inkblurt

bplusd

October 14, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

Jess McMullin’s blog, about which I just found out, has some great stuff already. I particularly dug this quote:

Design thinking emerges from design methods and process. But people can get to approaches that correspond to design thinking, without designers or design methods. The principles of iteration, of prototyping, of observation , systems approaches, and play are powerful ingredients in business success. Those principles are discovered by more than just design thinkers, and itâ€™s arrogantly risky to assume we have a monopoly.

You tell ’em, Jess.

Open Systems when we need them

September 28, 2005 by AndrewH | No comments

This is a post I wrote only a couple of days after Katrina first hit the Gulf Coast (Sept 1, from what my timestamp now says, apparently), but I didn’t put it up because it seemed a little early to be opining about quasi-political technical philosophy in the midst of an emergency.

Now that I’m seeing others post about it (example here) I suddenly recalled my unpublished post … so here it is…

Stewart Brand and others have promoted the idea of open architectures, simple open systems, for meeting human needs more readily, efficiently and sustainably (and more humanely and intimately for that matter).

The Katrina situation shows how simple web structures that allow great emergence and complexity with social interaction can be useful in a pinch.

For example, the Katrina Help Wiki: Main Page – KatrinaHelp

As well as the use of Craigs List for Lost and Found as well as housing coordination.

Craigs List is a beautiful example: it’s so open and easy to use, and so simplified, that it becomes the path of least resistance. People can check it easily on slow connections or even their phones (I think). Precisely why more commercial and glitzy complex sites aren’t being used for the purpose.

Is CraigsList making money from it? Not directly. They make their money from paid job postings. But when New Orleans rebuilds and people need to hire workers, I wonder what site will occur to them first?

[Edited to add: Craig wrote in the comments that they “have no plans at all to charge in New Orleans… and have provided free job postings related to Katrina, and have actually lost money on that.” My point above was only that organizations that don’t take advantage of adversity, but show generosity, come out better in the end with more loyal and trusting constituents.]

Findability goes bigtime.

September 14, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

Peter Morville has a new book coming out, “Ambient Findability,” and a blog to match:
findability.org The book is from O’Reilly, and has a blurb from Bruce Sterling, which gives it enormous geek-cool cred.

So far, the book looks like a lucid, imaginative paradigm-shifter that’s sorely needed. From what I can tell from the intro chapter (available on the site), it focuses less on the “biztech” piece of the new internetworked global village, and more on the elusive human impact of the new world we’ve made for ourselves.

From the introductory chapter:

It’s not enough to focus on the I in IT. We must also lose the C in HCI. Because ambient findability is less about the computer than the complex interactions between humans and information.

I haven’t read the rest of the book yet, so I don’t know if what I’m thinking is in line with what the rest of “Ambient Findability” says (so, that is, don’t take my ravings as a reflection on Peter’s undoubtedly more considered and level-headed message).

But, that said, I’ve felt for a long time that the technology device is just the throwaway, surface conduit for an epochal human phenomenon. Focusing on interfaces and technologies, while necessary gruntwork for making the things we use to do what we do, it’s the “what we do” that is so amazing and life-changing. It’s shifting the way we think of basic human concepts like “nation” or “city” or “language” or “time.” Like most things of this sort, it happens almost invisibly (although it’s incredibly rapid, compared to, say, the printing press, or the telephone even), so that we wake up taking much of it for granted and not realizing how far we’ve gone.

But what about those of us who *like* knowing where we’re heading, and who want to have some part in shaping the trajectory? This sounds like it’s definitely a book for us.

JSB trove

August 26, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

I’ve been rolling around in an orgy of reading on design and innovation lately. And JSB’s site is a fine treasure trove. I just heard him on Talk of the Nation, discussing China. I felt like calling in just to be a fan-boy, but figured that would just annoy the radio producer.

johnseelybrown.com: chief of confusion

Why can’t we keep things simple? Sure, we all complain, but why can’t we design stuff that mere mortals (like you and me) can use? There are many reasons why this doesn’t happen, but one of the main ones is that we, technologists, continually overlook the social resources that people use to orient themselves, to navigate through complex territory, and to help each other figure things out. Some of these ideas Paul Duguid and I cover in our book, The Social Life of Information, but others go to the heart of how we can design transparent systems that fade into our subconscious and are just there, not in our face.
Take the U.S. Constitution. Part of the constitution’s strength was keeping it simple and honoring the social resources that a community of imagination (i.e. the nation) could deploy to evolve its interpretation as the world evolved. Design applies to institutions and nations, and individuals as well- the freedom to design your own life…

Leap-frog Moments

August 24, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

Yesterday morning I heard this interview while I was getting ready for work, and immediately wished I had a transcript. But I did manage to type out the last question and answer. I think Nuovo’s response a good lesson in design: focusing on what competitors are doing, and recycling the same ideas, isn’t how you innovate.

Interview with Frank Nuovo (about a new $700 Nokia phone)

Morning Edition: Is there a moment whenyou take a box full of everybody else’s phones and dump them out on the table and try to figure out what they’re doing right or wrong?

Frank Nuovo: You don’t gain that much from looking at your competitors. You really gain forward momentum from focusing on the end-customer. Knowing where they’re going… Otherwise all you’re doing is following …very brief moments … little leap-frog moments from competitor to competitor. What you have to do is take your eye further forward and understand where the customer wants to go and that’s the real magic.

(From the Site: Frank Nuovo, chief designer for Nokia phones, discusses the company’s new 8800 cell phone. Nokia is betting on the phone to reenergize its sales and compete against Motorola’s hit phone, the Razr. Nuovo has been designing phones for Nokia since 1989.)

Edited to Add:
I’m sure Nokia does plenty of competitive research. I’m positive they rip apart every competitor product and understand its every atom. The point he’s making, though, is that you only get a small, incremental boost from that work. It’s necessary — if you don’t do it, you’re crazy. But it’s just a small fraction of the work necessary to innovate.

Not that impressed with Graves

August 22, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

In this article, BW has a friendly chat with Michael Graves about his industrial designs. He waxes about how important it is that designs be more useful.
Michael Graves: Beyond Kettles

I realize Graves’ designs are a lot of fun. I realize his work with Target brought an awareness of beautiful (or at least whimsical or interesting) everyday product design to the middle class.

I also realize that he’s now in a wheelchair (because of a sinus infection? damn, that’s scary … I’m stocking up on decongestants) and is a very nice man.

But I’ve had several Graves design items from Target, and I’ve never liked any of them. For example, the clock-radio. The button functions are simply bizarre. They’re labeled so subtly (so as not to interfere with the sleek look of each part) that one has to lean a few inches away from it in order to read their functions.

The one under the minutes adjusts the hours, and vice versa. The pretty little semicircle of buttons under the display controls the two different alarms, but it’s really hard to tell how they work. They’re too small and hard to press without pushing the clock off the endtable. The sound of the radio is mediocre at best. And there’s little rhyme or reason to much of the design in general.

But it is definitely cute.

Synthesizer innovator Robert A. Moog dies at 71

August 22, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

Newsday.com: Synthesizer innovator Robert A. Moog dies at 71

I remember when I first encountered a Moog synth. My grade school was hosted at a huge suburban Christian church around Atlanta, and the music minister there was also our music teacher. One day he took us into the cavernous “sactuary” and pulled the vinyl cover off of a space-age contraption with knobs and plugs and dials and what seemed to me an absurdly small keyboard — somehow the smallness of the keyboard next to the piano beside it registered just how futuristic and new-paradigm this thing was. I must’ve been eight or nine.

The teacher went on to play with it and show what it did. I was blown away. Since then I’ve been fascinated with all such things, though I’ve never bought one or even played one. Still, it was one of those childhood moments that’ll never leave me.

Once I heard an interview with Moog on NPR and jotted this quote down:

I don’t design stuff for myself. I’m a toolmaker. I design things that other people want to use.

This seems to me to be quintessential Design thinking: the fact that a guy who innovated something so futuristic and unconventional managed to remain committed to the principle of “use by others.”

Sleep well.

Interestingness

August 3, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

I’m still giddy, even in my jaded state, whenever I hear about yet another yummy infospace architecture element that creates emergent structures.

I’m not even sure if I just said anything that makes sense … what’s the official terminology?

Anyway, now Flickr is using some fun math to track the ‘interestingness’ of photos on the site.

Flickr: Explore interesting photos around Flickr

There are lots of things that make a photo ‘interesting’ (or not) in the Flickr. Where the clickthroughs are coming from; who comments on it and when; who marks it as a favorite; its tags and many more things which are constantly changing. Interestingness changes over time, as more and more fantastic photos and stories are added to Flickr.

Insert pun using the word “pit”

July 25, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

This seems wrong on so many levels. The main one for me at the moment, though, is that all these people are using the word “architecture” but nobody’s talking about how the buildings are used. They’re fixating on the outer form.
If architecture is mainly about making wacky shapes on the skyline, then why can’t Brad Pitt do it? Anybody could.
And they’re using the word “design” … grrr.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | From Troy to Hove – Brad Pitt’s new career

The height of the towers was reduced after protests from residents and only two are now proposed. But their radical sculptural design, described by one critic as “transvestites caught in a gale”, remains unchanged.

A telling quote from Pitt:

In an interview with Vanity Fair last year Pitt said: “I’m really into architecture, structure and design. Give me anything and I’ll design it. I’m a bit nutty with it.” Pitt added: “I’ve got a few men I respect very much and one would be Frank Gehry. He said to me, ‘If you know where it’s going, it’s not worth doing.’ That’s become like a mantra for me. That’s the life of the artist.”

Yes. That is wise insight for any artist. But that’s *ART*!! Design is for things people have to USE.

via jjg

Pseudo-Mac in a browser window?

June 28, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

This is nuts — and evidently done entirely with things like javascript. The only Flash I see implemented is in the fake iTunes app.

Check this out at osx.portraitofakite.com before Jobs sues them and makes them take it down.

Yanked from The Apple Blog

Goodbye, Jef Raskin

March 1, 2005 by Andrew | Permalink

Jef Raskin: He Thought Different

Jef Raskin wasn’t the typical tech industry power broker. He was never a celebrity CEO, never a Midas-touch venture capitalist, and never conspicuously wealthy (although he was wealthy). Yet until his Feb. 26 death at 61, the creator of the Macintosh led the rallying cry for easy-to-use computers, leaving an indelible mark on Silicon Valley and helping to revolutionize the computer industry.