links for 2009-05-25

A piece that looks at the “bor­ing future” as described by J.G. Bal­lard and the extreme obses­sions that arise from liv­ing in its con­sumerist cul­ture. Rossig­nol (the author) then pro­pos­es games should be more extreme and weird and vio­lent (in stead of less) to alle­vi­ate said bore­dom. I am all for weird stuff, but I do think this arti­cle mis­rep­re­sents Bal­lard’s views somewhat.

For those with access to aca­d­e­m­ic papers, this piece is worth hav­ing a look. It describes a method for com­ing up with design ideas ‘in the wild’. Use­ful for those design­ing ubi­comp sys­tems, ser­vice design and (my per­son­al inter­est) per­va­sive games.

Hav­ing done inter­ac­tion design for large orga­ni­za­tions, I can only agree with “Mr. X” who writes “doing the design isn’t the hard part”. On the oth­er hand, I like Dustin Cur­tis’s take on why some com­pa­nies suc­ceed in deliv­er­ing a good expe­ri­ence while oth­ers don’t: they have taste.