Category: Links

“iSee is a web-based application charting the locations of closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras in urban environments. With iSee, users can find routes that avoid these cameras (“paths of least surveillance”) allowing them to walk around their cities without fear of being “caught on tape” by unregulated security monitors.” This project was started in 2001. Here’s me thinking I had an original idea with the concept I developed for my Procedural Urban Rhetorics talk from 2008. Sigh. This is very interesting stuff, by the way.

Niels ‘t Hooft reports on Adrian Hon’s presentation at the NLGD Festival of Games 2009 (in Dutch). Of all the event’s keynotes, the one he highlights is programmed by yours truly.

“Celebrating nearly 2 years as the CEO of a small and dynamic interaction design company I thought I’d collate some thoughts on starting up your own company in interaction design as this be useful for someone out there.” Solid advice rooted in first-hand experience from Alexandra, some of it useful to interaction designers going at it solo as well.

I haven’t seen much good come from the Dutch government’s obsession with what they call “the creative industry”. (The fact that they use the word “industry” is proof enough that they do not get it.) I’d be happy when they finally lose interest and leave “us” (the many-shaped creative disciplines) to our own diverse devices.

“Right “now” (early June in 1666) the English and Dutch are half-way through the Four Days Battle at sea and so we get to read updates in “real time” as Pepys hears them. The first day he didn’t even mention what was going on. Yesterday he was busy helping the war effort” A diary of a famous Englishman is being tweeted more or less in sync with “our” time. What a wonderful idea.

A punch bag that changes colour the more you hit it. A simple but fun interactive lighting installation.

“You know what they say: game designers do it better outdoors. OK, maybe that’s not quite right. But game players, put down your controllers and blink into the light. There are stories on the streets, and the game is to find them.” Krotoski celebrates the charms of pervasive gaming. Some of the comments to this piece are telling; people bemoaning the fact that these games seem to be popular only in areas with lots of web geeks hanging out. I guess that means the games need to get a broader appeal.

A new game by Jane McGonigal designed to encourage people to go out and exercise, inspired by cryptozoology. Lightweight and open-ended, this is a good example of how far one can go with little to no technology facilitating play directly.

The author expounds on the virtues of manual labour, and the perversities of much knowledge work. Interesting to read w.r.t. the making versus thinking debate happening in design circles currently: “The gap between theory and practice stretches out in front of you, and this is where it gets interesting. What you need now is the kind of judgment that arises only from experience; hunches rather than rules. For me, at least, there is more real thinking going on in the bike shop than there was in the think tank.”

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.

“By turning simple brushstrokes of ink into complex and energetic life forms, drawn delights with simple truths: the musicality and immediacy of drawing, and the playful joy of magic.” Lovely work that brings together drawing, play, performance and music into a charming experience.

Dodgeball creator Dennis Crowly’s revamped his location based social networking tool, but with added playfulness. So far it sounds firmly aimed at the geek elite. Wouldn’t it be nice if something like this was designed to be a bit more accessible, so my non-techie friends could join in?

Dutch service design agency 31Volts shares some examples of sketching and prototyping techniques they use. I wonder if they could recommend a portable photo printing solution.

A nice profile of a pervasive / urban game aimed at teambuilding that has been running for quite some time in the US, and has now come to the UK.

Jasper highlights an interesting aspect of the story behind the Sony Walkman: “the whole concept was sparked because Sony’s honorary chairman was using an advanced prototype of a portable tape-recorder”.