Design

Observations about a networked key

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This key I've been using for few weeks reveals an interesting assemblage: a tiny LCD display inserted in the key. Some observations:

  • A smiley that smiles only if the door is inserted in the door it's meant to open. This means that the door detect which key has opened it and of course the list of visitors is kept somewhere on a server. The basic human-like representation on this key is highly odd as it reveal a sort of door guardian... that you eventually hide in your pocket afterwards.
  • The indication of a battery life... which is not very relevant for the key itself but itindicates whether the screen will be readable or not.
  • The quantity of information on a small device like this is quite intriguing.

Why do I blog this? I am fascinated by doors and the use of various technologies in door control. In this case, we have two curious ingredients of recent technologies: networked objects (this might very well be the "door case" for the Internet of Things) and a tiny display (much subtler than the so-called "urban screens").

With this kind of assemblage, the level of delegation left to the door is even more important than what it used to be. This is surely of interest in conjunction to Bruno Latour's work on this topic (see my blogpost). Opening a door is not that simple and would leave more traces than previous version of doors. As a side note, it's also interesting to contrast this version to automatic doors in train/public space/etc. In the former case, the necessity to control who opens what (in an office environment) seems to make it necessary to use this solution (before retinal scan?).

Mapping EMF around everyday devices by Anthony DeVincenzi

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"What surrounds us? More than what we can see, touch, and feel. Beyond atmosphere, particular and solid matter, our bodies encounter many forms of invisible radiation: electromagnetic, wifi, gsm, audio and white noise. The Invisible Forces project provides a framework for the measurement and spatial mapping of radiation. "

via thinkwithdesign.com

Why do I blog this? yet another interesting example of mapping "invisible" waves.

Brewbot Espresso Machine: IoT + coffee

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TASSIMO is not just a coffee maker, it’s a Brewbot, an advanced brewing system made by the engineers at Bosch. The Brewbot is programmed to make seven different beverages at the touch of a button. That’s because Brewbot uses T DISCs, which are
single-serve discs packed with a variety of coffees, teas and hot chocolates. The Brewbot reads the barcode found on each T DISC to know exactly what to make and how to brew it.

It’s this technology that distinguishes the TASSIMO Brewbot from regular brewers and guarantees a perfect cup of whatever you're in the mood for every time.

via tassimodirect.com

Why do I blog this? I started collecting how internet of things technologies now pervade kitchen appliances.

Frascati Definition of Research

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The Frascati Manual is the internationally recognised methodology for collecting and using R&D statistics. It defines research as follows:

Research and experimental development (R&D) comprise creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications.

The term R&D covers three activities: basic research, applied research and experimental development.

  • Basic research is experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundation of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view.
  • Applied research is also original investigation undertaken in order to acquire new knowledge. It is, however, directed primarily towards a specific practical aim or objective.
  • Experimental development is systematic work, drawing on existing knowledge gained from research and/or practical experience, which is directed to producing new materials, products or devices, to installing new processes, systems and services, or to improving substantially those already produced or installed. R&D covers both formal R&D in R&D units and informal or occasional R&D in other units.
via admin.ox.ac.uk

Why do I blog this? Collecting definitions of what is defined as "research" (i.e. what I do) is always interesting. Especially when it comes to normative material such as Frascati manual (which is used as the de facto definition of research in the European Union). Always important to keep up my sleeve when discussing potential project with partners.

Urban Screens and Jacques Tati by a456

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Eiffel Tower reflected onto Tativille glazing, from Playtime (1967)

This collapsing of window onto facade becomes yet another way to erase any distinction between building and image.  And this is even more so in Tati's film, where glazed curtain walls reflect other parts of Paris.  Here, then, glass becomes architecture.  Architecture becomes a screen that reflects images onto public space.  In short, as demonstrated by the various buildings (and reflections of buildings) in Playtime, architecture has become a true urban screen.

via aggregat456.com

Why do I blog this? interesting perspective about the role of images and reflections on Playtime (by Jacques Tati) that could be seen as early instantiations of "urban screens".

Overfutured by Joanne McNeil

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"The future was once represented in fantastically romantic ways: white spacesuits, buildings infinite in height, interplanetary travel, alien interactions, an abundance of wealth, and robot servitude. Now the future is represented as something more compressed and accessible. The future is on the Internet, in those screens we glance at intermittently at all waking hours of the day. Our expectation is the “IRL” world will look not much unlike what we see today. It is a future of gradual changes, incorporating familiar aspects with new but not too crazy updated technology. What is in abundance is not wealth but information.

The idea of the future is now a distorted mirror. It is the future of screens. Like the daguerreotype, screens contain memory and reflection, as well as an unknown difference only discerning eyes can see. We are overfutured. We’ve reached the point where the past, present, and future look no different from one another."

Overfutured by Joanne McNeil, via newmuseum.org

Why do I blog this? a great quote that echoes with personal observations.

Traverse Me: map for pedestrians

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"Traverse Me is a map drawn by walking across campus with a GPS device to invite the viewer to see a different landscape to that which surrounds them. It questions the possibilities of where they are and inspires a personal reading of their movements and explorations of the campus. (...) I responded to the structure of each location and avoided walking along roads and paths when possible. The route was recorded with GPS technology and was walked in stages over the 300 hectare site."

via gpsdrawing.com

Why do I blog this? interesting attempt to produce a different form of map. Interestingly, it exemplifies the performative nature of the GPS technology. The map is influenced by the structure of the locations, and, in return, it can influence movement.

Keith Richards about portable cassette recorders

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" What is important, Richards declares, is “being able to replay something immediately without all that terrible stricture of written music, the prison of those bars, those five lines. Before 1900, you’ve got Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, the cancan. With recording, it was emancipation for the people. “It surely can’t be any coincidence that jazz and the blues started to take over the world the minute recording started, within a few years, just like that.” (...) “I’d discovered a new sound I could get out of acoustic guitar,” he writes. “That grinding dirty sound came out of these crummy little motels where the only thing you had to record with was this new invention called the cassette recorder....Suddenly you had a very mini studio. Playing acoustic, you'd overload the Philips cassette player to the point of distortion so that when it played back it was effectively an electric guitar. You were using the cassette player as pick up and amplifier at the same time. We were forcing acoustic guitars through a cassette player, and what came out the other end was electric as hell.” "

via changeobserver.designobserver.com

Why do I blog this? An inspiring quote from a practitioner (!), to be re-used in my course about the evolution of technical objects. It leads to an interesting discussion about how to go beyond technological determinism.

Demon's Souls: location-based communication in a role-playing video-game

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When connected to the PlayStation Network, online play is integrated into the single-player experience. Throughout levels, players can briefly see the actions of other players as ghosts in the same area that may show hidden passages or switches. When a player dies, a bloodstain can be left in other players' game world that when activated can show a ghost playing out their final moments, indicating how that person died and potentially helping the player avoid the same fate in advance. Players can also leave messages on the floor that can also help others such as forewarning safe or hostile positions, trap locations and tactics against enemies or bosses, among general comments. When playing with other players, co-operative play allows up to three characters to team up in the host's game world where visiting players appear in soul form that can only be returned to their bodies when a boss is defeated. In competitive play, players can invade a player's adventure as a Black Phantom to engage in combat with the host player. If the Black Phantom kills the host, they can be returned to their body in their own game whereas if killed themselves, the host gains a portion of the Black Phantom's souls.

via en.wikipedia.org

Why do I blog this? An interesting example of geolocalized communication pointed to me by my friend Mirweis Sangin. The idea here is that location-based written traces (left by other players) can inform and help.

Smule's Ocarina design

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I guess all of you know Ocarina, a very simple music application on the iPhone. It was kind of hip 1-2 years ago. Interestingly, I ran across this academic paper which describes how Smule designed this app.

Some excerpts I found interesting:

"Given that there are now over a million Smule Ocarina players around the world, this is significant. Over 20 millions snippets have been created and shared, each with precise timing, key, melody information. We have only begun to mine this significant body of musical data. The anonymity of the social interaction is also worthy of note – everyone is only identified via a self-chosen handle (e.g., Link42), their GPS location, and through his/her music. And yet, according to overwhelming user feedback, this seems to be compelling in and of itself. (...) there is a sense of “magic” in wide-area, massive scale location, and furthermore, identity is perhaps not crucial (and anonymity can be just as powerful as it encourages different types of social interactions). Finally, the sheer number of Ocarina users at large shows that perhaps with the right approach and settings (e.g., mobile, personal, easy), we can encourage a large population to engage in expressive music making, and even create global communities virtually overnight. "

The tablatures for user-generated scores are also interesting. Look at the shape:

Why do I blog this? it's always interesting to understand the designers' intentions and reflect upon what has been produced. Ocarina, is basic but its social and locative media component is quite interesting. It's perhaps one of the best example of having an interface that gives a community a mirror about its ongoing activity.

The Economist on the Uncanny Valley (#robot, animation)

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"Dr Ho and Dr MacDorman accept the general idea, but they began by throwing out the idea of shinwakan. In their study, just published in Computers in Human Behavior, they say that Dr Mori’s ideas of familiarity and comfort level do not properly get at the quality of uncanniness (...) The volunteers were asked to apply ratings from dozens of scales to each video: machinelike to humanlike, synthetic to real and so on. Scales that turned out to measure the same qualities with different words were eliminated and the researchers eventually lighted on 19 that described aspects of four underlying qualities that they dub attractiveness, eeriness, humanness and warmth. (...) The robots were the Roomba, a disc-shaped autonomous vacuum cleaner, and four anthropoid machines of varying degrees of humanness."

via economist.com

Why do I blog this? Some interesting material to prepare the robolift conference, we'll have a panel about the shape of robots to come. Let's grab the scientific paper mentioned in this article: Too real for comfort? Uncanny responses to computer generated faces

Game maps evolution and level design

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A map of Zelda found at Atari2600.com

Last week in the Guardian gamesblog, I ran across this insightful piece called "The lost art of video game cartography". It's basically about " the homemade map remained an important navigational device" and the importance of map (hand) drawing on a notepad while playing back in the early days of the video game era.

A map of Loco Roco found at Quickjump

The article describes the different approaches ("naturalistic approximations of the game environments, creating miniaturised ordinance survey maps" versus "more diagrammatic approach, inspired by the topographic purity of Harry Beck's tube map"). It also reflects upon the evolution of game design.

Any game/interaction designer might find interesting the discussion about the influence of level design on drawing maps manually:

"while early Japanese RPG titles like Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda initially required some mapping skills thanks to their burgeoning use of open world 'overmap' environments, later iterations brought in a variety of navigational aids (...) world maps that opened up new sections as the player gained fresh abilities, (...) teleportation zones, and the ability to set waypoints across a map screen – somewhere along the line, travel became an inconvenience rather than the point of the game. (...) CD-Rom technology allowed the birth of the cinematic adventure (...) The whole concept of exploration has changed; we no longer need to explore to progress, we explore to find power-ups and hidden extras, and in this overtly stage-managed form of freedom, cartography isn't really necessary. The pictorial map has been replaced by the didactic walkthrough. (...) Even so-called 'open world' titles are map-free experiences. There will usually be a mini-map or radar display in the corner as well as an HUD that paints your required destination with big arrows and a distance read-out."

Why do I blog this? This is related to my interest in video game spaces (see some earliers posts about it here or on the Terra Nova platform). I have always been fascinated by vernacular maps like these and find interesting to see how the game design features influence the production of such artifacts. From a design standpoint, I think it'd be curious to envision games that would force people to create maps (or games that would force people to use external material such as notepad, pens, figurines or whatever seems interesting).

Problems about car automation #techusage

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Wandering around the Internet, I stumbled across this website about a car technology, which has an interesting flow of comments about how people feel towards it. It's about the “ECO pedal”, i.e a pedal system that uses onboard electronics to determine when the driver is excessively accelerating (and therefore wasting gas and emitting more emissions) and can actually push back on the driver’s accelerator foot.

Some comment examples.

"Now your gas pedal will be able to say, "Shame on you, you wasteful person!" I'd like to see how well the GT-R runs the ring with this technology added.

NO! GOD, NO. i don't want to argue with my car about how fast i should be accelerating. i get in enough arguments about that with other people.

That's unnecessarily intrusive. Lighting up an indicator in the instrument cluster should be the most the car can do to tell you how to save gas.

What ever happened to KNOWING HOW TO DRIVE??? We managed to make it through nearly an entire century of the automobile without parking-assist, radar cruise, lane-keep assist, and now a freaking accelerator nanny? If people want to drive greener, then leave it to them to decide to accelerate slower when they're able, yet still be able to haul ass if it's life-or-death necessary. Please auto companies, stop making it even easier for people to drive while dicking around with their iPhones."

Brilliant! One of them made me think about this insightful quote by Mark Weiser back in the days: "I don't want to argue with my car about where I want to go. And of course, it can be traced back to Philip K. Dick's Ubik.

Why do I blog this? collecting examples of tech automation/assistance for an upcoming lecture.

Article about relying on failures in design (ACM interactions)

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My article about technological failures has been published in the last issue of ACM interactions. It addresses the possibility to use failure as design tactic:

"failures and mistakes are important too because they are implicit signs of a need or problem that requires a solution. The examination of failures reveals what is commonly referred to in HCI as the “gulf of execution,” i.e., the difference between the user’s expected actions to achieve a goal and the actual required actions

my quirky mind-set left me wondering about the role of failure in design research: If problems and mistakes are so interesting and insightful, why not be a bit more bold and enlist them as a design tactic? I am suggesting the conscious design of “questionable” prototypes to investigate user experience. (...) In doing so, what kind of insights can be derived from leading people in the wrong direction?"

Designing alternative presents and speculative future

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Last week I attended the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology conference in Trento, Italy. I went there presenting my work about game controllers and user appropriation of these devices. One of the most interesting session I attended was part of a track called "Speculation, Design, Public and Participatory Technoscience: Possibilities and Critical Perspectives". Focused on speculative design, the talks in this session explored how design is increasingly cast as a possible mode of intervention into technoscience. James Auger's presentation in this session was highly inspiring. Entitled "Speculative Design by Practice: robot case study", it addresses Auger's approach to design for speculation. He basically described this perspective with the following diagram:

As presented on his blog, this matrix can be read like this:

"At the origin we have the here and now; everyday life and the real products that are available on the high street. The lineage of these products can be traced back in time to where the technology became available to iterate them beyond their current form. The technology element on the left hand side represents research and development work, the higher the line the more emergent the technology and the longer and less predictable the route to everyday life (domestication). As we move to the right of the diagram and into futures we see that speculative design futures exist as a projection of the lineage; they are developed using a methodology that consciously focuses on contemporary public understanding and desires to make these speculations both tangible and desirable. Alternative presents step out of the lineage at some poignant time in the past to re-imagine our technological present. These designs challenge and question the existing systems and objects that arise from current modes of manufacture."

Such diagram is an interesting model that allows to explore product evolution in a non-standard way. One can see it as a generative tool to investigate design fictions that target potential futures or alternative presents. For instance, based on a certain technology, one can start designing original products that would challenge how we're using it. The key thing with this matrix is the context of origin (the "here and now"): where are we doing it? when are we doing it? Another interesting point IMO is also the notion of "product lineage" (see the work by Simondon). The use of past technologies and products influence potential future avenues and past failures can also be recombined to create original design.

He exemplified this with a robot case studies, which could be seen as myths/failed visions of the future. Although technologies move forward, the visions and the promises remain the same, as attested by useless humanoids devices such as Asimo. Auger shows how looking at context (what influences classical product design) leads to more meaningful and less spectacular robot design. Looking at what makes people tick (such as a video of lizard that catch fly on a restaurant table) enables to speculate and design about a potential robot that would do the same.

This part reminded me of Sara Ljungblad's work about how the observation of marginal practices can provide a new perspective on the use of the technology, raising design ideas that are based on alternative viewpoints and ways of doing things. In her work, she showed how the observation of people who collect unusual pets, such as snakes and spiders) can be relevant to understand underlying human interests and qualities of interaction, relevant for designing robots.

This corresponds to the Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robots we shown at Lift10. See for example the coffee table mousetrap robot:

What's important here, as claimed by Auger, is that the term "speculative" is flawed. It gives the sensation that the artifacts does not exist. By existing for real, the public treat them as more seriously because it resonates with their everyday life.

Auger also discussed several principles that guided his work:

  • Ignore the stereotypical representation of robots and acknowledge existing contextual artifacts (tables, lamps...)
  • Produce "objets of desire" that people would be happy to have in their home,
  • Get to a new kind of relationship with objects.
  • Using this to question technology

Why do I blog this? the interest here is triple: (1) My personal interest in design fiction (and an upcoming talk about it as the Swiss Design Network conference!), (2) The design tactics used in this context and how they can be transferred to design research/field research, (3) The robot case, which resonates with current Lift Lab projects about networks objects and robots.

Field research for interaction design: slides from my course

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This year, at the Geneva University of Arts and Design (HEAD-Geneva), I gave a course about field research in interaction design. It was a combination of lectures, readings and applied projects. The point was to engage student from this Masters in Media Design in understanding and applying field research for design purposes. Moreover, I tried to push them as much as possible in turning the results from their exploration into material that can be relevant for design (beyond mere "results"). See the slides below, it's the version that I will update/expand/modify for next year's courses for the same program and in different design school who asked me to do it. There is certainly room for improvement but it was good to spend some time with all these students and see how they can appropriate these elements. My role here was not to turn them into ethnographers. Instead I wanted to see them taking these techniques and using them for their own projects/purposes.

[slideshare id=2232469&doc=1-cours-intro-091015111228-phpapp02]

[slideshare id=2376480&doc=2-cours-methodo-091029111036-phpapp01]

[slideshare id=2650467&doc=3-cours-photo-091204111132-phpapp01]

[slideshare id=2915537&doc=4-cours-itw-100114120531-phpapp02]

[slideshare id=3551690&doc=5-cours-analysis-100325110149-phpapp01]

Design by Use and object repurposing

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Design by Use: The Everyday Metamorphosis of Things by Uta Brandes, Sonja Stich and Miriam Wender is a wonderful book I've read recently about object appropriation or reinvention and the role of design into this.

The book basically gives a design perspective to how people redefine objects, which is very complementary to what Michel de Certeau described in The Practice of Everyday Life (see some excerpts in this earlier post). The authors defines various notion such as:

  • "intentional redesign", when "objects are used differently from their intended purpose"
  • "non-intentional design" (NID), by exploring "similar forms are used for the same purpose even if they were not created to fulfill the same function (...) If, in the spirit of NID, things are used for purposes other than they were intended for, this is not due to a misinterpretation of their original function, but is instead rooted in our ability to see beyond this and discover abstract or open forms."

As described in this review in Metropolis:

"Just as Roland Barthes posited that readers (rather than authors) create meaning in a text, here it’s the user’s intentions that matter. Brandes throws down a gauntlet, writing, “Each object must be investigated from two opposing perspectives: from the perspective of design and from the perspective of use.” In other words, people aren’t thinking about the concepts that lead to products; they’re simply looking for things that fulfill specific needs. Once designers begin to take that indepen dent agenda into account, she argues, “then we can expect a qualitative and open design approach as a result.”

Brandes also pleads for simple things, since they are the easiest to transform into ad hoc solutions. The more complex a design, the more needs it’s supposed to fit, but the harder it is to rejigger to meet your own. Knives may be made for eating, but Brandes reminds us that they serve as quite good letter openers. And in that vein, how many times have you used a chair as a bookcase, a lamp stand, or a bedside table? (The chair in my bedroom is not at all as Ebert Wels intended it when he designed it in 1928; instead, it’s bedecked in sweaters and ski pants.)"

Some inspiring quotes:

Why is this interesting? well, this quote from the Metropolis article speaks for itself:

This “design misuse,” “post-use,” “post-design,” “nonintentional design,” or whatever you decide to call it, can create evocative, meaningful objects—more meaningful, in fact, because of the user’s par tici pation in the process. The British sculptor Richard Wentworth once said, “I find cigarette packets folded up under table legs more monumental than a Henry Moore. Five reasons. Firstly, the scale. Secondly, the fingertip manipulation. Thirdly, modesty of both gesture and material. Fourth, its absurdity and fifth, the fact that it works.”