Kid book about why owning a server

Via, I payed close attention to the screenshot capture of thisincredible book by Microsoft called “Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House? helping understand the Stay-At-Home Server”. The book basically describes how a server “is a funny looking-box” who “makes friend with computers” which are generally in “boring offices” but sometimes can go to your house (“some servers aren’t boring, they don’t go in offices, they go in houses”), especially when “a mommy and a daddy loves each other very much the daddy wants to give the mommy a special gift”.

In essence, it describes the advantage of owning a server: sharing content, accessing it remotely, being regarded as a nerd, looking at blinking lights

Why do I blog this? …

Surrounded by objects whose workings are a total mystery

In “Why Toys Shouldn’t Work “Like Magic”: Children’s Technology and the Values of Construction and Control “, Mark Gross and Michael Eisenberg describes the tension between “ease of use” and user empowerment” that is at stake in kids artifact design. Starting from an interesting quote from physicist and science writer
Jeremy Bernstein, they how the design of toys (and the incorporation of technology in objects) raises the same set of issue. Here’s the quote from Bernstein that I quite like:

“Most of us, myself included, are increasingly surrounded by objects that we use daily but whose workings are a total mystery to us. This thought struck me forcibly about a year ago. One day, for reasons I can no longer reconstruct, I was looking around my apartment when it suddenly occurred to me that it was full of objects I did not understand. A brief catalogue included my color television set, a battery-operated alarm watch, an electronic chess-playing machine, and a curious fountain pen that tells the time. Here I am, I thought, a scientist surrounded by domestic artifacts whose workings I don’t understand.

The whole discussion, exemplified by toy project is about how technology seems like magic when we do not understand how it works. The authors then argue for intelligibility of use.

Why do I blog this? this discussion is quite common in design as it deals with issues such as transparency and glass/black box model of technologies.

Mark D. Gross, Michael Eisenberg, “Why Toys Shouldn’t Work “Like Magic”: Children’s Technology and the Values of Construction and Control,” digitel, pp. 25-32, The First IEEE International Workshop on Digital Game and Intelligent Toy Enhanced Learning (DIGITEL’07), 2007

Expressions of privacy

Privacy concerns spotted in Geneva over time:

And the answer as proposed by this huge sticker hat encourage people to pay attention to digital cameras:

Notes on “Hertzian Tales by Anthony Dunne

Reading “Hertzian Tales by Anthony Dunne was quite interesting as it echoed with some other readings/feelings/discussions. Although the book is maybe more suited to a designer audience (format/references), it’s a must read for people involved in HCI or innovation/foresight. Some excerpts I found relevant to my work:

“… the Human Factors community who have developed a view of the electronic object, derived from computer science and cognitive psychology, that is extremely influential in the computer industry, for example Donald Norman’s The Psychology of Everyday Things.
A serious problem with the Human Factors approach though, in relation to this project is its uncritical acceptance of (…) the ideological legitimation of technology: “All problems whether of nature, human nature, or culture are seen as ‘technical’ problems capable of rational solution through the accumulation of objective knowledge, in the form of neutral or value-free observations and correlations…” (B. Waites)
(…)
The result, as the computer industry merges with other industries, is that the optimisation of the psychological fit between people and electronic technology, for which the industry strives, is spreading beyond the work environment to areas such as the home which have so far acted as a counterpoint to the harsh functionality of the workplace. When used in the home to mediate social relations, the conceptual models of efficient communication embodied in office equipment leave little room for the nuances and quirks on which communication outside the workplace relies so heavily.
(…)
design is always ideological. User-friendlyness helps conceal this fact. The values and ideas about life embodied in designed objects are not natural, objective or fixed, but man-made, artificial, and muteable
(…)
Current design approaches aim to optimize the experience of using an object, with the effect of constraining our experience to the prosaic (…) Although transparency might improve efficiency and performance, it limits the potential richness of our engagement with the emerging electronic environment and encourages unthinking assimilation of the ideologies embedded in electronic objects”“

And this is from 1999, it definitely rings a bell as every discussion I have about entertainment, city of the future, mobile communication are often hijacked by people who want “city inhabitant to be effective” or “home cooking system to rely on maximum reliability and allow to communicate information in real time”. So where does this research about the “post-optimal object” can be achieved? The conclusion offers a good summary:

“one result of this research is a toolbox of concepts and ideas for developing and communicating design proposals that explore fundamental issues about how we live amongst electronic objects. The most important elements of this approach are: going beyond optimisation to explore critical and aesthetic roles for electronic products; using estrangements to open the space between people and electronic products to discussion and criticism; designing alternative functions to draw attention to legal, cultural and social rules; exploiting the unique narrative possibilities offered by electronic products; raising awareness of the electromagnetic qualities of our environment; and developing forms of engagement that avoid being didactic and utopian“

Why do I blog this? Lots of interesting material there, especially the vocabulary (“user-unfriendlyness”, “inhuman factors”, “post-optimal object”), the richness of example and the aims. Certainly food for thoughts about critical design that I need to integrate in my work and connect to foresight research.

On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets

Enrico pointed me to this curious empirical study of the effectiveness of aluminium foil helmets conducted by MIT people (Ali Rahimi, Ben Recht, Jason Taylor, Noah Vawter). Their point was to examine the efficacy of different aluminum helmets often employed by paranoids who want to protect themselves against invasive radio signals. They actually examined 3 configuration using a $250,000 network analyser.

Here are the results:

“we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government’s invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.
(…)
The helmets amplify frequency bands that coincide with those allocated to the US government between 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz. According to the FCC, These bands are supposedly reserved for ”radio location” (ie, GPS), and other communications with satellites. The 2.6 Ghz band coincides with mobile phone technology. Though not affiliated by government, these bands are at the hands of multinational corporations. It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC. We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings.“

Why do I blog this? found the project weird enough to be spotted, especially as it shows the irrationality of the aluminum craze.

Weather stations, weathervanes, cuckoo-clocks and ubiquitous computing

In a tiny street of Bern, Switzerland, I stumbled across that machine yesterday:

Why do I blog this? As it says in german, it’s a “weather station” with time, temperature, pression, etc. Beyond the interface that I find amazingly retro-like, I find intriguing to have this sort of device on the street. It’s actually an example of an ubiquitous computing device (so to say) that would make explicit invisible/implicit phenomena (such as temperature) to city dwellers. That machine is actually translating information about the state of the world to passers-by.

Of course, weather station comes from a long tradition (especially in Switzerland), with analog devices such as thermometers or manometers. Perhaps the oldest analog device would be the weathervane. I was thinking about this a sort of metaphor of information-pull device. Which is obviously opposed to information-push device (to which the ultimate stereotype would be the swiss cuckoo-clock as Frederic Kaplan stated in a talk I attended last week).

It’s only two metaphors for how information can flow from source to “users”: (a) Information Pull, where a user takes (or is given) the initiative to get it, (b) Information Push, where a supplier takes (or is given) the initiative to deliver it. It might be a bit limitative, what are the options in between? What can we learn from weathervane or cuckoo clock behavior? Is there any manual about designing cuckoo clock or weathervane?

Nintendo DS and ebooks

Some random facts about how ebooks might be relevant for the Nintendo DS:

According to this press release:

“Darren Reid, author of the best selling Fantasy/Science Fictionfusion novel The Lord of Darkness and Shadow: The Chronicles of the Shadow Book One, today announces the release of a free ebooklibrary for Nintendo Wii, DS and Sony PS3. The free ebook librarycontains a collection of short stories, novels and novellas whichhave been optimized for use with the browsers in the Nintendo Wii and DS. “

An homebrew comic reader on the Nintendo DS by Francis Bonnin. It also seems that a french company is heading into that direction.

Notes from the person who described it:

“Actually reading the comic on my DS was a pleasent experience. With all of the display options, I had little-to-no trouble finding one that suited me. Everything worked as advertised, and I was enjoying an issue of The Books of Magic on my DS in no time. As expected, there’s a loss in “the experience,” due to the 256×192 resolution. Using anything that wasn’t the Dual Screen mode did not show enough of the page for me. Despite the limited screen space, text was legible, and the images appeared just as nicely as on the original pages.“

Further away, Toshiba released an interesting DS-like e-book, using the same affordance:

Why do I blog this? gathering some thoughts about the topic for a client project (not really a research project). As shown in this blogpost, some projects about using the DS as a way to convey textual content are starting off.

Some limits to have ebooks on the Nintendo DS:
- how to get the content: since Nintendo is less an less happy with homebrew developments/flash cards, what should be the best medium to convey texts? cartridges? download through the Internets/wifi?
- screen size and resolution are peculiar, what sort of content would be appropriate?
- the DS has incredible wifi capabilities (mostly in terms of practices and how people gather to play together), what would that mean for ebook applications? There might be great opportunities to design innovative applications based on ebook reading/educational applications.
- Same with annotation capabilities with the pen
- …

“design” at the WEF in Davos

The IHT reports on a discussion about design at the WEF last week in Davos. It lists some of the themes of interest there:

“Alice Rawsthorn: designers will devote more time and energy to the underprivileged majority, the 90 percent of the world’s population who can’t afford basic products and services. (…) Another theme was dematerialization. Rather than creating new things, designers will also strive to make existing products disappear, often by integrating them into digital devices (…) guiltless consumption. At a time when none of us can ignore the environmental and ethical consequences of the things we buy, an essential element of “good design” is feeling free from guilt about how they were designed, made, sold and will eventually be disposed of.

Paola Antonelli: 3D printing, the extraordinarily precise rapid manufacturing processes now being developed by companies like Materialise in Belgium. (…) yearning for privacy – or Existenzmaximum, as she calls it – will be an increasingly important issue for designers in the future. (…) the potential for design to translate advances in science and technology into things we need or want. Recent developments in bioengineering and the cognitive sciences have tremendous potential, but need to be applied intelligently

Hilary Cottam: “design as a political force – the ways in which a design approach has real power to address the big social issues of our time.” She advocated using design to encourage people to change their behavior. (…) to develop new ways of tackling social problems through mass collaboration (…) the role of design in policy making, arguing that designers are better equipped than politicians to understand the ambiguities and contradictions of daily life.

John Maeda: the moral responsibility of designers. He stressed the importance of transparency in design, and of extending the participatory “open source” development process now popular in software design to other sector (…) simplicity, and its importance at a time when our lives are increasingly complicated, often unnecessarily so (…) the importance of appreciating the beauty of the everyday objects and places that are often taken for granted.

Why do I blog this some interesting trends and insight spotted there, although very general. It sorts of show where the emphasis is located in this crowd (no one mentioned critical design?).

Unconventional solution to a conventional problem

Just discovered this new “jugadu” term reading this article:

“‘jugad’-street slang for the distinctly Indian ability to find a way around the system. And in this case, as ironies go, the origin of the word that has come to define the can-do attitude of an entire country lies in a makeshift vehicle popular in rural India.

Literally, ‘jugad’ is the colloquial name for water pump sets and a wooden cart miraculously assembled by any local carpenter into a mode of transportation that runs on diesel fuel. The vehicles are not recognised as ‘cars’ by the official transport authorities and so escape paying road tax. They are said to manage 40 km per hour and cost about Rs 40,000 to manufacture. No wonder then that ‘jugadu’ – a word that may have once had the hint of vice – has today come to be the ultimate compliment for the ingenuity of the ordinary Indian.

Basically, the word means finding an unconventional solution to a conventional problem. Whether it is using washing machines to churn butter, spreading out stacks of rice and hay on highways for some natural threshing by passing tracks, drawing electricity from overhead wires or magically converting the rim of a cycle wheel into a homespun dish antenna, it’s all about never taking no for an answer.“

Why do I blog this? yet another exemplification of people’s creativity that has profound design implications. I also find intriguing the sounds of that term, especially when you think about this other practice called “chindogu“.

Seamful design and cell phone reception bars

Different approaches have been developed under the “seamful design” term. Chalmers, McColl and Bell indeed proposes to reveal seams and technology limites to empower users. In a paper from Eurowearable in 2005, they give an example: “By revealing such seams, users can better understand when and where to use digital resources such as network connectivity—and when not to—as they go about their work and use our systems in their ways“.

A common example is the one of cell phone reception bars that allows people to adjust their behavior (one bar = SMS, 3-4 bars = voice communication, 1-2 bars = assumptions that the communication quality would be bad).

But what does those reception bars actually mean? I cannot remember how I ran across this Metafilter discussion about “this topic. Some excerpts:

“They don’t mean much of anything, it turns out.

I don’t know what they’re displaying for GSM, but probably what they’re displaying is the signal strength. For CDMA (which is what I know about) that’s what they display, but in CDMA the signal strength is highly deceptive because it doesn’t inform you of what the noise floor is.

The technical term is “EC/I0″ (pronounced “ee-see-over-eye-naught”) and it refers to the amount of the signal which is usable. In CDMA you can have strong signal (4 bars) and lousy EC/I0 and not be able to carry a call, and you can have low signal (zero bars) and excellent EC/I0 and carry a call fine.
(…)
Even worse… there is no industry standard for what “one bar” or “two bars” means. None. Everyone just sort of sets some thresholds, and even from the same manufacturer it can change from phone model to phone model.
(…)
The GSM standard does not specify the meaning of the signal bars on your handset (correctly known as the “signal quality estimate”). Each manufacturer uses their own formula to work out how many bars you see. This varies not only between phone makers, but also between models, and between firmware versions of the same model. In short, you can’t compare phones using signal bars. You *can* – to a limited extent – compare the signal strength in different locations using the same phone, but even that isn’t reliable.“

Why do I blog this? this is an interesting example of how seamful design is hard to put in place. However, it would be intriguing to have behavioral adjustments (such as the one we often see with reception bars) even with reception bars that do not mean anything. As if the design itself was more important that the meaning of the information represented.