Signage frenziness redux in Lyon, France. Certainly the second phase of bopano. ...
What to do with light bulbs?
An occidental kitchen, classic, with postcards, boxes and... this lighbulb. Why would people keep this? To have it up one's sleeve if another one breaks? Actually no, the bulb is sitting there because the owners do not know where to put it. In a 21st century society where you cannot trash anything...
About nokia open studio
The recent "Nokia Open Studio: Engaging Communities" published by Younghee Jung and Jan Chipchase is worth to read for various reasons. The obvious one is to know more about open studio/innovation and how they conducted research along this line. Their case study shows how the purpose is not to gene...
Instances of touch-based interaction
Some design issues that emerge from few instances of touch-based interactions: different sorts (touch, press, wave ...), different attitude (hold when waiting before your can touch on pic 1), use of different hands (left/right, influence of one's lateralization), the role of signs on the surfac...
HCI and grounded versus speculative reasoning
There's an insightful discussion going on at "interaction culture" (Jeffrey Bardzell's blog) about grounded versus speculative reasoning in HCI. It basically revolves around how HCI, though crying out for new approaches is still based on the normative notions of science, and therefore have trouble ...
Persuasive design
Two intriguing examples of persuasive design encountered at ENSCI in Paris: The first one, next to the stairs, is an invitation to use the staircase as opposed to the elevator so "harden your butt". The second is a sticker that someone have put on the toilet hand dryer. It says "What's the larges...
Different under the surface
An interesting quote from "Halting State" (Charles Stross): "We used to have sliderules and log tables, then calculators made them obsolete. Even though old folks can still do division and multiplication in their heads, we don't use that. We used to have maps, on paper. But these are all small thin...
Simondon on technical and cultural objects
In his "On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects", french sociologist Gilbert Simondon interestingly addresses the flawed distinction between culture and technique: "Culture has become a system of defense designed to safeguard man from technics. This is the result of the assumption that techni...
300km per hour
"Ladies and Gentlemen, our TGV is running at its maximum speed at 300 kilometer per hour" as announced by the train controller. Revealing the company's (and country's) pride? Informing passengers of service quality (assuming that speed is quality)? Telling consumers that they're taken care of by r...
Baroque, creolization, cannibalism and technology adoption
"Mobile technology appropriation in a distant mirror: baroque infiltration, creolization and cannibalism" by Bar, Pisani and Weber is one of these mysterious academic paper that I enjoy running across. It basically investigate appropriation of mobile phones in Latin America, and how this technology...