Archive for January, 2008
Brief: So Much Fun @ The Internet
From week #3 we will also start a series of presentations under the title “So Much Fun @ The Internet” in which you guys will be presenting to class a specific topic in online culture, it can be an interesting website, a phenomenon, an online game you’re playing, your dating site, your grandma’s blog or whatever. Each such presentation will take 15 mins + 5 mins for Q&A. These presentations will be obviously accompanied by a post on our blog, which will include the key ideas, some links and the opportunity to all of us to continue the discussion after class in the comments column.
In the coming week, please send me the topics for your presentations, so we I might help you with your research and give you some tips. The order of presentations would be:
Feb 8th - Alec Timerman
Feb 15th - Alexandra Zsigmond
Feb 22nd - Anuranjan Pegu
Feb 29th - Ariel Lapidus
March 7th - Justin Jones
March 14th - Khurram Bajwa
March 28th -Lady Tanmantiong
March 28th - Lan
April 4th - Leonie
April 11th - Liam Thidemann
April 18th - Yoko Ishibashi
Brief#2: Local Practice
Due: Week#3 Feb 8th.
Final presentation due: March 3rd
For your second assignment you will be designing a website for a local business in your neighborhood. We will be taking this one step at a time so no need to feel too intimidated at this point. The first step will be as follows:
- Choose the your client (you would miss the days of getting the chance to choose your clients…)
- The clients have to have their business located not more than 8 blocks away from your home.
- The client must be an independent business (no Macdonald’s or Urban Outfitters allowed).
- The client must not have an existing website or has one which is bad enough that you can make a case for it being the same as not having one at all (or worse).
- If you’re not sure if your choice is Kosher, email me…
- Make a research on the client. What is their product/service? What is their client base? What is special about them? How do they present themselves? Do they have a distinct graphic identity? How do they run their business? How many workers? Is it a family owned/run business? Why did you choose this business?
- Make a Google Map of your neighborhood and mark your apartment location and your client’s business location. Embed it in a blog post by copying the embed tag from Google Maps and pasting it in a post while in ‘code’ mode (rather than the default ‘visual’).
- Make a concept post to be presented in class through a post with multiple items on the blog. The Concept post can include images, things you collected, ideas, sounds, videos, links, quotes, references and whatever you might be able to collect and present to the class to tell us exactly why you chose what you chose and what is it about it that you would want to communicate in this process.
Interface- the good, the bad, the ugly
Interface, as I like to understand, is something that aids the interaction between two bodies/forces and also the level of interaction between them. At the human level, it is what helps people to do tasks- simple or complicated.
In the above sense, I would say the most well designed non-digital interface would be the motorcycle because every human body part has a role to play while riding it and if the rider does one thing wrong, it can be fatal. The interaction level between the rider and bike is at almost 100%. On the flip-side, one of the other interfaces I can think of is the automatic-gear car- its the car for dummies which has saved people a lot of hard work in city traffic by minimizing the amount of feedback that the driver needs to put in!
Coming to digital interfaces, I will stick with automobiles (and a bit of phone/navigational technology) and say that the car/bike GPS navigation system is revolutionary. It allows people to locate themselves on the map, find directions when lost and even find places to eat/shop/relax in places they have never been to! All within seconds. The input and output in this interface is well balanced and you have to appreciate how it functions between a human user, a satellite and several other devices for extra inputs. And yeah, most of these systems don’t lose signals like cellphone unless the battery dies! 
One of the worst interfaces we have is possibly the bureaucracy but it is probably a necessary evil because everywhere that it exists, it is the backbone of that place maintaining a complex flow of information and keeping it all together- we all hate it but if you really think about it, you cannot really do without. I know- I tried and tried and tried.
Liam’s interfaces
http://www.louisefili.com/flash.html
I don’t know how to take a screenshot, so the link is above. The internet is so crowded with information that a well designed, clean screen is like a breath of fresh air.
This image is of my home. I thought this was an interesting way to show that good interface can be in the eye of the beholder. Even though the doors are old and the stoop is painted with gray, peeling paint, I love it.
Press one…
The Trap
Interfaces
I was drawn to this all-in-one remote, phone, pda, gps gadget based primarily on the fact that it incorporates interface elements from all of the devices it combines without homogenizing them all into a single interface while maintaining apparent usability.
The radio-controlled lawn mower caught my attention because hey, who wouldn’t want a radio-controlled lawn mower?
The amazing brain
Perhaps the human brain is the ultimate interface, mediating the space between the physical world and our bodies? Infinitely sensitive to changes in both the environment and our bodies, gaining or losing neural connections depending on input, allowing us to manipulate the world but being manipulated or changed by those actions in turn.
Digital Interface: Microsoft Surface
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/
Check out the videos on this link. A very cool interface from Microsoft, all based on touch.
Digital Interface: Bumptop
A creative reenvisioning of the traditional computer desktop interface. I am particularly drawn to digital interfaces that mimic or make use of our bodily gestures and movements - thus making the way we interact with digital tools more similar to how we interact with and manipulate objects (such as paper, pens, etc) in the physical world.
PS: Check out the guy’s crazy bling bling ring in the opening sequence.
