i-Design 09 Conference

The Conference

I attended my first conference yesterday. The i-Design 09 conference in London (pictures: here).

I really enjoyed it. It was at an excellent venue too, the old cinema at Westminster University (the first cinema in the UK). There were some really interesting speakers also. My favourite speaker was Bill Thompson. He was coherent and funny and made a lot of good points. I also thought Tim Milne was good too but that could have been because he was also cute (for an old bloke) ;-)

The first half of the conference was focussed around the web, content and so forth. There were publishing companies, marketing companies there and various others. The message given was that we need to embrace the technological revolution.

One of the points that Tim Milne made was that back in the day (way before my time) when Coronation Street was on terrestrial televison there was a much more connected and bonded feeling as you were part of something that everyone was doing at the same time. I disagreed with this point, as to me that is a form of control. You *have* to watch a programme at a prescribed time because if you miss it then you won't get the opportunity to do so. The invention of VHS probably revolutionised the creating a *you* focussed technological experience.

Other then that, the rest of the morning was interesting and pretty much on par with the technovision stuff at work in terms of ideas and concepts.

Another thing that struck me was that Bill Thompson mentioned integrating people and technology. He mentioned the development of a contact lens which displays information on your retina. During our HCI Project back in 2006 we came up with a similar idea (but for glasses instead of lenses) but this was parked after iterating through a UCD process based on user feedback.

The afternoon was pretty good too, mostly focussed around sound and vision. Much more artsy! I liked the 3D sound and the immersive technologies. It was very similar to the minority report stuff. Much more *you* focussed without the traditional screen interaction. We started looking into these in HCI back at uni so it was nice to see how it's progressing. There are some really interesting projects out there (links below).

One of the stories the guy was telling was really interesting. They work on 5D and have worked on film sets with the likes of Steven Spielberg. When Spielberg was making minority report he wanted them to use technology which was very possible in the near future. That fact made the penny drop with Minority report and made me realise it wasn't a H.G. Wells of the 00s ;)

Also another story I really liked was the opera house in Toronto which wanted to attract a younger audience. The Sony Centre provided funding and a complete *you* experience was created. It became a co-authored space which responded to people, changed lighting ambience based upon the clothing colour people were wearing and so forth. So the building repsonded to the people. I thought it was a very interesting idea (gave me my own idea of doing something like that with a combination of Artificial Intelligence).

Another interesting story was about the interactive cinema, where people decide the direction of the film. Although multiple choice, there's an element of creating a user centred experience.

The general message of the conference was about a User Centred experience and design approach and to fit the technology around the design and not the other way round. It also provided a different perspective on immersiveness and interface design that is much more interactive. Something we as a company are already thinking of doing (Wadud's idea #4 innovation portal ;-) those who have access will know what I mean).

One thing one of the panelists did say was that it's all well and good having a UCD approach but sometimes we don't want to interact, we just want to sit back and be shown a film and relax without to much thought and interactivity. I thought that too was an excellent point :)

Quotes
Here are some quotes I really liked from the Conference(I didn't get the names of who said them as I was typing on my i-Phone):

"New age of the Internet give as much as you take."

"No use resisting the drive to give away content on the Internet for free."

"A disconnected life is no life at all."

"Printing puts a mark on history i.e it is the roots, the time it was printed. Guttenberg should have invented the Internet!"

"Capitalism went digital. We moved to a digital economy we will live completely different lives - only thing Karl Marx got right" (although I disagree with that being the only thing Marx got right).

"The technologies that will be in the future are the ones that we have not yet imagined, no one imagined touch screens and mobile phones."

"Compartmentalising dooms towards failure."

"We are influenced by the relationships we have and search and discovery impacts that"

"The relationships we have shape our perceptions and inform the choices we make"

"Positive and brand associations are formed by positive interactive experiences."

"We spend out lived searching for people we can connect with and this is what enhances our experiences."


"Digital tech is at a stage where we can embed it into our lives and it becomes more about the you experience"


"Entertainment Weekly's video adverts are like putting a pacemaker in a corpse but it is genius because of the buzz created around it."

"Getting rid of the rectangular screen is a possibility for the future."

"Any interface should have a form that is related to experience."

"The child has to learn to use the computer the computer doesn't learn to use the child."



Links

Matterbox
Future of Sound
Show Studio
Cog App
Wet Design
Extra Version
Plugin Media (They're hiring for those interested).
Jason Bruges Studio
Vison Labz <-- One of my favourites. MOTH
Squid Soup <-- Another one of my favourites. 5D

Re-designing a Web Page

I am currently working on re-designing this website for a friend of Sean's.

My first observation of it was that there is no real structure to the home page. It seems to link off to different pages with no real 'web site'. Also it doesn't state what the purpose of the web page is. As well as that there are little links all very close together on the core part of the page.

Using Balsamiq I created a first draft design of the potential layout of the home page. Please have a look and let me know what you think and whether I can make any improvements.

Lifts in Radisson

The lifts in the Radisson are very poorly designed. They may appear to be cool because you pick what floor you want to go to from the outside and it indicates a designated lift for your floor. As a result you're a bit restricted.
I experienced this today, as a lady had selected her floor and the entered the lift, the doors had opened and had it been a conventional lift I could have hopped in. I hit my floor, and since the lift she was in hadn't moved, I thought that would also be my designated lift but no, it designated a different lift. So 2 people in 2 different lifts both about to move at the same time. What a green way of doing things!!

Testing blogpost via iPhone

This is a test

Can Twitter Lead to Crime?

On the way to work this morning, I was reading the metro and I came across an article about how twitter updates can increase crime rates. There was an incident where a guy had mentioned he was going on holiday for a week, which lead to his house being robbed. What are your thoughts on this? Is this a serious concern. I personally lock down things like twitter and facebook so only people I know can see my posts. Does this mean as a result, the full features of the tools are not being embellished?

Utilising WATiR to Test in an Agile Environment

Free talk happening in London on 30th June. Click here for more information and to register.

iRise

So for the past 2 weeks I've been working on a visualisation for a client using iRise. The visualisation is a mock up of functionality specified by the client.

iRise is much more sophisticated than Axure. It is possible to mock up applications as well as web pages. With iRise it is possible to use data sheets and manipulate data adding to the level of sophistication.

As well as that, it is possible to add comments to the visualisation when demonstrating it and associating the comments to the widgets.

There are many more advanatages to iRise which I won't outline here.

Some of the drawbacks are that it's a little bloated and if you're a technical minded person it is easy to fall into the trap of trying to do everything perfectly and technically correct.

Another drawback is that in order to view the simulation, iRise reader needs to be downloaded. Although it is possible to download iRise reader for free.

As I've only been using iRise for 2 weeks, I am still in the process of learning the full range of features.

Another tool I am looking into at the moment is Balsamiq. which focusses more on mocking up functionality than perfecting the UI. The UI is demonstrated through electronic representations of hand drawn elements. Can't wait to try it out :)