ll be surprised about it is what you want. It explored the deep needs of the customers that may not even clearly know by themselves. You may wonder “How can they know these are all I need without I myself realize it?” That is the reason, or at least one of the reasons, which makes iPhone the best.

How to Lie with Design Research

Dan Saffer a Senior Interaction Designer at Adaptive Path, gave this presentation at the 2007 Design Research conference. Enjoy.

http://www.odannyboy.com/blog/new_archives/2007/09/how_to_lie_with.html

Note: In no way am I promoting or reinforcing to lie in your CHI design research.

How something small be a big design concept?

Today, Marty reminded us not to become a team stuck in a corner on one side of the room, with all their design concepts closely surrounding them in a tight space. In order to think of “big design concepts” look beyond our surroundings and towards the far corner of the room.

For our very first set of design concepts, our team was thinking along these lines. So we came up with concepts that were a bit our there, interesting, and “big”. Big in a sense that they were out of the ordinary. After further reviewing our concepts using the PRICiPleS design framework, we realized that we were too ambitious trying to solve everything and had to rethink our ideas. Then we developed concepts with a narrower focus but it seemed that it lacked the “big idea” factor. So back to the whiteboard again…

After class the words Marty said resonated in my head, “by narrowing the scope people think something too small is whimpy. Show you can do something small and do it well.” Maybe I’m interpreting this wrong, but I’m having difficulty seeing the connection on doing something small and well and it also being a “big design concept”. It sounds confusing to me. How can something small be a big design concept?