Posts Filed Under losangeles
Nokia Design In&Out Speaker Series – Simsarian/Fulton-Suri
A couple weeks ago, we had the pleasure to listen to Jane Fulton-Suri (Human Factors) and Kristian Simsarian (Software Experiences) from Ideo as part of our Nokia Design In&Out Speaker Series.
Kristian discussed the challenges of communicating and “selling” a design vision while Jane talked about Thoughtless Acts and 5 related thoughts.
1) Informed Intuition – not just the process but intuitive people with point of view.
2) Human Centeredness – not just consumers but other people within the business ecology.
3) Sustainability – not just materials and processes but also behaviors and meanings.
4) Cultural context – not just the prevailing tradition but embracing other influences.
5) Co-creativity – not just consumers of design but participants in creating it.
Time to act.
Filed Under: design, ideo, in&out, losangeles, Nokia
The waiting is the hardest part
The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part
(Tom Petty, The Waiting)
… Days later (12/15/2006)
The wait has been long enough!
I have always been fascinated by the “power” of the few milliseconds it takes between the key press and onscreen reaction. They are usually inconsequential, but every so often they are the most frustrating thing in the world like when you are expecting something really important ( e.g. email, sms, phone call) or have to make a time-critical decision (e.g. selling stocks, calling for an emergency, navigating). This unnecessary stress is mostly due bad design, and falls into two categories. The first one is poor architecture and system design which make the device slow and unresponsive. The second is clueless UI design e.g. you get an uninformative clue “1 new message” which forces you to stop your activity and react to know the sender and topic. I will get back to clueless design in another post.
What truly puzzle me is that these few milliseconds are a legacy “feature” since electronic devices have been invented. No one has managed to get it right, and it’s actually getting worse and worse.
What scares me is that my waiting tolerance is now of a “few” milliseconds… How’s yours?
Filed Under: behaviour, losangeles, mobilephones, time, ui
Duality
I have been living in Los Angeles for 1 year already.
My life is so radically different that Helsinki and Paris feel an eternity away; yet everytime I drive on PCH, Wilshire bvld, or downtown; I am reminded I have been here 5 minutes. The excitement of novelty is present at every crossing yet I feel so at home in L.A.
Against all odds, this city is so familiar, and like every familiar things, it feels good. It make me feel good. It makes me happy. Being aware of this reality, I keep wondering how long can it last ? How many months/years in L.A. do I have in me before spoiling this sensation ? Bets are open !
Filed Under: familiarity, life, losangeles
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 
Filed Under: design, in&out, interaction, losangeles, Nokia, ux
The not-so-visible influence of Education
Earlier this year, Sir Ken Robinson gave an interesting talk at TED about education and creativity. His thesis is simple: creativity is as important as literacy, yet all modern education systems are educating kids out of creativity by focusing on their heads, and slightly to one side, with Sciences/Literature and neglecting the Arts especially drama and dance.
Earlier this month, I went to a KCRW concert at the California Plaza in Downtown Los Angeles. For those that are not familiar with the place, it’s just a plaza with a fountain and a few shops. Anyway, I noticed that half of the space, and all of the VIP, was covered with chairs. Why is that? It is an ad-hoc music performance; people should be able to dance? No? Then I realised that most of our infrastructure is designed, consciously or not, to inhibit people to express themselves with their body. Think about for a second. Chairs should be there to allow people to rest, not to prohibit them to dance. Thankfully, people’s primitive instincts take over after some time, one stands up and starts dancing while the others are like @%#^$@^, but then 2, 3, 4, 10, etc follow. When enough people are dancing, they start to rearrange the space by pushing the chairs around. We have all witness this. We all know this.
This one obvious example and I am sure they are many others, but it made me realised how far my/our education reaches. What would the world look like if the Arts were the primary focus of education?
Filed Under: creativity, education, infrastructure, losangeles
Meeting Points
How to solve the “let’s meet at…” and “hey, where are you?”
Filed Under: infrastructure, location, losangeles, navigation, tokyo
In Loving Memory Of…
It is the second time in two days that I come across epitaphs (stickers) on the back window of SUVs – this one reads “In Loving Memory of Jennifer Dikes 79-05″. On my side of the world, roadside memorials are fairly common but this execution is new to me.
Grief and remembrance are essential for many people/cultures; and legions of artifacts already exist to accommodate these needs, yet the world seems to be eager and able to accommodate new ones.
Jan Chipchase has already touched on how people use their phone as personal [ludic] shrines, thus it is not too much of a leap if such personal commemorations will soon appear on mobile phones. While driving being this truck I was wondering if it would digital (e.g. an icon pushed/pull by Bluetooth/Wifi, Digidress, etc.) or physical (e.g. full cover, sticker, etc.). Although it might be creepy, I am leaning towards physical commemoration like this (VERY OFFENSIVE) 9/11 cover I bought in Thailand in December 2001 – it’s just more effective.
Filed Under: behaviour, communication, losangeles, mobilephones, shrine
Towards a solution
I just came back from DUX2005 in San Francisco; and frankly it was frustrating and disappointing. Without going into specifics, I realized that it is vital for me and the company I work for to share and discuss some of our findings, processes, and concerns with the mobile UX/UI industry.
Until now, I felt my contribution was not necessary since this guy, this one and this other one were already doing a stunning job. DUX2005 proved me wrong. Let’s see if another voice will make a difference.
Filed Under: design, losangeles, Nokia, ux
Appearances
After 5 years in Finland, I am pretty used to choose products based on brands, packaging and common consensus. Today was my first trip to the supermarket in LA, and amongst other things, I had to buy laundry detergent. This is the selection that was offered to me. All these bright colours, tacky slogans e.g. wash whiter than white, whiten the white and brighten colours, etc made me really really suspicious.
Being a designer (strikes the pose), most of my clothes are black; and I am quite concerned with fading colours. After a few minutes it was obvious all these products do wash very well, but do they convey respect of colours, softness, eco-friendly? I ended up buying a white/blue detergent. I have no idea if it is the best one, but at least I trust the product enough just because of its packaging. Form over function.
Filed Under: branding, design, losangeles, shopping