I am not a regular reader of Wired but stumbling across it in Mexico the other day after two weeks offline was refreshing, especially this piece about game testing at Microsoft Games User Research. The article basically describes the work done on Halo 3 by a team of user researcher. Some excerpts i...
Seven-segment displays spellings
Calculator spelling used to be an intriguing practice on old-fashion mobile devices such as calculator. Wikipedia defines it as "a technique of spelling words by reading characters upside-down from calculators equipped with certain kinds of seven-segment displays (...) The 'original' attributed exa...
Infrastructures as indicators
Leigh Star, S. (1999). the ethnography of infrastructure, American Behavioral Scientist, 43(3), pp.377-391. This article interestingly propose to take an ethnographical approach of infrastructures, and study these so-called "boring things" as indicators of practices and culture. Phone books, intern...
more impressive the other way
"It would be more impressive if it ran the other way" said Oscar Wilde when seeing Niagara Falls for the first time. I like this idea of Oscar Wilde standing next to Niagara Falls, thinking that it's "a lot of unnecessary water going the wrong way and then falling over unnecessary rock" Why do I bl...
Personal Progress Management (PPM)
MyProgress (Via Techcrunch) is a interesting service that provides different "Personal Progress Management (PPM) tools". It automatically observe and analyze all essential aspects of your life. With MyProgress, you can watch your progress and discover your productivity "MyProgress is a Web 2.0 serv...
Museum GPS game
“The land of oppertunities“ (Mulighedernes Land) is a location-based game designed by Maiken Nysom (for the open air museum “Frilandsmuseet”). As described by the Innovative Communication group at ITU, Denmark, "each group played a character while walking around in the old farmland to collect money...
Letters liberated by the computer keyboard
Read in "Shampoo Planet" (Douglas Coupland): "We discuss the future a lot, my friends and me. My best friend, Harmony, (...) thinks the future will be like rap music and computer codes, filled with Xs, Qs, and Zs: "Letters liberated by the computer keyboard." Why do I blog this? I often find funny ...
Preparing for Dean - dismounting the infrastructures
Picture taken on sunday afternoon in Playa del Carmen, before the arrival of the hurricane Dean. Why do I blog this? What was fascinating there is too see how people efficiently know how to dismount the infrastructure (putting down streetlights, panels) and add new layers on top of existing struct...
Technology personalization
Found in Campeche, Mexico... how specific devices (a loudspeaker in this case) can be personalized for specific contexts (a church)... with a basic add-on in the form of a cross. Surely a small detail but it may be part of the experience for attendants. ...
On vacations
(Back on august 22th) ...