Interaction10 – Paola Antonelli – Talk to Me

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!

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

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.

Interaction10 – Rob Nero – TRKBRD: From Idea to Conception with Physical Prototype

Rob Nero’s presentation at the Pharmacy during Interaction10 was so packed that Todd Zaki Warfel, Brad Nunnally and I all ended up sitting on the floor in the very front of the room.

We may have had the best darn seats in the house. This presentation blew our minds. TRKBRD is far from a perfect nor finished device, but it’s a clever prototype that was fun to learn about.

Hands-down, more of our conferences need more talks like this. We learned of failures and successes and hacks and end-runs, and there was energy just in watching the story. This was definitely one of the highlights of an outstanding conference.

TRKBRD: From Idea to Conception to Physical Prototype Description:

Physical prototyping allows you to see and touch your design. You don’t have to pretend to use your design in order to test it, you can touch your design and feel the interactions firsthand.

My final project, in my first year of grad school, started as a theoretical idea for a brand new way to interface with a portable computer. The interface had never been done before, so there wasn’t hardware available for me to realize my idea or even test it with people. The only way to realize my idea physically was to use the Arduino electronics prototyping platform and create the interface device myself. With a lot of research, testing, and talking with other Arduino users, I brought my idea to fruition, the TRKBRD (trackboard) was born!

Read more of the TRKBRD Description >

Rob Nero’s Bio:

Rob is currently working on his Master’s thesis at the Interaction Design Masters program at Malmö University, in Malmö, Sweden. Before deciding to move to Sweden, he designed enterprise web applications for large and Fortune 500 companies for 10 years. Rob’s design projects while attending the Masters program include a music remix web site that was used in a national campaign for refugees, a Bluetooth-enabled music distribution box for an inner-city hip-hop club, and multiple physical prototyping projects with the Arduino platform.

After graduation in 2010, Rob is seeking employment opportunities in the physical and tangible interface areas. He hopes to continue his work in rapid physical prototyping, electronics, and people interaction in every adventure and future employment.

My Notes on the Session:

• Rob is a student at Malmo, Sweden and the last bit of his work for his degree was “Anything”. Yep, anything he wanted, but he had to create something.
• He was at a coffee shop doing work; his laptop barely fit on the table, as usual, and couldn’t use his mouse–hates the trackpad.
• He found a spatial problem to solve with his laptop and the space to work in–and trackpads keep getting smaller, and they’re a pain in the ass to use.
• The only way to make a smaller netbook is to sacrifice the trackpad space.
• Had the idea and the tools, wanted to make this new thing.
• Thought of: TrackBoard (keyboard and trackpad?)
• Combining keyboard and trackpad so as to create more available space.
• Recognized “zones” on the keyboard based upon where your hands sit on a keyboard for typing.
• Checked out the Arduino board (Arduino Duemilanove) – www.arduino.cc
• Rec: Getting Started with Arduino by Massimo Banzi
• Sparkfun.com is a good electronics site to check out.
• Built it
• Put 3 sensors around the board – Left, Top, Bottom
• Put 2 lasers–bottom-left, bottom-right
• Used Infrared lasers to avoid issues with light in the area
• He was able to get the x & y coords through this simple set up.
• Problem with Infrared: you can’t see it!
• But, you can hack a webcam and you can then see infrared – you can remove the lens or you can add over some exposed photo film (seems almost like an antique to find!)
• The Arduino programming language is pretty simple, some basic background in coding may help you.
• The memory on the Arduino is really small
• Arduino forums really helped to optimize the code and queries to make it much smaller in memory size.
• The end solution was 110 light sensors. The laser in the corner was to create the plane of light.
• Problem: He showed a professor, professor posted to Arduino blog, MakeZine.com picked it up….
• Then Engadget picked it up! Rob nearly died.
• Big exposure: 11,000+ video views (10-50 a day), 90,000+ links
• Now a Russian wants to rebuild as the equivalent of what Smart Boards/Walls are in the US (at my kid’s school)
• Final Prototype
• 
• Tested & Iterated
• Did “Man on the Street” Guerrilla User Testing
• Gave lots of demos, too
• Had focused feedback from the demos that he gave; felt people gave him real loves & hates
• trkbrd.it is the website, @TRKBRD is the twitters.
• He’s only doing this for his Masters; it’s not anything beyond that (at this point).
• He does some “faking it” in Flash since he doesn’t know Windows or Macintosh coding.
• Can double tap to open
• Single tap [X] to close it
• Independent control of both interfaces
• Can select/highlight text
• Can type without moving the cursor – but on the entire trackboard, not a real keyboard
• Also: This was awesome.

Interaction10 – Kevin Cheng – Augmented Reality: Is it Real? Should We Care?

Kevin Cheng was one of the first folks I met at the IA Summit in 2008 in Miami, and I’ve been a fan of him ever since. Besides being a bright chap and an all around good egg, he’s recently become a Product Manager at The Twitters (and they’re hiring, folks!), but you may also know him from such online comics as OK/Cancel. He’s also getting married on 10/10/10, but you’ll have to ask him some questions around that, yourself.

Augmented Reality: Is it Real? Should We Care? Description:

This year, we’ve seen the mobile market make incredible strides in technology. The iPhone, Android and Palm platforms have increased their functionality well beyond just being a phone and have added critical functions such as faster internet connectivity, video cameras, GPS and compasses. Handheld gaming devices have also converged, adding cameras and accelerometers to their devices.

The combination of all of these pieces have made Augmented Reality—overlaying information and technology virtually over what you see—become a true possibility. Suddenly, science fiction has become much less fictional.

This presentation will:
- share my personal experiences and insights from developing a game for this new medium
- cover some of the challenges and considerations when designing for such an experience
- the viability of this medium
- how we could apply aspects of augmented reality to projects
- include other examples of such projects on the market ranging from entertainment to practical applications

Kevin Cheng’s Bio:

Kevin Cheng splits his crayon time between many endeavors. He is a product manager at Twitter, the co-founder and artist for OK/ Cancel, a webcomic on user experience, and the author of the upcoming book, See What I Mean: How to Communicate Ideas with Comics. Most recently, he is also co-produced an iPhone augmented reality ghost hunting game. Kevin blogs at kevnull.com and has been known to Twitter as @k.

My Notes on the Session:

• Kevin saw a video on AR and thought about how this would be a cool ghost-hunting game.
• ARGH (Augmented Reality Ghost Hunter) is the app he built.
• Tom Caudell coined the term AR when he was working at Boeing on a project. 18 years ago. That’s right–18.
• Wikipedia def: Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view. The term augmented reality is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, an employee of Boeing at the time[1].
• Our reality is already being augmented–look at the 1st Down line overlay in football games, HUDs in video games, etc.
• AR is possible via LBS, Audio, etc.
• AR is here to stay; it’s main stream now, but not meeting it’s potential just yet.
• Why is NOW the right time?
• Google trends show it skyrocketing in 2009.
• Mobile seems to be a key reason for it to take off–especially cameras/video cameras.
• Reasonable Internet Connectivity
• GPS
• Compass
• Accelerometer – less, but you can do some cool things like running/motion, etc.
• What’s it being used for now?
• It’s being used in Art.
• Toys – Lego has a cool app where you can hold up the box and see the 3D version of what your end result will be.
• Topps baseball cards has some “attempts”
• Zombie killer game by Skittles–skittles are bombs for killing zombies
• USPS postal service demo – see if your item fits in the box.
• There’s a “live tweeting” app–Kevin pointed his phone to the room to see who is tweeting and got heat points. Pretty cool.
• Problems:
• Lack of design patterns
• And none of the existing ones are good
• The usage of AR is pretty immature
• Need to get some standards created for AR
• What if you wrote a “BurglAR” app? If objects are tagged and shared in the cloud and I see that you just bought at Plasma TV, I could know which house to watch and steal from!
• Clearly, no one is thinking about the deviant side of AR Design!
• GPS is not that accurate again. It’s not going to show you in exacting measurements where “things” are.
• Image recognition
• Processing on mobile – it’s just not there yet.
• RFID proliferation – not everyone (or enough people have all of the features to make this work well)
• Technology is not there yet!
• Looking Ahead for AR
• Jupiter Research: “The market for mobile AR services is expected to reach $732 million by 2014″. Was less than $1 million.
• Annual # of Mobile DLs featuring AR content is expected to rise to less than 1 million in 2009 to MORE THAN 400 MILLION by 2014.
• Smartphones are becoming more common
• Someone’s actually working on AR Contact Lenses!
• BMW and AR for Training of mechanics/engineeers.
• Google Goggles is an app that could have legs, too.
• Kevin says, “What’s interesting is that we (UXers) appear to be not all that interested”
• I don’t think we’re not interested, I just think the good ideas aren’t getting to US!
• Our technology consumption isn’t as fast as Japan, for example.  When I (Russ) worked in mobile, the US was at 18 months for a phone lifecycle and EMEA was more like 6 months.

Interaction10 – Jon Kolko – My Heart is in the Design

Unfortunately, I was a little late to arrive to Jon Kolko’s keynote, but I really enjoyed his presentation and wished his talk would have been longer. Without further pause, here’s some descriptions and some notes.

My Heart is in the Design Description:

Interaction design has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with shaping our engagement with society and with each other. As designers, we build the artifacts and frameworks that support this engagement, keeping us entertained, aroused, engaged and productive. We are cultural architects, and possess capabilities to enable massive change in an increasingly fragmented and tense world. We are, however, held back by three fundamental problems: a lack of quality, a lack of competent leadership, and a misappropriation of our skills.

This talk will examine the critical role we play in shaping culture, and will then describe the fundamental challenges that face interaction design as a discipline: the pursuit of quality, the need for intellect, and the void of leadership.

Jon Kolko’s Bio:

Jon Kolko is an Associate Creative Director at frog design. He has extensive experience in the professional world of interaction design, working around complicated technological constraints in order to best solve the problems of Fortune 500 clients. His work has extended into the domains of consumer electronics, mobility, supply chain management, demand planning, and customer-relationship management, and he has worked with clients such as AT&T, HP, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ford, IBM, Palm and other leaders of the Global 2000. The underlying theme of these problems and projects was the creation of a solution that was useful, usable, and desirable. He is the author of the text Thoughts on Interaction Design published by Morgan Kaufmann, and he sits on the Board of Directors for the IxDA.

My Notes on the Session:

• Design synthesis is the secret sauce for why design is powerful
• Design synthesis is an abductive sense-making process of manipulating and framing…
• If it is not ethical, it cannot be beautiful.
• “In today’s world, it’s apparent that good design is a privilege instead of being a right. In order to get good design into the hands of people who need it most of you ask many questions; how much does it costs should not be done.”
• Designing for real cultural change starts by understanding how people currently behave. -Mitch Murphy.
• Your work will change culture. Do work that is worth doing.

Interaction10 – Dave Gray – Knowledge Games

(Sorry, had some odd WordPress snafu–this is a repost of a post I somehow killed off inadvertantly)

Dave Gray’s session was–as always–fun, insightful and inspiring. He’s always a great speaker and a sure-fire bet to be one of your favorite sessions if you’re at a conference he’s presenting at. He did not let us down this time, and I hope my notes make sense.

Knowledge Games Description:

We’re moving from an industrial to a knowledge economy, where creativity and innovation will be the keys to value. New rules apply. Yet two hundred years of industrial habits are embedded in our workplaces, our schools and our systems of government. How must we change our work practices to thrive in the 21st Century? Dave Gray will share insights from his upcoming book on the work of creativity and innovation, due to be published in the first quarter of 2010.

Dave Gray’s Bio:

Dave Gray is the founder and chairman of XPLANE, an information design consultancy serving Fortune 100, NGO and government clients around the world. An artist, journalist and information designer, he is passionate about applied creativity.

My Notes on the Session:

Knowledge Games – Dave Gray

• The AK-47 has killed more people than any other weapon.
• Best designed weapon; can drop it in water, pick it up, still use it.
• A 12 year old can use it.
• Simple – Has 8 moving parts
• Rugged
• Reliable – many other guns would jam, etc. American soldiers would take the AK-47 from killed enemies
• Lightweight – can be used by a 12-year old, but also easily portable.
• Easy to manufacture; can make it in a machine shop
• Design is a Weapon that can be used for good or for bad. It’s a powerful tool for change.
• Design Philosophy: Don’t design for a perfect world, design for chaos. Because the world is filled with chaos.
• Design challenges have a starting point and an end point, but what do you do when the end point is vague and/or unknown?
• DG thinks of a process as more like a pachinko game; with all kinds of structure around it, but you don’t exactly what’s going to happen. There is unpredictability in the process.
• Some things are linear and some are non-linear. But they can be friends.
• Business process: a series of steps that are repeatable.
• Knowledge games: a mothod for inventing and discovering new processes.
• What is a game: A creation of a microworld that represents aspects of the real world.
• A game has boundaries and exists within time and space.
• A game has a goal
• A game has rules
• A game has artifacts
• A Game has players
• A game exists between a start point & end point. How do we define a goal when we don’t know the  goal?
• Fuzzy goals – you know you’re going somewhere, but will figure that out along the way. It can adjust & change as you move along.
• Conference Design: What if a conference was as good as all of the coffee breaks?
  • 10 Essential Rules:
  • 1. Opening & Closing – It’s all about rhythm. The rhythm of working with people. Game reference: Scrabble.
    • Two Rules
      • Never open & close at the same time; you can’t be creative & decisive at the same time
      • Always close what you open! It’s frustrating as hell if you don’t close things.
• 2. Fire-starting – getting people excited is a huge part of getting things done. Game reference: 20 questions
  • Get in touch with your ignorance; you need to get beyond knowing all of the answers & be happy to be wrong!
  • 5 Kinds of Questions
    • Opening – What has been keeping you up at night?
    • Examining – What is this? How does this work? Can you give me an example? What does the data indicate?
    • Experimenting – If we worked in a restaurant how would we solve this? What are we missing? What if all the barriers are removed?
    • Navigating – Is there some tension around this topic? How about a short break?
    • Closing – How would you prioritize these? What’s feasible for us to do in the next 2 weeks? Who will take responsibility for doing that?
• 3. Artifacts – usually portable, items that people have imbued with meaning even if we don’t know exactly what it is. Game example: Chess; you can’t play without knowing the rules of the pieces.
• 4. Node Generation – like sticky notes. Game example: Scattergories; generate as many notes as you can, get as much stuff on post-its, etc. around solving a problem.
• 5. Meaningful space – Think UPSIDE the box! What is the right kind of container for all of this stuff? Draw borders; think of Pros & Cons, axes, etc. to help define the space.
• 6. Sketching! Game reference: Pictionary!. There is no try! EVERYONE CAN SKETCH! Anyone who can write the alphabet and the numbers 1-10, can sketch!
• 7. Randomness – Shake things up! Game example: Dice
• 8. Improvisation – game Example: Charades!
• 9. Selection – This is where you make hard decisions. You have to kill some of your babies here. Game example: Jenga! Choose well.
• 10. Try something new. Every time you do something, try something new. If you do the same thing every time you’ll get bored & everyone will know it.  Game example: Operation! Keep it alive!
• Don’t be afraid to be wrong—you’ll find something no matter what!
• Paradox of discovery: You find things that you’re not looking for…
  • Basically, don’t over-think it!