Human Factors: A scrapbook of illustrated examples of things that are hard to use because they do not follow human factors principles.

John ThackaraÅ0Ö7s speech for the CHI conference in The Hague about pervasive computers might lead you to another point of view of “experience design” - with the perspective of your body beeing wireless connected to the net.

He draws the image of the frog in the boiling water: he only leaps out if you throw him in the boiling water; but if you will heat the water WHILE he is in he will stay there - and thats a metaphor for the situation we are in.
He ends his talk with the presentation of 10 Articles of Association between design, technology abd the people formerly known as users.

ElekTex ElectroTextiles
Interfaces (and their usability) are a lot more that screens, WIMP paradigms, Keyboards. As anybody talks about wearables, this company made a tactile keyboard that is beyond teh state of a prototype. And now, next step, imagine what you could do in combination with various elements and without just imitating a conventional keyboard…

German vs. english
Just after switching to german with my last posting I am happy to welcome lots of visitors via the xplane link…so i will use the opprortunity to re-switch to english again. The last (and somehow general posting) was about an discussion initiated by Oliver WredeÅ0Ö7s webdev dealing with web-development in the context of design/gestaltung (that is both german and english). I will try to respond to this in english soon - so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can browse through the older postings…as they are not losing actuality.

This beautiful project of IDEO is a collection of sketch ideas based on the business card to explore and express possible future value systems. They reflected about different forms of expressing identity: true, digital and branding identity. ItÅ0Ö7s also about rituals, memory and - of course control. My personal favourite? ItÅ0Ö7s hard to decide, but I liked the listening card despite of the fact that such a situational impression (reduced to a characterÅ0Ö7s voice in participating in a meeting) doesnÅ0Ö7t describe a character in a holistic approach, but helps very much in memorizing a specific (and yet new) way of encoding information.

After designing the Handspring Visor handheld, IDEO’s team took their intimate knowledge of the device and its market to create the eyemodule, the first digital camera designed specifically for the Handspring’s innovative Springboard expansion slot. The eyemodule digital camera captures images in color or black & white using a low-power CMOS imaging array. Once inserted, it adds only 15 mm to the length and adds no thickness and practically no weight to the Visor.

Usability…vs Design? Läuft es darauf hinaus? Geht es um die Regelwerke, die es (noch) nicht gibt - und wer kann sie aufstellen? Der Diskurs ist ebenso vage wie überfällig. Die Position müssen jetzt die Designer beziehen. In einem Posting bei eGroups habe ich heute von einem Projektleiter gelesen, der nicht wusste dass Designer (=Grafiker) auch Konzepte machen (können).
Das Bild des Designers ist verschwommen, korrekt. Das war es schon länger- dann kam die Zeit und Sparte der “Gestalter” (sehr verkürzt, ich weiss). Und nun folgt die Rettung in Aufsplittung der Disziplinen, alles klammert sich an Sparten und Spezialisierungen. Die Zugehörigkeit zu Sparten suggeriert Professionalität und Entschlossenheit und befähigt zur Mitarbeit in komplexen Prozessen. Eine Phänomenologie des Designs brächte hier viel Trauriges ans Licht.
Dennoch: die von Oliver sehr treffend zusammengefasste Polarisierung von Kompetenzen und die Analyse der unterschiedlichen Wahrnehmungen durch die unterschiedlichen “Lager” kann und sollte katalytische Wirkung haben. Auch ich möchte (hier) eine Position dazu einnehmen, die mit den Termini (mostly buzz-words) operiert und dabei eine Topographie einer Disziplin aufzeigt, die Verortungen und Positionen ebenso wie Achsen ermöglicht. Und nicht die Halbwertszeiten von Begriffen weiter herabsetzt und mit neuen Worthülsen alte Strategien offeriert, wie dies eben beispielsweise ValCasey in ihrer Betrachtung der Usability (itÅ0Ö7s dead) zugunsten der experience (im deutschen Erfahrung wie Erlebnis) macht.
Stay tuned for this discussion.

Michael KopsackÅ0Ö7s thesis shows an intereseting approach in a very dense and multilevel information architecture. He designed a flash prototype to show how his idea will really work. Check out his pdf!

The thesis (donÅ0Ö7t miss the ) presents the idea of a multilevel information architecture display with a flash-animated prototype. Michael Kopsack points out that he is trying to convey the value of an interactive web-driven presentation.

ICAD -> International Community for Auditory Display
ICAD is a forum for presenting research on the use of sound to display data, monitor systems, and provide enhanced user interfaces for computers and virtual reality systems. It is unique in its singular focus on auditory displays and the array of perception, technology, and application areas that this encompasses.