By Jon Kolko - February 9, 2010
While reflecting on the IxDA 2010 conference, I’m trying on various lenses of evaluation, and coming to a conclusion that the profession of Interaction Design is reaching an interesting and critical divide. The divide seems to break down around two forces of gravity, loosely identified as:
A. Design, as a discipline. A locus of study, similar to science or art in breadth and depth, and focused on criticism, behavioral change, craft, empathy, humanism, and reflection.
B. UX, as a form of applied design in the context of marketing, and focused on consumption, speed, innovation, and often, apparently, compromise.
By Tim Leberecht - February 7, 2010
John Hagel, one of my favorite business thinkers, has written a great post on how the "big shift" (from a world "where stocks of knowledge and short-lived transactions are the key to success" to a world "where participation in many, diverse flows of knowledge and long-term, trust-based relationships determine success") puts shy people – like him, as he admits – at a significant disadvantage.
By Eric Wicks - February 3, 2010
Planning clearly-marked urban biking systems can help us educate car drivers and decrease cycling accidents.
If you ride a bike and live in Texas like I do, you’re screwed. Three of the largest cities in the country are in the Lone Star state, and they are all among the worst to bike in. But in fact, only one or two of the biggest urban areas in the country are considered acceptable for biking by the most basic standards. During the life cycle of these cities from small town to metropolis, planners had to answer the question of how to accommodate the transportation needs of the growing population. Unfortunately, those boom periods coincided with the rise of the automobile and the oil industries, not the urban biking surge we’re now experiencing. As a result, planners are now faced with the task of retrofitting new concepts and ideas to existing infrastructure.
By Adam Richardson - February 3, 2010
In my earlier post on Apple as the Zeitgeist company, Monika makes an interesting observation in her comment:
By Adam Richardson - February 3, 2010
The notion of a casual computer (as my colleague Mark Rolston described the iPad to the Wall Street Journal) is actually not a new one. Companies of all shapes and sizes have been trying to figure it out for quite a long time (including Steve Jobs and Apple...since 1983).
By frog Marketing Team - February 2, 2010
This week's collection of remarkable marketing links, curated by the frog marketing team.
Imagining Augmented Reality : an animation by Keiichi Matsuda
Visa Uses 3D Video in Grand Central Terminal
By Eleanor Davies - February 1, 2010
Drones are launched in the iPad's shadow.
The onslaught of Apple reviews this week is a curious thing. There is no escaping the scathing attacks and defensive support of the iPad – an internet connected portable media device. This, in a week which announces the launch of a $1 billion venture to develop pilot-less Black Hawk helicopters. Preceded with little hype, I suspect it will attract relatively little attention.
By Tim Leberecht - January 31, 2010
Apple and Obama after Hype and Hope
Some languages are more precise than others. German's word for disappointment, “Enttäuschung,” for example, literally translates as “disillusion” and thus implies that the prerequisite of any disappointment is excessive (and false!) expectation. As if that needed any further evidence, Apple’s iPad presentation and President Obama’s first State of the Union address last Wednesday marked the preliminary culmination of an obvious trend: disappointment as a widespread sentiment and cultural subtext at the dawn of this young decade. Both Apple and Obama are among the most powerful brands of our time and occupy that vexing space between hype and hope in the public mind. Both have zealous fans and followers, and enjoy an almost religious admiration. And both have now suffered a very public deflation, a humiliating erosion of their once unflappable appeal of invincibility, a painful rejection of love.
By Robert Fabricant - January 29, 2010
Annalee Newitz at i09 has published my favorite piece on the iPad so far, dubbing it "Crap Futurism":
"The iPad embodies, as much as possible, the mythical convergence device that technophiles have been craving for almost two decades...The iPad appeals to a very deep and longlived fantasy in the consumer electronics world: A device that does it all. At least, if all you want to do is consume media...The iPad takes us back to the 1980s, or maybe even the 1950s. It's likely to be a device that changes our future, but what that means is we're facing a tomorrow where true innovation is sidelined by a device that represents a convergence of old media and shopping."
By Jason Severs - January 28, 2010
Why we have a responsibility to choose intentionally, and move from consumerism to userism.
