Karl Gerstner on design models

Note to self: take more time reading this curious book by Karl Gerstner, a swiss typographer. It's a document about his design process in the early days of the computer era. Definitely not about recipes and direct solutions, it's rather a sort of reflection on possible design models.

Perhaps it's a tad too oriented towards graphic-design but there seems to be some interesting elements in there that go beyond this domain.

Why do I blog this? gathering notes for an introductory course next week about design processes in various contexts.

In and Out

Seen two weeks ago in Seoul, a cultural peak in what goes in and what goes out

Sensory anomalies

This morning, while preparing my upcoming course, I stumbled across this great chapter about Sensory Anomalies by Michael Naimark. Some excerpt I found relevant below:

"The single biggest difference between first-hand and mediated experiences is whether sensory anomalies exist. There are none in first-hand experience. Such anomalies always have explanations (...) The physical world obeys the laws of science. When we experience anomalies in the physical world, it's due to human hardware or software issues, such as blindness or psychosis, not because of the environment. (...) "Virtual Reality", in its theoretical construct, is the merging of the feeling of first-hand experience with the freedom from physical-world constraints. (...) the goal is indistinguishability from first-hand experience in the physical world: "just like being there." Such VR doesn't exist and may never (at least not without electrodes). So for now, we live with even the best sensory media having some degree of anomalies. These anomalies are not intentional, and entire industries exist to make higher resolution cameras, better synthesized lighting models, and auto-stereoscopic displays."

In the chapter, Naimark describes several projects that both transcend and exploit sensory anomalies as well as give a series of observations about what happens. It leads him to the following conclusion:

"Sensory anomalies are funny things (...) Metaphor to some is violation to others. "Faithful representation" is a noble engineering goal, but things aren’t quite as clear in art and design. To confuse, or clarify, things further, good metaphor can often be a form of shorthand. If we share similar cultures, backgrounds, or personal experiences, metaphor is a form of abstraction, of compression. So in the end, the degree of faithfulness and the degree of violation depend on what we want to say. "

Why do I blog this? I really love these lines. They very much echo with recent discussions I had with people from the game industry who aim at jumping over the Uncanny Valley. The notion of preferable anomaly seems more appealing to me in terms of opportunities and design constraints.

The image above was taken yesterday at Share GVA, an audiovisual jam session for media artists and technicians that I attended. The whole event ( my picture too, actually) are based on toying with sensory anomalies.

Meme circulation: Parking Wars

The "Parking Wars" application on Facebook was certainly one my favorite game two years ago. I gave it a shot for 3-4 months and then let it go (although one my friend is a "$28,699,245 (Parker Emeritus)". Besides it may have been the only application that attracted me to log in on Facebook back in 2006.

The game, designed by Area/Code was actually a facebook app that was meant to promote a television show:

" In Parking Wars, players earn money by parking -- legally or illegally -- on their friend's streets. Players also collect fines by ticketing illegally parked cars on their own street."

What was fantastic at the time was the fact that this simple games app took advantage of the FB social graphs in curious ways:

• The underlying logic is simple: you need to have friends to park your cars on their street. The point is therefore to maximize the number of friends who play Parking War... which leads player to participate in the network effect through invitations (on top of word-of-mouth).
• The game is asynchronous and turn-based so it's good to find friends on different time-shift so that you could place/remove your car when they sleep (a moment during which you don't risk to get any fine).
• When giving a fine you can send messages to other players, the dynamic here is highly interesting as people repurposed it into some weird communication channel that is public but that address a different audience than the Facebook wall
• Competition is stimulated with a peculiar kind of score board: you only see scores from other players within your network (who added the game). This is thus a sort of micro-community where each participants' score is made explicit.
• The "level design" is also interesting with a "neighbor" feature that enable you to park on adjacent streets, which can be owned by people outside your network.
• The cheating tricks are also social: you can less-active FB users to add the game so that you're pretty sure they won't check that you're illegally parked, you can create a fake FB account or benefit from streets created by people who stopped playing.
• ... and I am sure there is more to it from the social POV

Interestingly, my curiosity towards Parking Wars came back up to the surface when chatting with my neighbor Basile Zimmermann who works as research scientist at the University of Geneva. In a recent project, he addressed how Chinese Social Networking Sites re-interpreted design concepts already used by existing platforms such as FB and turned them into something different.

Which is how he showed me a curious application he saw on a Chinese SNS called "开心网 / Kaixin001" ("Happy Network") that is a Parking Wars-inspired copy also called "争车位" ("Parking Wars") which appeared in July 2008:

The layout is similar to the one created by Area/code, some cars are more fancy than others but the main difference lies in the presence of advertisement (as shown by the "LG" brand). As a matter of fact, the ad part was not included in the first few months of this Parking Wars version on the Happy Network and it appeared approximately around March 2009 according to Basile. From what I'm told, the game is evolving too with a system of maps that operates differently from the FB version.

More explanation in his upcoming paper about this topic: Zimmermann, B. (forthcoming). "Analyzing Social Networking Web Sites: The Design of Happy Network in China" in Global Design History, Adamson, Teasley and Riello eds, Routledge.

Why do I blog this? dual interest here: 1) my fascination towards Parking Wars and its underlying game design mechanism based on social dimensions, 2) the transfer of this meme in another culture.

Digital activities

Digital activities made explicit on paper for wanna-be customers in Paris. My favorite is the umbrella term "Use Internet" which sounds so vague, intriguing and full of possibilities that the other looks pedestrian and instrumental.

Also look at the difference between the French and the English version. For instance, in French it is not specified that Skype requires a microphone, while it is the case in English.

Hand-free phone usage

Hands-free phone usage without hands-free kit in Itaewon, Seoul last week. Always impressed by how people trust their phone not to fall down in such configuration.

Korean "you are here"

Why do I blog this? the "you are here" sign is a common wayfinding element that is always interesting to observe. Stating where people are can take many forms ranging from ubiquitous red dots (w/o captions) to interactive LED and the context can also influence the signage.

Cognitive sciences deal with this issue and state different criteria to evaluate what they call "YAH" (you are here maps). See for instance You-Are-Here Maps in Emergencies – The Danger of Getting Lost by Klippel, Freksa and Winter which summarize the literature about this:

• "Local placement: One important aspect of the local placement of YAH maps is the use of asymmetries to facilitate locating the map within the environment. An asymmetrical part of an environment is easily identified on the map as its layout combined with the YAH symbol (see below) shown on the map provides many cues for its location. Therefore, the location of the map in the environment becomes non-ambiguous.
• Correspondence: YAH maps should allow for easily establishing a correspondence between the represented information and the information that is immediately erceptible. While locating oneself should be guided by a YAH symbol (see below), several aspects contribute to whether or not the orientation within an environment can be accomplished easily:
  • Alignment: The YAH map and the environment should be aligned.
  • Architectural cues: YAH maps should be designed such that architectural cues and natural landmarks are included and that the shape of the route drawn in the YAH map relates to the actual shape of the route the user has to take in the environment, i.e. the behavioural pattern depicted corresponds to the behavioural pattern to be carried out
  • YAH symbol: The YAH symbol fulfils two tasks: First, it locates the user within an environment; second, it should indicate the user's orientation with respect to her immediate surroundings (...) The double function can be achieved by combining a dot with an arrow or by a triangular shaped symbol designs.
• Alignment of text in the map: The text in a map should be generally readable without requiring to turn one's head.
• Repetition: Combining the principles mentioned above may allow for easier self-localization, orientation and determination of the route to the destination."

The principles can be employed as a mean to evalate YAH maps as well as a way to design and place then in the environment. As a matter of fact, they can also be interesting if you want to automate a "you are here" system through LBS. The level of mobility (or immobility) would then be an additional factor (in-car GPS versus pedestrian versus bike). There is a whole world to explore here in terms of user/field studies.

German status

A korean car license plate encountered last week that features the European Union flag and the "D" which corresponds to Germany. It's of course a german car and I also noticed it on BMW and Mercedes here and there in Seoul. What is intriguing is that the plate shape is also the one from the EU and different from other korean cars. The status of the EU + german industry is thus sported and shown to other people.

Why do I blog this? an interesting sign of a social and cultural status embedded in a mundane artifact. Nothing really new here but it's funny to document such phenomenon that takes multiple forms.

Exploded TV

One hour after being in this tv-enabled taxi in Jeju the other day, I read this quote in Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis:

"Think of it as exploded television. Every station has at least one show you want to see, right? Well, on my network, your favorite show is on all the time. Everyone’s favorite show is on all the time, whenever you want to watch it. Add up all the viewers on my network, and I have a bigger audience than HBO. This ain’t fringe anymore, friend. If you define the mainstream as that which most people want to watch, then I’m as mainstream as it gets. (...) Exploded television. I am the ultra cable company. This is the way of the future. Anything you want on a computer screen, whenever you want it, through a subscription or a micropayment of a few bucks through your credit card. That eel thing? For a buck a time you can download the day's highlights to your iPod and watch it while you're in the can."

Spot on! Korea was indeed a good place to spot different forms of "exploded television" (and certainly a good place to read Ellis). Indeed there are explosions in terms of devices themselves (in-car tv, mobile phone, some urban screens) and services too.

Mobile TV is certainly an interesting instance of exploding television one can notice in Korea, as shown by the pictures above. Mobile TV penetration is slightly over 30% and of course mobile phones are designed with this in mind. Some of them indeed have screen that can be twisted to get a landscape view. It's now 4 years that the koreans have access to access this (through satellite DMB (S-DMB) and terrestrial DMB (T-DMB) service).

Why do I blog this? connecting the dots and finding curious metaphor for socio-technical trends after a refreshing trip to Korea.

Future numbers, letters and idioms

Weird brand and idioms encountered in Lisbon and Seoul.

Why do I blog this? it makes me think about the use of certain letters and idioms that made people think about the future. Numbers like "3000" (now that 2000 is in the rear-mirror) and letters like "X" are still employed nowadays to give a futuristic touch. Reminds me of this quote by Douglas Coupland: "he thinks the future will be like rap music and computer codes, filled with Xs, Qs, and Zs”.

Networked objects session at Lift Asia 2009

The "networked objects" session at Lift Asia 09 was a good moment with three insightful speakers: Rafi Haladjian (in transition from Violet to his new company called sen.se), Adrian David Cheok (from the Mixed Reality Lab in Singapore and Keio University) and Hojun Song. My notes from the session hereafter.

In his presentation entitled "Demystifying the Internet of Things", Rafi Haladjian shared his perspectives on the Internet of Things. Starting from his own experience with the Nabaztag and other Violet products, he made of point of adopting a down to earth approach to the Internet of Things. Based on a analysis of the Darwinian evolution of devices and connectivity, he gave examples such as the Teddy Bear (which went from the basic version to the talking bear (because the maker needs to recreate value and then new products) and finally new toys with rfid now that we have cheap technologies. He also took the example of the scale (mechanical bathroom scales - digital scale - wifi bathroom scale).

He then highlighted "a raw and cynical definition of the IoT":

• The expansion of the internet to any type of physical device, artifact or space. Which is not a decision but something that is happening "organically" because of the availability of cheap communication technologies
• The product of decentralized loosely joint decisions
• Something that will be technology and application-agnostic

This three characteristics led him to pave the way for possible evolution of the IoT. To do this, he stated how it is important to look at past experiences. The mechanical typewriter (one purpose) evolved into the word processor (a computer that could only be used to type in text) AND into another branch: the personal computer (multi-purpose, not just a word processor) that then took the form of laptops or netbooks (with an infinite number of applications). If we look back to things such as bathroom scales, now that we have ICT in there, the wifi scale does the same job as a scale only better but it can be done other things differently (send recommendation, update doctor, personalize the gym equipment, make the information completely social, games with prizes and promotions, organize strikes!). As he explained, this sounds weird, but is it so different than the iphone? The iphone showed that you can have a device and let third-parties make applications and you do not need to bother what should be done for this device.

According to him, the IoT change the way devices should act in the following ways:

• From one purpose to a bundle of sensors and output capabilities designed for a context
• Leads to application agnostic open to third party
• Most probably you will not be able to create new types of devices: it's easier to piggyback on existing devices and use habits (that people are familiar with)
• You must be economically realistic, you cannot turn a device into an iphone, you must solve the cost/price/performance issue

In addition, such a system helps solving what he called the "Data Fishbowl" effect: today all our data are like fished in a fishbowl and there is just one spot in our environment where the information are: the computer. The IoT has the ambition to have vaporize information... like butterflies, or, more simply, like post-it notes. It's about putting the information in context.

He concluded by saying that the purpose is to go from a world where with have a handful of single-purpose devices to give sense to everything: which is what Rafi is going to be doing in my next company: sen.se

(Poultry Internet)

The second presentation by Adrian-David Cheok was called "Embodied Media and Mixed Reality for Social and Physical Interactive". It outlined new facilities within human media spaces supporting embodied interaction between humans, animals, and computation both socially and physically, with the aim of novel interactive communication and entertainment. Adrian and his team indeed aim to develop new types of human communications and entertainment environments which can increase support for multi-person multi-modal interaction and remote presence.

Adrian's presentation consisted in a series of ubiquitous computing environment based on an integrated design of real and virtual worlds that aims to be an "alternative" to existing systems. His examples aimed at revealing the paradigm shift in interaction design: it's not "just" sharing information but also experiences.

He started from the well-known examples he worked out at his lab with Human Pacman (Pacmen and Ghosts are now real human players in the real-world experiencing mixed computer graphics fantasy-reality) or the hugging pajamas (remote-controlled pajama that could be hugged through the internet). He then moved to "human-pet interaction systems":

• Poultry Internet: remote petting through the internet (red door / blue door to test pet preference to interactions & objects)
• Metazoa Ludens, that allows to play a computer-game with a pet: the human user controls an avatar which corresponds to a moving bait that an hamster tries to catch. The movement of the animal in the real world are translated in the digital environment and the pet avatar chases the avatar controlled by the human)

He finally spent the last part of his presentation dealing with "Empathetic living media", a new form of media that follows two purposes: (1) To inform: Ambient living media promotes human empathy, social and organic happenings around a person’s life, (2) To represent: Living organisms representing significant portions of one’s life adds semantics to the manifestation. Examples corresponded to glowing bacteria (Escherichia coli) or the curious Babbage Cabbage System:

"Babbage Cabbage is a new form of empathetic living media used to communicate social or ecological information in the form of a living slow media feedback display. In the fast paced modern world people are generally too busy to monitor various significant social or human aspects of their lives, such as time spent with their family, their overall health, state of the ecology, etc. By quantifying such information digitally, information is coupled into living plants, providing a media that connects with the user in a way that traditional electronic digital media can not. An impedance match is made to couple important information in the world with the output media, relating these issues to the color changing properties of the living red cabbage."

(Babbage Cabbage)

In his conclusion, Adrian tried to foresee potential vectors along these lines:

• Radically new and emotionally powerful biological media yielding symbiotic relationships in the new ubiquitous media frontier
• Plants which move: Animated display system, plants as sensors
• Ant-based display system
• Cuttlefish Phone

The third presenter in the session, korean artist Hojun Song, showed a quick description of his current project: the design and crafting of an DIY/open source satellite. He went through the different steps of his project (design rationale, funding, technical implementation) to show an interesting and concrete implementation of a networked object. Concluding with a set of potential issues and risks, he asked participants for help and contributions.

Lift @ home

Lift Asia 09 just finished and we're announcing a new side-project to the conference. It's called Lift @ home and is based on community meet-ups. As described by Laurent the other day:

"Lifters meetups have been happening around the world. Zurich, Toronto, Lausanne are the few we are aware of, but we know our community likes to meet up around an idea - or a beer.

Last year Michele Perras told me the that as she and others could not attend Lift09, she organized a Fondue back at her place, watching the Lift videos from the previous day. "It was pretty cool!" she said, and this reinforced the idea that we needed to do something to encourage these gatherings as much as we could. Lift at home was born!

Every conference has to become more open, letting external contributions in, reaching to global audiences via online talks. Today's conferences are not conferences, they are communities of people who share the same interests and values.

At Lift we have considerably extended our community in the past years, adding social features to our site, launching a conference in Korea, one in France. Lifters are all around the globe, living in different locations, sharing a common envy to meet, brainstorm, share and explore. We decided to encourage such gatherings, to structure and promote them. Here comes Lift at Home!

This is beta, we don't know where it will end up. But we think that a good idea and good people always end up creating something interesting. We look forward to see you at the upcoming events, and to hear your propositions!"

Digital keypads in Paris

Among the various objects that we touch on an everyday basis, the outdoor keypads always catch my eyes each time. Called "digicode" in France (standing for "digital code"), the examples in this blogpost are a small sample that I ran across in Paris last week-end. The first one (above) is definitely the classic and clean version of the standard model in Paris. The keypad layout, a topic we already addressed here about the iphone is the classical "dial layout" that comes from the telephone set (as opposed to the calculator layout) with 1 2 3 on the first line.

The other examples below reveal some interesting features about touch interactions:

This one nicely shows what happens over time when people input codes. Buttons with dirt and patina on 1 2 3 6 9 A reveal their frequent usage (and possibly inspire stalkers and people who want to sneak in). Nonetheless, it's inevitable and it's how things age. But wait a minute, this one has the "calculator layout" with the 7 8 9 above, another intriguing component, which may be caused by the fact that this "coditel" brand could prefer this setting.

At night, Paris doorways features these red (or blue)-lighted versions that aims at helping people to locate the correct keypad structure.

And finally, this one, a bit messed-up for some reasons beyond my understanding depicts a nice and nonchalant design.

Why do I blog this? documenting everyday objects, as usual here. In a time of "touch interactions" craziness (towards iphone and interactive table), I find interesting to revisit existing touch interfaces and understand the whole gamut of design issues.

Lift Asia 2009

Back to Jeju for the Lift Asia 2009 conference. We're in the final rush given that the conference starts tomorrow. We have a fantastic set of speakers from lots of different place, more than 400 participants and we recently added a surprise to the program:

"20 years of Korean internet: the pioneers who built the Korean internet will share their story, reflecting on a soon-to-be 20 years old industry, offering insights on the future of a media that went from being an early adopter tool to become a society changing technology used by 40 million people in Korea.

Speakers:

• Jin Ho Hur, CEO of Neowiz, operators of Korea's second largest social network,
• Jaewoong Lee, Founder of Daum,
• Soon Hyun Hwang, Vice President, NC Soft
• Dong Hyung Lee, cofounder of Cyworld and Runpipe"

Extreme car dashboard

Extreme car tuning of a dashboard, encountered in Paris yesterday afternoon. The owner interestingly added a cockpit GUI, some potentiometers and removed the steering wheel. Given the whole appearance of the car, I am not very sure whether it's still used.

Why do I blog this? curiosity towards this sort of tinkering as it allows to ask questions. Although the car is obviously not unusable any longer, it's interesting to wonder about what is can be like to drive with this kind of interface. Out of its original context, it makes no sense but should there be some interesting transfer that car-dashboard designers never thought about?

About non-users of technologies

Most of the research about people in HCI and interaction design focuses on technology usage. This is all good and there are lot of things to get from such studies. However, it's also important to take this issue the other way around: non-usage of technologies is relevant as well. Researchers in STS (Science Technology Society) and HCI tackle this issue as shown in the book by Pinch and Oudshoorn which introductory chapter is entitled "how users and non-users matter". Earlier work in computer sciences and HCI have also considered non-usage to understand limits and acceptance problem, to a point where anxious engineers and tech researchers looked at "non-users" in terms of "potential users" A recent article by Christine Satchell and Paul Dourish also deal with this topic (at the upcoming OZChi conference in November). More specifically, they are interested in "aspects of not using computers, what not using them might mean", and what researchers/designers might learn by examining non-use as seriously as they examine use.

The article sets off to go beyond the narrow and reductionist vision of the "user". It clearly acknowledge the notion of "user" as "a discursive formation rather than a natural fact" and "examine use and non-use as aspects of a single broader continuum". Which approach is somewhat different from earlier work. The main point of the authors consists in highlighting that "interaction reaches beyond 'use'". What this means is simply that the experience of technology per se may be shaped and influenced by elements that are outside or beyond specific circumstances of 'use'". This is an highly interesting point that is very difficult to address, especially with certain peeps who think that the UX is solely shaped by the technology itself (not to mention the good folk who told me once that what "users" are looking for is "simple enough algorithm").

The meat of this paper also lies in the description of six forms of non-use:

1. Lagging adoption: non-users are often defined "with respect to some expected pattern of technology adoption and diffusion" [the 4 Pasta and Vinegar readers may have recognized here the notion of s-curves]. The problem is that this view tells nothing about "who do not use technology, but rather about people who do not use technology yet.". As if technological usage was inevitable and "non-use" a temporary condition.
2. Active resistance: "not simply a failure to adopt – i.e., an absence of action – but rather, a positive effort to resist a technology". This can take various forms such as infrastructure resistance (home-schooling, people who live "off the grid").
3. Disenchantment: "this often manifests itself as a focus on the inherently inauthentic nature of technology and technologically-mediated interaction, with a nostalgic invocation of the way things were", which may be an appeal to a "way we never were",
4. Disenfranchisement: "may take many different forms. Interest in universal accessibility has largely focused on physical and cognitive impairments as sources of technological disenfranchisement, but it may also have its origins in economic, social, infrastructural, geographical, and other sources."
5. Displacement: some kind of repurposed usage of the artifact that make it difficult to understand who is really the user.
6. Disinterest: "when the topics that we want to investigate are those that turn out not to be of significant relevance to a broader population"

And the conclusion gives insightful arguments about how this may influence design:

"From the perspective of system developers, a utilitarian morality governs technology use. The good user is one who adopts the systems we design and uses them as we envisioned (Redmiles et al., 2005). Similarly, the bad or problematic user is the one who does not embrace the system or device. (...) what we have tried to show here is that non-use is not an absence or a gap; it is not negative space. Non-use is, often, active, meaningful, motivated, considered, structured, specific, nuanced, directed, and productive."

Why do I blog this? Non-usage of technologies is a topic that has always attracted me, and it's perhaps related to my interest in product failures. The typology proposed here as well as the discussion of "non-users" is of great important IMO to understand technologies.

"The World As Seen From New York’s 9th Avenue"

While discussing the Here and There project by BERG with Etienne, he pointed me on this great New-Yorker cover from 1976 by Saul Steinberg. Entitled "The World As Seen From New York’s 9th Avenue", is directed towards the West (Europe is absent as if the authors wanted to turn is back to it) with the big-rectangled USA right across the Hudson river and then the Pacific with foreign countries such as Japan, China or russia.

Why do I blog this? There's a lot to be drawn here concerning the implications of such representation of course (see here). However, I was rather intrigued by this sort of mapping that represents a subjective view of the world, and how this sort of viewpoint could be curious for paper map design.

A bunch of game controllers

A bunch of stuff about game controllers is a new project I recently started with Laurent Bolli from Bread and Butter. The aim of the project is to focus and analyze "game pads" in terms of historical evolution as well as meaningful issues regarding their design. We collect lots of game-pads and will analyze them according to various issues, asking questions and drawing implications. The point here, from a research perspective, is to examine objects themselves. For once, in my UX work, it's less about how people use/what people do than "what do these artifact have to say about interaction design?" Will try to put my projects notes on this tumblelog.

@ and interweb idioms

My fascination towards the use of web-related symbols always leads me to spot occurrences such as the one shown here. Seen in Lyon this week, the pictures depicts the use of the at sign in two interesting configurations.

If we look carefully at the idioms that are created here, we notice a naive-but-interesting mixture of the interweb meme.

"Web n'c@ll" is quite intriguing as it reveals that this shop provide its customers with a web access and the possibility to make phone calls abroad. The presence of the "at" in the "call" word is curious because it does not really mean something (I take the "at" as the symbol for emails, so it's hard to call using the email protocol). it must definitely be a trick to make the "web n'c@ll" brand much more hip (!).

The second picture tells us a different story. I love this sign although nervous graphic designer will find it ugly. IMO, it represents the hybridization of mobile phone communication and the interwebs. The shop actually sells cell-phones, among which one can buy smart phones that allow a connection to the internet. It's interesting to notice how this symbol is used for representing the possibility to access the information super-highway.

Why do I blog this? observing traces of interweb culture in everyday objects. Now that the terms "web" or the "@" sign is much more common, it's curious to see how they're employed here and there to communicate various meanings. I take it as an example of the meme circulation in the public sphere.

That said, it seems that the sign is not very common yet, as shown by the picture below, taken in the same street, with a weird capital "a" in the "at sign":

Broken RFID

or how to make users aware that they cannot swipe their RFID card on a tag reader. Seen at EPFL, Lausanne.