Last: August 2003
Next: October 2003
September 30, 2003
redesign, new art, Tates, etc.
It appears to be Interaction Designer Weblog Redesign Tuesday. Matt's new design is great. I don't seem to believe in colour (and I lost all faith in this design the moment I put all the text in): there does seem to be a general trend for weblog redesigns to cut out as much design as possible. Still tinkering, will clear up validation woes tomorrow.
Lots of small things that I wanted to talk about, few of which come to mind:
Tate Modern is busy installing their latest work in the Turbine Hall. I didn't realise until I picked up the Tate magazine that it's by Olafur Eliasson, the artist who created the wonderful Danish pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Not only that, it's about weather (and may be entitled "Have you talked about talking about the weather today?"). Apparently he wanted to install a rain storm in the Turbine Hall, but the structure couldn't cope with all the running water. What's installed so far? A (semi-)reflective false roof along the whole of the Turbine Hall, and a (semi-)circular screen at the end. I'm so excited about this! The weather project opens on the 16th.
One of many interesting anecdotes in the interview with Eliasson - the empty room in the Danish pavilion, bathed in yellow light, uses "sodium bulbs of a type used to illuminate Belgian motorways and Swiss mountain tunnels, chosen because, as Eliasson puts it, 'you see more'. ' The graduation of the tones is easier for your eyes to detect. The brain has to understand less information than with a whole-colour picture, so we have the sense that we see much more. The yellow room is for me like hyper-seeing, a space where the vision is advanced.' "
It's also interesting for the social dynamics, as you can only see your hand, and other people there. Who are looking at you. Looking at them.
not seen in my best light
Oh, also at Tate Modern, in the Nude/Action/Body section, is a work by Bill Viola that is worth a look. Next door is a room dedicated to Bruce Nauman, probably my favourite artist. It's always worth going round the collections once in a while, as they're constantly changing. The fifth floor is a great collection at the moment.
Tate Britain shouldn't be forgotten about. True, the collection on display isn't that hot now (especially for modern and contemporary art), but there's some interesting events, especially the Films of Britain series.
If I get time, I'm going to check out Video Acts at the ICA soon...
link | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 25, 2003
MP3 jukebox mating
Inspired by Philip Greenspun's Weblog, a headcold, codeine, caffeine and paracetamol.
I always had the idea of something iPod like with wi-fi (or, in the future, faster wireless networking du jour) that would automatically suck files from others - especially those people/devices that it knew about - automatically, without asking. Not so much your own Personal Area Radio Station, as your own physical space lending library.
Close proximity will always have a bandwidth advantage, from network cables through to short distance wireless, to broadband to data telephony. Wi-fi is good enough now to let you copy 10s of albums whilst having a pint, and very soon video will be there to.
Sure, this idea needs a bevvy of new design - rating is just about there, recommendations not quite so, privacy and trust systems a few years out (predictably, I'd say link it to your mobile address book), autodiscovery and autonetworking pretty much usuable.
This is the reality that RIAA et al are moving towards. Push file sharing underground and we'll do it in ways you can't detect. We'll return to our sneakernets, copying at higher speeds than ever with our friends, our friends of friends, people we walk past in the street. It's not about downloading any more, it's about synching.
One stage further: enough people in the street use walkmans, iPods, portable CD players, but these are the hardcore, those that need music all day long. Imagine if they converted to this new wi-fi reality. For those that just want background music, you could built a more lightweight player, for those not really into music as much, that could download the song that others are listening to in the time it takes to walk past them, play it, delete it. Instant psychogeographical radio.
Sillier still: add a microphone and you could dedicate the track to them as they walk past. All technology comes down to dating in the end.
link | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 22, 2003
new mammon architecture
Just saw a documentary on BBC4 called Storeship Enterprise about the new Selfridges building in Birmingham. Very interesting - the inside looks as exciting as the outside. Things to visit - I'll do anything to get to the roof garden on Selfridges in London (and it seems that originally a 300 foot tower was going to be built on top of it), and looking forward to a complete John Pawson house that's going to be built in a new M&S store (Gateshead?).
Interesting that Patrick Wright picked up on the fact it's impossible to see the new Selfridges when on foot in the centre of Birmingham, as I noticed when taking these photos earlier in the year. I should be in Birmingham at the end of October, so I'll be sure to investigate.
Times like this I wish I had a Creative Archive link to offer...
Also coming up on BBC4 (Sunday 10pm) is a programme about contemporary art called Art Safari that may be interesting.
link | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
biennale
My recent visit to the Venice Biennale was my first - and if you have even a passing interest in contemporary art, go. Move earth and mountains to see it. It's the best thing I've seen all year. The setting, the variety, the crazy city and generally the standard of the art all combine to create a truly breathtaking, headspinning experience.
The Biennale this year was held in three main venues: the Giardini della Biennale, the Arsenale, and the Museo Correr. I only managed the first two, plus ten or so other exhibitions dotted around Venice.
The Biennale has two sections, a large group curated show, and shows created by individual countries, mainly focussing on one artist each.
Many countries have their own little art galleries in the Biennale garden (and planning permission has been rumoured for some more). These have a variety of styles, and on a sunny day it's great to just wander round - and most of the year that's all you can do. These buildings are only open for a few exhibitions.
The best overall experience was probably Denmark, with Olafur Eliasson creating a set of visual experiences, including taking a pretty boring pavilion and building round it to create a more natural free-flowing space on many levels. Is it art? Who knows - it's playful and engaging.
Three other countries really amazed me: Israel's thoughtful take on human existence, ending in a room of tiny people walking around you, Egypt's insane installations of, well, thousands of moulded birds, mirrors, almost total blackout, computers, whirring fans, and one eyed robots, and Iceland, in a tiny pavilion, with a playful matching of technology and nature.
Mopping up a few special mentions - one piece (Peripatetic Sitting On by Roxana Chereches) in the otherwise disappointing Romanian digital art exhibition, producing a photo record of the Paris Metro, the dice room of Poland, Greece for having the most deadly installation, wonderful films by Lilsa Lounila in the clever Nordic Countries pavilion, empty manmade landscape photos by Candida Höfer for Germany, and Hungary, if just for the pavilion.
The British pavilion was good, and I'm always a fan of Chris Ofili, but I felt the presentation, whilst emphasising some aspects of the art, overtook the pieces.
Lowlights: the Australian Chapmanesque display, the frankly boring Serra pavilion for Spain (the mean would say the real piece was the bored Spanish border guard paid to check passports), and on a more political level, the closed censored Venezuelan pavilion.
The large Italian pavilion marks the start of the curated shows. This was a general ragbag of generally engaging works.
We've only just begun! A shortish walk from the gardens to the old Arsenale dockyard (past the Communist party headquarters), continuing the Venizian passion for signing for a few blocks and then leaving you completely lost in some backstreet.
The Arsenale is a set of converted buildings, starting with the Corderie, used previously to show work by young artists. Now 17 thousand square metres have been renovated (the Tate Modern has 14 thousand sq m of display space) and divided into 8 separately curated exhibitions.
By now my head was full of all kinds of strange art - and on entering the first two areas, I was worried that such group shows couldn't hold their own against the bold work of the countries. The third space, Individual Systems, started to reignite my passion.
This was just a warm up act for my favourite display, Z.O.U. Zone of Urgency, curated by Hou Hanru, based on urbanisation, expansion and transformation. Crazy, loud, computers, videos, a mini Japanese capsule hotel, banners, aircraft in filing cabinets, free oxygen and general visceral stimulation left me reeling with the biggest smile on my face.
Again, the displays lulled slightly, and yet again, my interest was piqued by some work in the slightly formal The Everyday Altered, only for all order to be dismantled in the excellent Utopia Station. More idea based than finished formal work, this part was responsible for many of the wonderful flyposters around Venice, and spilt out into the garden, creating an atmosphere of hippy enclave mixed with village fete.
Sure, my favourite areas tend towards curator-as-artist rather than analysing the pieces by themselves, but I can go to any art museum in the world for that. And with the sheer quantity of art to see, in such a limited time, you are naturally going to focus on the loud brash experiences over the quiet detailed shy thoughts. If I had a week, I would go back every day, as it's obvious I've missed the subtleties of much of the work.
But time was pressing - half a day left in Venice, much of which was trying to find the damned venues of the other exhibitions. The Absolut exhibition was quite impressive, some interesting work from Singapore, Luxembourg and Ukraine, a crazy classroom and lecture theatre taken over by Ireland for a summer of presentations and publications, and the Zenomap exhibition from Scotland.
In general: Amazing. Heavy (the catalogue weighs an impressive half a stone, even when giving the countries just a few pages each, plus a kilo or two of all the pick ups from the countries and even artists). Mindboggling. I'm going to try to get to next years' architecture exhibition, and you can be sure I'll be back in 2005 for the 51st Biennale.
All 250+ photos here.
Strange Biennale blog here.
A good long review, with lots of pictures, here.
link | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 21, 2003
underground euphemisms
TfL are resorting to doublethink. Today I noticed all signs that usually say "normal service" or "no reported problems" now say "good service", as in
Jubilee Line: good service
and
There is a good service on all lines.
After the "buses are getting better" campaign, it seems that TfL want us to think that normal service is good service, things running just about ok are actually good. What next?
You are happy that we have closed this escalator
Smile as we are not stopping at the next station
A few other annoying points:
Started using my Oyster card today - and it's irritating. Sure, it's doubleplus woo and shiny, but the one interaction that should be smooth (going through a gate) is bad: the scanner takes a good second to read your card, and there's no indication that it's doing anything for that time. Maybe I just have to get a different rhythm, but with the old mag stripe cards you could sail through the barriers.
A new sign to cause grammatical anger-
Please check the indicator on the front of the train for it's destination.
If this was hand written, I could forgive it, but it's appearing on the electronic indicator displays.
Yes, I'm back, and I'm anal.
link | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 15, 2003
venice street art
Took about 400 photos whilst in Italy... I'll sort them out later (especially the Biennale), but before I run off to Cornwall for a week of relaxation, here's a collection of street art from around Venice - graf, tags, flyposters, stickers, signs, furniture, stencils...
link | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 11, 2003
Mobile HCI - visions of the future
Intermittent connectivity, even less frequent laptop power. And a hurricane appears to be hitting. At Mobile HCI in Italy, seen lots of great papers which I'll write up when I get home. Even better food - how many conferences have 4 course lunches with wine in an old castle complex?
Anyway, here are my notes from the Visions of the Future panel earlier today. There's some paraphrasing here, so blame me, not the speakers, for any misrepresentation.
*********
Visions of the Future
Mobile HCI, Italy
2003-09-11
Mathias Schneider-Hufschmidt, Siemens
Can't wait 5 years for technology to be adopted (like SMS)
Have to have methods to create and evaluate new technology.
Mobile phone is more than a browser or an information device.
If manufacturers all have different UIs, how can service providers create apps for all of these? - need some standardisation whilst keeping emotional value of UI
Phones are now fashion - if you have several different fashionable devices, information has to be in all to be useful.
IP protection - if carried out in the wrong way, ideas will never be realised. Need the right line between protection and free access of ideas, especially with UI.
Harri Kiljander (director of UI), Nokia
Content management - how do we manage, use ~1 Gb of content on a mobile?
Phones will soon have even more technology protocols included - RFID, wi-fi, CDMA - how can users manage all of this, how can we make it seamless and easy?
Context awareness - where am I, when am I, and with whom? What is appropriate (auto silencing etc.)? Phones are emotion machines (Norman).
Mobile HCI seems to be too many fancy prototypes - need user needs research. Need more research on mobile payments in non-European/developing markets; the aging population of the developed markets.
((Nokia Usability book))
Boris de Ruyter, Philips Research
Technology is not the problem. Lots of tech: storage, bluetooth, zigbee, better displays. The challenge is to find the right applications. Focus on applications scenarios.
Things are getting smaller - small form factor UI research is needed. e.g. clothing.
What are experiences? How do we measure them (especially above qualitative research)?
User development - how can we enable consumers to "program" the devices?
Marco Combetto, MS Research
New generation of applications - e.g. home automation
Spending a lot of money studying interfaces. Trying to replicate experience on PC thru to tablet, Pocket PC and phone.
Collaboration between industry and academia. Need to establish relationships and find ways to share information.
Matthias Hilpert, Orange
Only in the last 6 months have we realised we need to work more closely between operators, devvice manufacturers and software vendors. UI of components is degraded if we don't work together.
Customers can't handle the complexity of new services:
Shouldn't always focus on new stuff and technology - focus on making existing services (voice, SMS) better.
Focus on working together, academia, networks, software manufacturers, device manus.
Need to find a balance between functionality of phone and ease of use.
Phones used to have 2-3 apps with 20-30 functions.
Now, 50+ programs with hundreds of functions.
Increase in screen size etc. hasn't matched the increase in complexity.
Have to be more sophisticated in measuring experiences. More creative, more tools.
Look into not just what we specify for UI, but how we specify UIs. Specs getting large, hard to handle and understand.
Bruno von Niman, Ericsson (systems, not SE)
Fixed lines decreasing.
1-2 billion in 4 years - but 4 billion have never made a phone call.
1 million device a day.
Major UI improvement < 1980: the handset. Rotary dial, push button keys, touch tone (*#).
Steering wheel was developed 50 years ago - now covered in buttons (shows Schumacker's steering wheel). A lot more complex.
Segmentation of user needs - we don't all want the same things.
Complexity - hidden behind simplicity!? (simplexity)
example segments - gen y, active, image-sophisticated, minuteminders, basic professionals, advanced professionals - a family with young children hits several of these.
Segments and trends change: actives increase, minute minders decreasing.
There is now segmentation of devices.
Skinning of devices/UIs now possible.
Standards are very important:
compatibility
full interoperability
transfer of learning
accessibility
e-inclusion
There are generic approaches - generic spoken command vocab, harmonised UI elements (ETSI), requirements for assistive technology
ETR 102 125 - Generic user interface elements for mobile terminals
Don't want same UI when working or in leisure time.
Questions:
why don't phone manus just make the GSM connector - and let Gucci or similar create the front-end device?
MSH: getting more players creating more device components - far more chance of it all fucking up.
The phone is a phone is a phone is a phone....... we spend hours trying to create GSM data connections - our customers don't. Features have to work when turned on. If phone is integrated in your jacket, and you leave it at home, get very annoyed - 2nd time, they throw it away.
HK: Gucci could design *part* of the UI. PC business is so modular, why don't we do it? Well, actually one company making hardware, one company making the software. Integration skills are hard, especially in small scale. Interoperability is important, operators want to see stability in the UIs - don't want to develop apps for each new phone. Let Gucci do the skinning maybe, but Nokia or manu doing the "hard" bit.
MH: from a theoretical pov, specialisation makes sense, but in reality it's difficult to handle, complexity of scope so high - API/interoperability. Small app providers will get into the picture to provide many different apps over many devices - have to have standardisation across devices to support this.
Lots of agendas in the presentations - two agendas, 1 wants everything in the device, 1 wants the same UI in every device.
Different places have different "interfaces" - you organise for the place. We need more interfaces for more different devices. We handicap ourselves with 1 UI for 1 device. (app studio bloke)
BdR: Give people the opportunity to modify the way they interact with the device.
MH: users have to cope with a lot of complexity: if UIs change all the time, users will never be able to use it. Possibility of buying a "blank" telephone, with just telephony, and then users can buy/add/delete functionality.
Two needs of customer: minimise complexity need, and personalisation, extroverted need, unique device - good for skinning.
What happens if we become less mobile - society may go another way, when you're with who you want, and can do your work wherever.
BdR: Apps that give a feeling of being together may be something.
Power in the future - big problem - how do you design interfaces to minimise power consumption?
BvN: power is another department's problem
MSH: it's an important usability issue, problem may become a non-problem - changing battery every 3-4 weeks is what we're trying to hit. Battery capacity/cycling is a problem too. We're getting close to the line where this is not a problem. Information appliances need power to keep the information alive.
Get a sense of expertise behind the table being "them", and the researchers being "us". Why is there not an expert user, for example, on the panel?
BdR: we spend a lot of time gathering user requirements - so there are more than 6 users here!
Meta-observation - most presentation in MHCI have been on palm-tops, yet industry is mobile phones.
MSH: maybe barking up the wrong tree with many talks at MHCI - many not very worthwhile; haven't addressed needs of users. Seen nice technology, but very little can be carried home and integrate into our phones. Have to investigate what our customers are really doing.
HK: in an academic community, natural for PDAs to be used: easier to program, richer. Need to go on to evaluate prototypes properly. Mass market isn't your academic friends or people in the community. Try to keep it linked to reality.
How do we help an ordinary end user becoming an expert user? Whos job is it?
HK: I don't want to be an "expert" of my car, hate features I cannot use automatically, don't want to read the manual. We have made something wrong if we force people to be expert users.
MH: we launched the 7650, call centres under fire for the usability of the phone (many phones like this), majority of the help comes from network operator side - this is very expensive. Ways of addressing this: self-help, FAQs, website, or use the UI of the phone itself to come up with basic help functionality linked to online functionality. Also, Switzerland launched much help through retails stores - lectures, night classes, and in the UK people encouraged to come into stores. Need is valuable, and people will pay for it. Effort however should be in making it easier in the first place so they don't need that help.
BvN: levels of usage patterns has increased dramatically in the last 15 years, convergence of calendar etc. into mobile, in all segments; users evolve.
BvN: maybe we/industry should reveal more.
Also, panel isn't really representative of users - but for example, we track 15000 users, on 5 continents each month.
If given a million euros for a mobile HCI project - what title would you have?
MSH: having a multitude of phones and transparent movement of information, multiple SIM, multiple address book - transparent multi-phone usage by individual users - TraMP
HK: hiding the complexity of new young technologies (inc. synching and how to take stuff from old phone to a new phone)
BvN: increasing simplexity for the first billion (expert) users - Simple1
BdR: friends fostering relationships with internet-enabled devices
MC: pervasive/dissappearing computing - how to build very distributed connected environment - disaggregating computing OS
MH: integrating network services into the UI - location, presence, billing
link | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 04, 2003
novice / expert user modes
I'm looking for research about using novice and expert modes for software, wap portals, IVRs. These could either be user-switchable (but no one ever goes into settings unless they have to) or adaptive (like MS Office).
It seems to crop up whenever designing, but it feels wrong to me: a good design should be able to accomadate all users. I'm now looking for ammo to back up my gut feel.
I've found a few things: Nielsen, a piece on voice UI, and a paper on accomodating all in one interface.
Any others greatfully received.
link | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
September 02, 2003
dance dance google
Whislt doing a bit of vanitygoogling (Google Search: weather rss ), I noticed loads of Googlespam pages. Almost all from a UK ringtone supplier, who I will now hunt down like a dog.
Now I know "weather rss" isn't exactly a hot topic (and therefore has lots of real pages talking about it), but this makes Google almost unusable for this term. Has the googledance slipped?
(oh, and my weather RSS feed page has a new spangly magic feed creator. Powered by the amazing Google API.)
