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July 07, 2003
RCA degree show
Last week I went to the degree show at the Royal College of Art in London. It's great to see the work there, especially in interaction design,in which the Royal College and IVREA are really the leading lights.
It was nice to see that the interaction design projects were "thing" based, rather than tied to a website or a computer screen, and also that the technology behind a lot of the ideas wasn't increadibly hard, or even powered by computer; rather simple technology being used in new, beautiful ways.
Some interaction design projects veered toward biotechnology, which is interesting, because these days technology and interaction design is assumed to be computer or electronic.
One type of interaction design was, I think, sadly lacking - networked products and social software. All the projects were the interaction between user and product, not between people using products.
The industrial design and product engineering parts of the show had claimed a lot of the traditional interaction design - websites, online services, Internet access and multimedia permeated the entire exhibition.
The best item I saw was a very simple idea (from the industrial design course): a correctly-oriented map of the surrounding area on a plinth, to be installed in various tourist and city spots. It's a really useful wayfinding tool that helps ease the large cognitive load in projecting a map onto a real space. Unfortunately, the call of new media had added to the project some kind of digital direction finder, which could show the most trodden flows in the city. A nice idea, but it needs some deep thought in itself, and it felt a bit tacked on to the product.
All of this made me want to dig out my soldering iron again, and brush off my programming skills. I think I need a shed.
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