Words of wisdom

In reference to 'feature creep' in an ecosystem of open platforms.

"It is easier for a technical person to add the things they want, than it is for a non technical person to remove the things they don't need"

Wayne Minton -  6th May 2011

Desperately seeking innovation

One of my pet peeves at the moment is how the word 'innovation' is being thrown around. It is not uncommon to be involved in design discussions where people say 'How can we innovate here?' or 'We can be more innovative than that'. People are so wrapped up in seeking innovation on every level that they do not really know what it is or why they are seeking it. They only know that everyone is seeking it so it must be a good thing.

As far as I understand the word innovation comes from the latin innovare which means to renew or change. Now lets put this in the context of user centred interaction design. A part of good interaction design is about creating experiences in the digital world that users can easily identify, understand and therefore interact with. A strange result of this is that product manufacturers often evaluate competing products, systems and services and copy the best parts of their interaction design (or steal with pride). This has seen many functions becoming similar (if not identical) across products and platforms. Flicking a list on the iphone is the same a flicking it on an android device, withdrawing money from a Barclays Bank cash machine is similar to withdrawing from HSBC's. Purchasing a book on Amazon is similar to purchasing a DVD on play.com.

From a user perspective this is actually a positive thing. It means that a user can move between different digital experiences and instantly know how to interact as it is similar to something they have experienced before. So lets get back to the meaning of innovation....

Oh fuck it.....I can't be bothered to finish off this intelligent and slightly dubious argument. Just stop throwing the word innovation around. If you want to renew or change on every level you basically want to start at the beginning and reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it is just better to leave a few things alone.

The battle for the living room

 

The next media war is underway with big players getting involved. That war is for your living room experience. Now many have heard of apple TV and Google TV, but here comes an interesting offer for consumers in the UK. Feeling squeezed by the big boys TV channels in the UK have partnered together in an effort to go head to head with Silicon Valley on British soil. The new collaboration is called YouView and shows promise in hailing a bright future for the living room experience of UK residents. Knowing how defensive British people are of their castles and their small patches of grass, I predict that this venture could be a thorn in the side of the Silicon Valley giants. Although regarded as friendly people, Brits are very private folk. Not everyone gets invited into a British home. You have to have built a long standing relationship based on trust. This alone may see a venture backed by the BBC, ITV, BT and Channel 4 being graciously invited in for tea and biscuits, whilst Jobs and gang are politely kept at the doorstep. 

If you would like to read more and check out the video that wouldn't embed into this blog post go to www.youview.com

Apps without borders

Previously on this blog I have spoken about a diverging experience, basically a person owning many different devices for different purposes. Now what is interesting in this experience is the role of applications and app stores. Obviously hardware manufacturers want to 'tie' consumers into their brand so you buy your smart phone, TV, laptop and tablet from the same company. Now there are some extreme fan boys out there that will buy anything branded with a big piece of fruit, or equally a slighty chubby green robot, but not all people work that way and buy into the religion(brand). Many people buy on a per product basis, choosing each product for its individual strengths rather than how it will connect and interact with their other products. Now this will change. Regular consumers will eventually get more savvy, catch up with the fan boys and buy systems of products. However we will experience a period of consumers owning multiple devices from different manufacturers running different platforms (I think we are in that period now). So from an app perspective how does that affect the consumer? Well currently it means paying for applications twice (or three, four... times). From an app development perspective you may think 'yeah! sell the same app to them several times'. However from a consumer perspective isn't this slightly annoying. If you have an android phone, an ipad and a windows netbook you have to buy an application 3 times. I am hoping in the future to see new ways for software developers to offer across platform app bundles so there is one less barrier to choosing the product you want rather than the religion you have to pray to.  

One mans trash is another mans treasure (or womans of course....don't want to be sexist)

Recently whilst shopping for some 'bins' I came across these amazing products. These are waste paper baskets made out of waste paper (intriguing asian newspapers to be a little more specific). Who ever came up with this idea was a genius. Cool items made out of cheap/free waste material, sold back to people who have a guilty conscience about killing the planet. Although they were nearly double the price of their plastic equivalent, i just felt compelled to buy them. Another brilliance to this product is that when their lifecycle is over, i can just unravel them and place them in the paper recycling bin.


so what did i use these intriguing products for?.....sorting my recycling :)

Small green interactions

My girlfriend is a environmentalist and has recently finished a masters in environmental management. Recently i have been wondering what i can learn from her expertise and bring into my own profession of interaction design. The environment and interaction design instantly brings to mind a quote by a guy from Cooper (if only i could remember the guys name) at business to buttons in malmö 2 years ago.

"Just remember, while you are fiddling around with the details of your latest widget design. The earth is burning"

There is a broad scope for interaction design within the context of environmental issues. My thoughts have clutched hold of the idea of 'Small Green Interactions' within products and how the sum of millions of these interactions all over the world could impact the environment. Lets take a hypothetical example, i know mobile phones....let's go for that. Let's take the example of sending an SMS.

So, I am typing a message to my friend on my mobile phone. It takes me about 3 minutes to type the message. During the message the word prediction was often wrong, i made mistakes because the keys were too small for my thumbs and sometimes punctuation marks were never where i expected to find them.

Then extremely talented text input specialists come along (probably Sofia Broström and Anna Jacobsson at Sony Ericsson) and design the perfect typing solution. When using it the same message takes only 2 minutes to type. Now i am a happy user because my messages are quicker to type (one third quicker), send to my friends and i don't make many mistakes. Now here is a interesting question.....am I now a greener user?

Everything on a portable device relies on its battery which is charged regularly. All of these devices have a mode for saving power. They switch to this mode when they are not being used. Now with the new interaction design mentioned above the device would go into power saving mode a whole minute before the other solution. Now this may not sound like much but consider it on a worldwide scale. The USA alone sent 1 trillion(i don't even know how many zeros that is) text messages in 2008.......How much electrical power does that equal???

Now imagine other tiny interactions that could be made slightly more efficient and collectively save energy. Now imagine a polar beer running around happy on his iceberg.

Pixelmania

Absolutely brilliant......This filled me with a strange nostalgia that made me crave the classics, so i googled 'atari'. Surprisingly enough came to atari.com, where i have been wasting a good portion of my time playing asteroids :)