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Interaction10 – Paola Antonelli – Talk to Me

Written by Russ on February 9, 2010 – 9:28 pm

Paola Antonelli’s keynote was probably my most favorite of the keynotes at Interaction10. She was a bit livelier than most, a bit more animated and had a great sense of humor about about her. She also had some great sensibilities about how design and technology should work.

Oh, and she hates that damn tamagotchi.

Paola Antonelli’s Bio:

Paola Antonelli is senior curator of architecture and design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she has worked since 1994. Before MoMA, she curated design and architecture exhibitions in many countries and worked as contributing editor for Domus magazine and design editor of Abitare. She has lectured on design and architecture worldwide and has published numerous articles in publications ranging from Seed and Nest to The Harvard Design Review. Antonelli is author of a number of books, including Workspheres (2001), Objects of Design from the Modern Museum of Art (2003), Humble Masterpieces (2005), and Design and the Elastic Mind (2008).

Talk To Me Keynote Description:

Whether openly and actively, or in subtle, subliminal ways, things talk to us, and designers write the initial script that will let us develop and improvise the dialogue.

My Notes on the Session:

We are now at the point with technology that we’re no longer drunk with it and we can finally do something really humane, has humane interfaces and make it elegant.
She is more comfortable with objects than she is with people–objects talk to her about their properties.
Technologists make revolutions, but designers bring it to life
Computers evolved from being tools to being pets in your home–they started to have personalities.
Post-it note was a mistake in the 60s that became a success in the 80s
Real-world interfaces in the real world have become friendlier and friendlier–beginning to be pithy, have a degree of humanization to them.
Throwie: an LED light with a battery and a magnet that you can throw up high and stick to metal. People make graffiti and give boring objects personalities with them.
Laser Tagging by the Graffiti Research Lab – Used lasers to write on the sides of buildings.
Seeing is Understanding
Ref: Tufte (ick)
Eames – Brought about multimedia before it really existed – Mathematica
Access to Networks & Systems
Access to networks & systems allow us to collect very disparate and complex sets of data and turn it into something visual that we can understand better/easier.
Networks and systems can make devices somewhat irrelevant–as long as you have the data <somewhere> the device can easily be replaced.
Making & Mixing the Worlds
AR, Simulations, alternate ways to live & build
Designers are now aware of resources, sustainability, etc.
Grand Theft Auto is a wonderful simulation of a world that already exists.
Portable systems may go away; it’s not augmented, but a blurring of the reality
The connection between the real world and digital world will become seamless and this will make your experience “bigger”
The symbol of this all is: @
It’s not about possessing things now, it’s about tagging them. Where’s Gene Smith?
Paola_Antonelli@moma.org if there’s anything about this you want to talk to her about
Designers not only need to learn Anthropology, but need to take some screenwriting, drama, acting classes!

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Interaction10 – Timo Arnall – Designing for the Web in the World

Written by Russ on February 9, 2010 – 9:11 pm

A handful of years ago, I worked for a mobile phone manufacturer, and that made Timo Arnall’s presentation on Designing for the Web in the World particularly interesting to me. I was fortunate enough to get to spend some time working on and thinking about Location Based Services (LBS) and RFID projects and getting to learn a bit more about where things are heading really gave my brain a jumpstart.

Here’s hoping my notes may give you a bit of that, too.

Timo Arnall’s Bio:

Timo Arnall is a designer working with interactive products and media. Timo leads an international research project on mobile technology, collaborates on interaction design work and lectures in design, media and technology. Timo’s work spans design, media and technology; interested in the ways in which products are used in everyday life, the emergent uses of new technologies and the design of products and services in local contexts and situations. Timo’s history of design work has included projects on the web, location-based and mobile services, film and interactive television production, art direction, motion graphics, installations and exhibitions.

Designing for the Web in the World Description:

From NFC mobile phones to Nabaztag and Nike+, there is an entirely new class of consumer product that becomes almost useless when disconnected from the network. How can designers deal with the vast complexity of designing not only interactive physical products, but the connections and resulting interactions with the data that they produce? In the Touch project we have been working with designing interactive products and services that involve RFID, NFC and mobile devices. The project has developed useful models for designing across tangible and mobile interactions, networks and the web, that allow us to see where existing products succeed or fail, and to get to a grip on the design of new networked products.

My Notes from the Session:

Shows copper-lined pockets so people can’t scan his RFID “stuff”
Shows “RFID-Proof” wallet to protect your personal wares (froms canning)
References “Shaping Things” by Bruce Sterling (@bruces); calls it out as a short, fascinating read, but if all our products are trackable & traceable, maybe it has an impact on lifecycle, recycle-ability, etc.
NFC is “Near Field Communications”
NFC – The integration of RFID into mobile phones
You can embed tags in everyday objects and then take actions upon them – similar to stuff I worked on for <insert mobile phone manufacturer here>.
We are keen to “reframe” technology to make it fun, not talking about the utility of it all, but more about the exploration, the game-y-ness of it.
RFID/NFC with youth testing seems to have gone from passive to active usage in a very short amount of time. Learning curve was quick & easy and it was fun for children to have simple controls that delivered fun, consumable actions.
Showed RFID stickers; previous discussed those types of re/actions at <insert mobile phone manufacturer here> and it’s great to see that we really were looking at the future about 5 years ago.
The part of the problem with this genre of products is that they become worthless without a network. This echoes my feelings/fears about working in the cloud (that is, if the cloud.
3 Levels of thinking about designing network objects
1. The tangible experience.
It’s become important to create things that live in our everyday lives & attach to our everyday objects
2. Objects need to have a connection to the outside world
They need to also have a reason for doing this! In many ways, this ends up also being very social–sharing data of your workouts, your sleep patterns, etc.
3. Visualizing and perfection
Once you start to collect and create data about/around a device, you need to start to visualize it, show people what’s going on with it.
Design decisions for products that are connected need to be taken very seriously and need to considered for the *very* long-term. If the network and/or engagement dies, the usefulness of the product dies.
This seems like an enormous risk (to me) when creating new products. Does it kill the entrepreneur?
Nike+ used as a good example. Absolutely; and the advantage of Nike money coupled with Apple money and long-term, low-risk of either/both of them going away. The product *should* have a pretty long shelf-life & you should be able to use it for a very long time.