Playpen

Disraeli’s quip, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” could do with “and Facebook” tagged onto it, although it wouldn’t roll off the tongue so well, I have to admit.

I just received a spam mail notification from Facebook’s Social Profile app, where friends can rate you. Here are my results:

… your strengths:

best travel companion
kindest
best scientist

… your weaknesses:

best companion on a desert island

Apart from the fact that I’m far from being a scientist – maybe the egghead and specs give that impression – how can I be the “best travel companion” and then worst “companion on a desert island”? Aren’t they the same thing?

In the words of Pauline Hanson, please explain…

[tags]facebook, socialnetworks, statistics[/tags]

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Those crazy Danes.

(Image stolen from djaphrael)

Amusing project over at Halfmachine which involved making toilet door signs from LEDs in a club.

Of course, they can be programmed, so they switched them around based on how many times the door was opened in order to facilitate a bit of social connection. It works too, judging by the video.

Playful, social, simple. I like it. I suspect people spent some time trying to work out the system too, which all adds to it.

[tags]LED, halfmachine, Denmark, toilets, signage, interactive[/tags]

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My interview with Hector Serrano is now available on the Core77 Broadcasts page.

My thanks to Hector for an entertaining chat about his playful and insightful approach to design.

(Oh, and that story about that 40 year-old cloud of plastic floating off of the coast of Hawaii is explained on the Greenpeace site.)

[tags]hector serrano, sustainability[/tags]

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Photo: eek the cat

The other day I was trying to explain the emotional relationships people have social utilities and other read/write web applications (I’m trying so hard not to say Web 2.0 - Doh!). As I was explaining I realised that they are just like any other relationship in that we’re self-centred even it we pretend we’re not and that we go through the same kind of cycles.

Here are the seven stages I came up with:

1. Searching for The One

You know they’re out there. The perfect partner who will satisfy all your needs. Your current one is okay, but maybe you don’t like their friends. Or perhaps they’re just a bit immature and messy. Something is missing, you feel like you deserve more. You feel like The One for you is out there, somewhere.

Read the rest of this entry »

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I liked this and the sentiment. It’s a poster for the Biennial in Greece from Manetas.

(Via Thomas).

[tags]poster, internet[/tags]

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There are plenty of big announcements and coverage of Steve Jobs’s Macworld keynote. I’m happy to see the new AppleTV, movie downloads and rentals, and of course the MacBook Air.

But it was the the jiggling icons in the new iPhone home screen selection. When you are moving icons around and sorting them the icons jiggle in anticipation (or perhaps fear of being trashed).

Why does this frivolity matter? Well, the first thing for me is, of course, the playfulness of the interface. Die hard functionalists will probably hate it and find it an unnecessary waste of computing resources, but then so is any GUI.

Playful interfaces not only bring some pleasure to everyday tasks, they also encourage the user to explore and through exploring they learn the way the interface works. That’s what playing is all about and the good thing is it doesn’t feel like you are learning, it just feels intuitive or fun.

It also helps add personality to the interface and phones are extremely personal devices.

Lastly, why not? Everyone appreciates a pleasant physical environment - nice cutlery, a stylish lamp, a lovely pen, a favourite armchair. Most of those are necessary - a packing crate, an old door and a couple of piles of bricks functionally work as a desk set-up, but you wouldn’t want to work like that every day. We all spend an inordinate amount of hours on the computer or phone, it makes sense that it’s pleasant to use.

[tags]iphone, apple, macworld, keynote, interface, play, gui[/tags]

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Alexander Stojanovic makes an interesting comparison between the Nintendo DS and the OLPC. Having bought both for his five year-old daughter at Christmas he has been able to compare:

The Nintendo DS (NDS) is the clear winner as an interactive device and learning platform. It truly is a paradigm shift for UI/UX. Our daughter was able to figure out how to configure two DSs for PictoChat (via WiFi) and now constantly wants to “IM” pictures and text with me. It’s an eye-openning experience.

The OLPC is the utter disappointment though. Everything about it is sluggish, unresponsive, cryptic and just sub-optimal.

Like Alexander and as someone who works in both interaction design and educational futures I really want the OLPC project to be a great idea, but I’m pretty worried it isn’t.

The first objection is that really the world would be a much better place if every child had enough to eat, was healthy and happy quite apart from having a laptop.

The second is the potential environmental hazards of sending out so many laptops perhaps not all that environmentally friendly.

Finally, everything is in the execution. Nicholas Negroponte is keen to stress that the OLPC project is “an education project, not a laptop project” and that is, of course, highly laudable, but I’m worried that in the quest to make them so cheap, the user-experience might have been lost in the process.

Alexander Stojanovic’s post seems to be confirming these fears for me:

The OLPC delivers a very - how shall I put this - “academic” idea of what people (children) will want and like. The NDS was clearly tested and usability done on each aspect. The OLPC looks like all the decisions were hardcoded early on by a brain trust of “experts” without any thought of the actual experience of using, maintaining or enhancing the device.

Having created several interactive projects whose primary audience is children, I have experienced first-hand the need to test ideas on children. Looking through the “lens of the learner” is one of the first tenets of teaching and learning.

Engaging people is one of the first tenets of interaction design. Without that the rest doesn’t even get seen. Whilst I congratulate the OLPC team on their achievement I really hope they don’t forget those two principles.

[tags]OLPC, UI, Nintendo[/tags]

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