A notebook about design projects and provocations written by Raphael Grignani in California since 2005.
Posts Tagged ‘interaction’
Nokia Design In & Out Speaker Series – Nova/Chipchase
In a spirit of openness and education, In & Out Speaker Series invite designers, thinkers, experts, hobbyists, activists, etc. well people to engage in an exchange of thoughts and ideas with us. Us is Nokia Design Americas -a 20-people team based in Los Angeles doing advanced design with backgrounds in product, graphic, interaction, colour & material, motion design.
Nicolas Nova and Jan Chipchase were our first guests in our Topenga Canyon venue. Nicolas discussed tangible interfaces and some potential misconceptions drawn from user experience research, concepts. It’s absolutely not academic research but more “food for thoughts” for designers, like what I do for video game companies. This material is meant to trigger some insights and discussion about design problems/solutions and ideas.
Jan talked about how people do things ;-)
Tags: design, in&out, interaction, losangeles, Nokia, ux
The Whole Nine Yards
This is a recurring question I have every time I go to a public toilet. Why not having a smart plastic that test your urine for drug traces right on the spot instead of that stupid advertisement ? The ad reads “Say no to drugs”.
1) it would actually be useful by “informally” reminding people of their actions/status,
2) the results don’t need to be 100% accurate -no legal issue there
3) no privacy issue either -urinoirs are separated, the body blocks most of it and one ususally tends not to look at the neighbor’s.
Okay, drugs might not be the best example since traces remains in the body weeks after consumption.
The problem remains the same, why don’t designers (me included) go/push for the whole nine yards when it is so obvious and useful ?
Tags: concept, design, infrastructure, interaction, public
Tutorial
2D barcodes are all the rage in Japan, and they have been for a couple of years; yet a large proportion of potential users do not know how to use the service. While walking around Shimo-Kitazawa, I have noticed the poster below. I like how elegantly the tutorial has been integrated to the ad. Technology company/engineers/designers often neglect to teach users how to interact with their new killer product.
Similarly mobile phones have been widely available for 10+ years, and S60 OS for 5 years or so, yet the Smartphone 360 study shows that people fall into the 20/80 pattern. In order to improve the user experience (and ARPU), Nokia is taking a similar approach than the Japanese advertisers. The Nokia N80 is introducing a Tutorial application which is designed as an interactive guide to help the user familiarize himself with his new phone/applications. Unlike this ad, the application is introduced to the user IMHO at the wrong time – during the first startup; and then buried into Applications>Tools>Tutorial.
Introducing or bringing up to “the surface” at the right time for the user such application or feature is one of unsolved challenge for interaction designers. Since most attempts happened to be very disruptive and annoying (Microsoft/Apple), it may just be impossible.
Tags: advertisement, barcode, design, interaction, mobilephones, Nokia, S60, startup, tokyo, tutorial