Designers of digital technology products no longer regard their job as designing a physical object—beautiful or utilitarian—but as designing our interactions with it. In Designing Interactions, Bill Moggridge, designer of the first laptop computer (the GRiD Compass, 1981) and a founder of the design firm IDEO, tells us stories from an industry insider’s viewpoint, tracing the evolution of ideas from inspiration to outcome.
Moggridge and his interviewees discuss why a personal computers have windows in desktops, what made Palm’s handheld organizers so successful, what turns a game into a hobby, why Google is the search engine of choice, and why 30 million people in Japan choose the i-mode service for their cell phones. And Moggridge tells the story of his own design process and explains the focus on people and prototypes that has been successful at IDEO—how the needs and desires of people can inspire innovative designs and how prototyping methods are evolving for the design of digital technology.
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
Digital Technology has changed the way we interact with everything from the games we play to the tools we use at work.
William (Bill) Moggridge
William (Bill) Moggridge,
a British industrial designer, is co-founder of the Silicon Valley-based design firm IDEO. He helped design what was arguably the first laptop computer, the GRiD Compass. He advocated user-centered design process in product development cycles and also worked towards popularizing interaction design as a mainstream discipline.
Moggridge is also the author of Designing Interactions, published in October 2006. ISBN 0262134748
He has also been involved in design education in the United Kingdom and the United States; he has taught at the Royal College of Art, the London Business School and Stanford University.
History
The term interaction design was first proposed by Bill Moggridge and Bill Verplank in the late 1980s. To Verplank, it was an adaptation of the computer science term user interface design to the industrial design profession [1]. To Moggridge, it was an improvement over soft-face, which he had coined in 1984 to refer to the application of industrial design to products containing software (Moggridge 2006).
In 1989, Gillian Crampton-Smith established an interaction design MA at the Royal College of Art in London (originally entitled "computer-related design" and now known as "design interactions"). In 2001, she helped found the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, a small institute in Northern Italy dedicated solely to interaction design. Today, interaction design is taught in many schools worldwide.
Sunday, 4 November 2007
Monday, 29 October 2007
DIY Sensor Lovers: New Bluetooth, Ethernet, DMX Arduinos
If you’re planning to build a creative new instrument or interface for music, and you don’t already have the open source Arduino project on your watch list, you should put it there. Chris O’Shea at Pixelsumo brings some great new goodies for Arduino lovers via the Italian project site / tutorial site / shop Tinke
OSC- MIDI - Wii - Kyma on Mac
Open Sound Control (OSC), an open protocol that can be used in place of MIDI, isn’t the right tool for everything. Hooking up a 4-octave keyboard with some knobs, for instance, makes a whole lot more sense in MIDI, and MIDI is widely supported. But I like OSC’s open-ended message structure for devices like the Nintendo Wii
On Windows, the dominant Wii tool GlovePIE already supports OSC via scripts. On Mac, several of you pointed us to OSCulator, a tool that lets you turn input from the Wii into OSC messages (Max/MSP, Flash, Processing, Reaktor, Traktor, and others support OSC), and route MIDI to programs that don’t support OSC (everything else).
Just what might you use this for? Matrixsynth beats me to a video demonstrating the Wii as controller for the advanced synthesis tool Kyma (software) / Capybara (DSP hardware):
Hackable, Playable LED/Pad Music Interface
The Monome is a new music interface with LED-backlit pads, a USB interface that transmits OSC and MIDI data to a computer, and — here’s the unusual part — open source, hackable firmware and software interface. Touch the pads, and you can use this as a step-sequencer and remix tool (as in the example), but the real philosophy here is being able to do whatever you want, so think of the example video as just a start.
New Instrument Design
"....People have been coming up with new ways to improve musical instruments for just about forever, but what interests me personally are the new ideas that break entirely with mechanical interfaces in favor of high-tech sensor interfaces, and particularly ones that can produce–or at least attempt to attain–finely nuanced musical subtlety...."
Yamaha to Ship Toshio Iwai’s Tenori-On
Related: alternative controllers, alternative interfaces, futuristic, hardware, interactive, LEDs, monome, networked, open source, physical computing, previews, Sampling, Yamaha & more
In June 2005, we first saw the Tenori-On, a futuristic music-making device covered in a grid of interactive, lit buttons, designed by the talented interactive artist Toshio Iwai as a prototype for Yamaha. Last week, Yamaha revealed some details about plans to make Iwai’s experimental device into a shipping product. (I missed this in preparations to fly off to Oahu.)
Basic specs: 16×16 grid of buttons, MIDI out, sequencing, and perhaps most surprising, built-in sampling and Motif sound capabilities with internal speakers (plus line-out, naturally). (Notably missing: any mention of network capabilities, which was arguably the most compelling part of the prototype. MIDI out would be notably limited in this respect. Perhaps these features will resurface.)
Anticipated price: £500.
Availability: Unknown, but soon — UK launch first, evidently.
Tenori-On specs [Future Music blog]
Hands-on Tenori-On video [Sonic State]
Tenori-On official site, Toshio Iwai Tenori-On blog, neither of which have been updated as I write this
Much like a car maker releasing a concept car as a factory model, it’s exciting to see this happen. Now there’s only one problem: a lot has happened since June 2005, and light-up buttons you can turn on and off aren’t exactly inaccessible technology. Here’s a quick review of what’s been developing in the world beyond Yamaha since 2005:
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
music table
author(s):
:Rodney Berry, Masami Suzuki, Naoto Hikawa, Mao Makino:
affiliation:
: Advanced Telecomminication Research Institute, Media Information Science
publication:
The Augmented Composer Project: The Music Table [PDF]
website: http://www.mis.atr.co.jp/~mao/ac/about_e.html
description:
The Music Table is an experimental composing system that provides a tactile and visual representation of music that can be easily manipulated to make new musical patterns. It lets people experience their own music as patterns in musical space. Patterns of cards are arranged on a tabletop to become musical phrases. Completed phrases are stored on other cards and combined as multi-layered patterns. Animated characters provide fun visual feedback as you edit and arrange phrases, making abstract musical structures visible and tangible.
Electronic music instrument
The reactable, is a multi-user electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical objects on a luminous table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.
This instrument is being developed by a team of digital luthiers (Sergi Jordà, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger and Marcos Alonso), at the Music Technology Group within the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spa
Monday, 27 August 2007
Dr William Dobelle
One day it may be possible to link the brain to video out socket from the TV
BBC Web Infomation
Best of Sight Village
BBC Web Infomation
The Tactile Tablet has been developed by the Royal College for the Blind. It provides an interactive learning experience by combining tactile pictures with educational software and gives audio output when different parts of the tablet are touched.
Internet to blind
BBC 2005 Open Internet
Accessing the web can be hard for the visually impaired
A three-year project to improve blind access to the internet has started at Queen's University in Belfast.
Researchers at the university are working to devise ways to guide the blind and visually impaired through the web, as part of the Enabled initiative...
Visually impaired
Visually impaired people are now increasingly able to join in the video gaming fun thanks to an ever-expanding range of audio games.
"Loads of blind people have computers but not many of them know about audio games" By Richard van Tol
Friday, 27 April 2007
Data visualisation
Author(s):
Felix Heinen
Institution:
University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg
Year:
2007
---------------------------------
Project Description:
For his final year project in information design, Felix Heinen created an amazing set of visualizations of different aspects of a social network. Two big (200 x 90 cm - 80 x 36 inches) posters show the variety and attitudes of members from an internet community like MySpace.
On the first poster you can see the functions used, as well as additional information, such as age, educational background, family status, gender and how often they are logged in. In a glimpse, a view into the key demographic data available for every member's profile.
The second poster gives you an overview of the geographic location of all members, based on a world map. The aim was to provide the management team with a visualization tool that would allow a better understanding of the community members, rather than a just a simple scan of their database. Felix has also developed a flash based interactive tool that allows users to navigate through all the collected data.
Thursday, 26 April 2007
PLAY.contexts
PLAY.contexts
PLAY.orchestra is the result of a collaboration between Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments, South Bank Centre Education and the Philharmonia Orchestra. The instrument graphics were created by pupils from 6 Lambeth primary schools, who are working with the Orchestra on the MusicScape project.
PLAY.orchestra
56 plastic cubes and 3 Hotspots are laid out on a full size orchestra stage, each cube containing a light and speaker.
Sit down on the cube or stand in the hotspot to turn on that instrument and bring 58 friends to hear the full piece.
Muio Interface
The muio interface is a modular system for sensing and controlling the Real World, from programmes such as Pure Data, MAX/MSP, SuperCollider, Processing or something you have written yourself
There are several interface controllers around now - some others are even OpenSource. They all have their pros and cons. However.
# The muio needs NO PROGRAMMING.
# The muio needs only 2 readily available chips to get started.
The muio interface is an I2C to USB hardware device, based on USBIO from Delcom Engineering. I2C is a standard protocol that is popular within robotics. There are several ready made chips and circuit boards that are i2C compliant. These can be ready connected to the muio and are controllable once you know the operation codes for that particular device.
Installation Work
Camille Utterback
External Measures
External Measures, 2003 is the third piece in a series of interactive installations which hinge the parameters of dynamic compositions to human motion in the gallery space. This piece creates a hypnotic tension between presence and absence, mark making and erasing, human gesture and algorithmic drawing.
Wednesday, 7 March 2007
Paul Farrington Work
Paul Farrington workshop Music and sound in Flash Depeche Mode sound toy Audio for video and movies Music and sound in movies and videos Sound in video software (including soundtrack software) Location sound: creative strategies and technology tips Interview: Simon Fisher Turner, movie soundtrack composer Music for low-budget movies and videos Sound design for movies Interview: Kant Pan, Academy Award nominee Synching sound to video Surround sound creative strategies and technology choices Abbey Road surround sound tips VJing: D-Fuse interview Useful URLs Glossary Index CD-Rom contents Software: Ableton Live v.5.03 Propellerhead Reason v3.04 Propellerhead ReCycle Koan Pro Koan X Koan Album Player miniMIXA (various versions) Audio/Media Content: 60MB M-Audio loops and samples Studio Tonne soundtoys (with samples): Bip Hop; CircleSound; DMR Sequencer; Unit OS9 Tim Didymus generative music compositions Tim Cole generative music compositions
Bibliographic & ordering Information
Paperback, 176 pages, publication date: JUN-2006
ISBN-13: 978-0-240-80832-1
ISBN-10: 0-240-80832-0
Imprint: FOCAL PRESS
>>Solar System<<
Hiro Yamagata's Web Site
"The reflection of the laser beams bouncing off the cubes creates the illusion of a non-material structure between the cubes," Yamagata notes. "In this way, we see the lights we have never seen before, and the visual effects appear miraculously- physical to us."
>>FUJIKI Jun<<
Award Winning Work
Web Site
This work uses an interactive trick picture as an example of something that “is possible to envision in the human mind, even though impossible in the real world”
>>Maurice Benayoun<<
Emotional Traffic
Maurice's Web Site
Work Format
Typhography
Playing instruments is the common lot of music.
>>Reactable Music<<
The reacTable
ReacTable's Web Site
Work Format
computer science, Music Creation, Playable
is an electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop Tangible User Interface that has been developed within the Music Technology Group at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain
>>Preliminary Research<<
Paul Farrington’s lecture was my inspiration, the style of his work are a unique designed, a top designer also, a sound artist, a sound creation and a graphic is his best ambitions. after i have seen his work I became more interested in a sound toy and want to experimenting and explore in it the same area as his.
Sound use in my Biennial interactive project last year was self-generated. I have some ability in creat a music using a computer technology such as soundEdit, Reason, GarageBand, ProTool Studio, and from that I would like to combine my music skill and interactive arts in together to created something new!
There are a few different area that I am going to look into which are interactive graphic Art, sound Creation, Pixel/Vector Art, and other digital Arts,
The reason of my research is because I have felt that my skills are heading into those areas of work and it’s the area that I’ve enjoyed in experimenting, I want my creation to be fun to interact and I want to gain a skills as much as I could to achieved the best from it!
>>PiXel Art<<
Work Format
Pixel Art, Computer Game Graphic
Self Rating(5/10)
I became really interested in finding out how to and would like to experiment in Pixel art. I knew that is not easy but Im going to take a step further, do some more research on it! and trying out something new!
>>GotoAndPlay(1)<<
LightForce's Web Site
Work Format
Flash Game
Self Rating(5/10)
Author
Nick Kouvaris, aka LightForce
Game notes
Click on grid to mark your start position then click mouse to move inside the grid.Draw a path moving horizontally and vertically that passes through each open square.
Tuesday, 6 March 2007
>>Click Can Cook Final v.1.00<<
Work Format
Interactive, Sound, Animation, web technology, Photography, illustration
Self Rating(6/10)
Description
This is intended to be a fun way to show how easy it can be to prepare and cook healthy stir-fried food. Just click on a recipe and follow the instructions to prepare a virtual meal. Use the mouse cursor to click on the ingredients required and watch them go into the wok. When you have finished click on the wok handle and a picture of what have learned to make will be displayed.
>>Day in a life of<<
Work Format
Flash Interactive, Sound, Animation, web technology, Photography, illustration
Self Rating(6/10)
Take it from the first idea as a group, i have develop the idea into my own interested which I created An interactive kitchen visualisation, which allows user to interact, based in a kitchen area where all necessary ingredients, meat, sauces and vegetable are given to Click-Can-Cook and experience through out my working day (that's likely to be main part of my typical day).
>>Day in a life<<
Click Can Cook Interactive
Work Format
Flash Interactive, Sound, Animation, web technology, Photography
Derick's Blog Web SiteRating (not sure)
First approach to this brief was to create an interactive website that shows the consequences of our everyday actions, in an informative and engaging manner.
>>Studio Tonne<<
Studio Tonne
Work Format
Flash Interactive, Sound, Animation, Music Creations, web technology
Tonne's Web SiteRating (10/10)
Paul Farrington is a great interactive designer.His work was amazing, such a talentive guy and the way his developing the idea was really creative, His skecth book was well presented fully of a good visual concept.
It's was the best lecture ever!
