Appliance Design
Conference programme - abstracts of all the papers and posters


Humanising Technology from Doors7 on Flow
"It's what happens between the disciplines that matters" [Colin Burns, IDEO Europe]

Along side loads of great looking 'transcriptions' (surely they should be transcripts?) from Flow.


Sum Blues, 1999
nice to find someone else with a similar sad sense of word play

which is alongside
Musings on Information and Librarianship


Tiresias - SRU
Actually this page contains information about the RNIB's Scientific Research Unit. I think the usability of page titles (which often become bookmarks or maybe more importantly blog links ;) is something that is all too often overlooked. Sometimes what seems like the simplest thing to do is actually the hardest. Or at least to do it well consistently. I have complained probably too often to people about this -recently to InfoVisMag- maybe it is only something I think is important?

Two other pages of note from this site are:
Which Button?
and
Access Prohibited?
On this page I actually thought I couldn't see it cause my browser was too old. The significance of the question mark passed me by and I nearly resorted to accessing the text only version. The use of the phrase 'modern browser' on the link gave me the impression that mine wasn't - and this page was going to send me to a list of modern browsers. Yet again the simple matter of meaningful and unambiguous link text...



Finally added some stuff to my template - including some nifty title atribs.


InfoVis on War Let’s hope that the war can be avoided since, besides the truth, the main victim of it will be the Iraqi people, who have suffered too much already.


here! here!



since1968 ::? Interviews Benjamin Fry discusses dynamic information modeling and the intersection of aesthetics and
computing.


I have linked to Ben Fry's stuff previously - but don't think I have been to since1968 since... and certainly didn't blog it. There are loads of other great looking interviews - and I haven't looked at the book reviews yet...



some loosely related blogs that have recently caught my attention

Notes from the Blogsphere from six different ways

The 10 Habits of Highly Annoying Bloggers I think I score 10 out of 10.
I would point out that I welcome comments via the egroup - maybe I will highlight this. And that there is something 'about me' in my links - no?

Matt get links from here fairly often - so must be good go
linkmachinego

Tom Coates on the_excesses_of_social_software

kasia in a nutshell

and

noise between stations


pastichio flavared ¿-> - and very tasty it is too


Two brilliant documentary photographers exhibiting in London town!

Exodus: Photographs by Sebastião Salgado



alongside

Roger Hutchings at the London Institute Gallery



This one is free. And contains unusual contrasts between the Bosnian War and Armani fashion shows.




I must taste some of Brendan Dawes > Headfood
T'is also worth checking the headshop

Brendan is speaking at Dust or Magic - I really hope I can go.


zoo
of soda constructions (you can then build your own)

which I was reminded of having read this old interview with Ed Burton in Amoda


-

great experiments and a very clever navigation plus history panel


MADscroll
MAD is where Erik Adigard works



designfeast.com -- thoughts on design

sort of like the wall of pith - one that stood out:

Design is in everything we make, but it's also between those things. It's a mix of craft, science, storytelling, propaganda, and philosophy.
—Erik Adigard

via an old article by Nate Burgos in LiNe Zine (which I had linked to back in March 2002)


FlashForward2003
Vote for your favorite overall site for the "People's Choice" award.

I think I'll be voting for quasimondo's Flash Amazon Search


Not the Latest Bennett Cartoons: AOL Time Warner but very funny!

via .idleworm. who created the much linked to GulfWar2

and where I also discovered
mark fiore (more political animations)

I got to idleworm via Branden J. Hall's .waxpraxis.



In reaction to, yet another, very thought provoking post by Matt[IC] about Neurolinguistic programming, which is based on the notion that people are either visual, aural or tactile, in which he uses this as the basis for examining fashion trends and haircuts! There is an interesting parrallel with this to the notion of learning styles which was being discussed in the IDcafé.


Modal Navigation or Signal to Speed

Depending on the mode of transport you use, you will take:
- different routes
- receive (and be aware of) different signals
- travel at different speeds
and therefore
- see different things
(or at least see them from a different perspective - from a distance or only a fleeting glance)
and
- be able to do different things (stop, change direction, talk to others, etc.)


Providing different modes of transport through an online space/place could help different types of users to find what they are looking for. Or to put it another way provide different approaches depending on the needs or previous experience of the user (a new comer might prefer a guided tour and experienced user go straight to the overview - to see what is new or has been changed). This is similar to IAwiki's RoadMaps and the Nodes provided as a way to navigate through Engines for Educators - hy~lee™ recommended.

One could envisage the following modes:

Walking - slow, controllable, flexible
Taxi - (paid for) personal route, enhanced with specific (if not necessarily accurate) local information, access to areas that other aren't allowed into (bus routes), comfort, mode can be shared,
Bus - predetermined fixed route, with group of people,
Cycle - fairly fast, controllable, flexible (can deviate from prescribed routes and ignore certain restrictions ;), dangerous?
Motor bike - fast, dangerous, restricted view (because of the helmet)
Car - fast, limited flexibility, certain restrictions, unfriendly?
Tube - very limited view of environment (all about getting there not about seeing what is along the way)
Train - unique (if limited in other ways) view of environment, shared mode
Plane - high level overview, fast but inflexible (hard to turn), shared (if more exclusive) mode

This is (of course) not an exhaustive list. And there could of course be subsets of these - different bus routes, a mountain bike or a shared taxi ride.

The key to this is not only how you move round but what you see whilst travelling. Certain signals or levels of detail will be excluded or enhanced depending on the mode. A slow walk will show you all the detail (who wrote it, how long is it, when did they write it, what is it about) where as a fast biker will see only the long or highly rated messages or maybe the particularly active spaces…


I couldn't post this yesterday - as Blogger was down - I wonder if this was as I predicted a result of the all the Pyra-Google reactions and consequent attention...?


filtering, filtering - it's all about filtering - but more importantly (maybe) about finding the stuff that others have let slip through...


here is another article about Games Design - which came up top on my search for the previous post ;)


Went back to find a Tech Comm article I read a while ago and found I could access via
EServer TC Library: Articles: Information Design

scroll down to:
Learning from Games: Seven Principles of Effective Design
requires free registration - but it is worth it.

The other titles here look worth checking too.


Matt [IC] has written some interesting notes about the google purchase of Pyra - which runs Blogger - cause he couldn't get through to the blogger interface - I wonder if the two are connected ;)

There is a more news orientated piece by Dan Gillmor over at Silicon Valley dot com. And there are bound to be many more comments elsewhere.

I think this could put quite a strain on the blogger system for a while as this is bound to bring on the masses.




Imagination at Work!
fairly pointless but never the less sort of engaging (you need a graphics tablet really)

A special hyperconnected issue of JoDI [Journal of Digital information, volume 3 issue 3] Hypertext Criticism: Writing about Hypertext

Articles that stood out are:

Inappropriate Format][ing][: Craft-Orientation vs. Networked Content[s]

Misguided Search For Truth

Digital Magic

Phenomenology and Digital Information

and

Futurology

political cartoons by Ken Sprague

here is my version of one his Ken's




Hawthorn Press have just published
Ken Sprague -- People's Artist by John Green


I think the stop the war march on Saturday may be pretty big



Space Shuttle Catastrophe the latest issue of InfoVis is very topical, but unfortunately does not show the graphic that really makes the point about how badly presented data can severly detract from the information being presented.


This contrasts with Tufte's version of the same data presented in a way which highlights that the disaster should have been prevented!



These are both from week two of
CS 422 User Interface Design & Programming

Which NetHack Monster Are You?


../....
...n..)
.... .)

If I were a NetHack
monster, I would be a water nymph. Relationships are more about what you get out of them, than what you put in. That
elven cloak really matches your eyes, you know.



this is kinda worrying, maybe I'd rather be a


|)%///?
+.@[[]%
|!)%/??

If I were a
NetHack monster, I would be a mimic. I can be whatever I think you need me to be - it might look like I'm here to help you,
but really you're here to help me.



via Matt[IC]


Technology can make you fat: February 10, 2003 issue of New Thinking by Gerry McGovern

!! spot on !!


Viridian Note

By the time we send out our next Viridian Note, the United States may be at war. This is a sad and ugly historical period, so it's time for us Viridians to mindfully contemplate pretty things. Such action is a moral necessity. In the memorable words of Italo Calvino, in his beautiful book INVISIBLE CITIES:
"There are two ways to escape the suffering. The first is easy for many: accept the Inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the Inferno, are not Inferno, then make them endure, give them space."

via BrightlyColoredFood


gladwell dot com / Group Think

Quoting from Jenny Uglow's new book, "The Lunar Men"
"They developed their own cryptic, playful language and Darwin, in particular, liked to phrase things as puzzles—like the charades and poetic word games people used to play," "Even though they were down-to-earth champions of reason, a part of the delight was to feel they were unlocking esoteric secrets, exploring transmutations like alchemists of old."

This is alongside many other interesting articles from Malcom Gladwell

via Ascription is an anathema to any enthusiasm


Paul Makepeace's Toys: Quotes "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck, is probably the day Microsoft starts making vacuum cleaners."
-- Ernst Jan Plugge

Paul hosts grubstreet

knowhere or know here - real voices about real places

sort of a simple version of grubstreet


marc rettig's place
has his slides from a talk at AMC WebSig Chicago Oct2002, "Designing for Small Screens" (PDF, 1.4 meg) -- how life is different for web people entering the world of small devices.


This short presentation covers a lot of similar ground to Information Appliances and Beyond (there is an extract here) - which I think I will add to my mUdIa list.



The Pornograph


therouteItook (to this):


An entry on the recently returned bbj
Their map is not the territory.


led me to a
WriteTheWeb peice


about
Jo Walsh's Spacenamelondon


where this was a news item,
funily enough next to a piece by matt[IC]


this (of course) sent me back to


FuckU-FuckMe(tm)



which I got to (yesterday) via the googletouchgraph below

(did you spot it?)


Bumble Being a great animation from the online sundance film festival [via goodexperience] -
where I also came across the long forgotten but still worth a lick superbad


Recently linked to my Amazon.com: Listmania! mUdIa - multimedia design + InfoArchitecture on guuui - so I had better add something new to it one day...



Not only have my linked to sites increased a lot recently (about? 34 at present) which makes for a much more interesting google_touchgraph:

(I know I shouldn't be checking)
And I now have some siblings too - something that I don't have in real life so it gives a rather unusual but kinda nice feeling BlogTree.com - HyDeSign




this is a [very good issue of a] magazine


going back in time, a link from http://www.kottke.org/ reminded me to go back and check out the 37signals > Design Not Found > Snapshot Library


This issue of InfoVis mag,
Visualising social interaction was inspired by me *blush*


Great list of Userati - Connections from Chris McEvoy (via guuui)

Interesting discussion on the webworld site about a complaint from one of the Userati about being associated with the stop the war campaign.