ThoughtLines

The Democracy of Systems Design

seth — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:44:05 +0000

If Apple had the option, would they replace their store employees with programmable drones, flash-baked with spunk, knowledge, and an insatiable desire to help patrons find the ideal Apple product(s) for them? Perhaps they would succumb to the over-hyped controllability and precision afforded by robotic employees.

This article was published on Johnny Holland. To read the rest click here

Photo: Minutes before the release of the iPad 2, Apple store employees make a “high-five” lap around the plaza. By: prettygeeky.com

Looking Through The Graphic Design Lens

seth — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:25:28 +0000

What would the world look like if your brain was wired to perceive the world as if through a graphic design lens? That’s what I would like to find out. Let’s explore.

This article was published on Johnny Holland. To read the rest click here

This Ain’t Your Parent’s Future

seth — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:49:27 +0000

How could we be so wrong about the future all of the time? Over and over again, throughout history, we have predicted futures that missed the mark. With the exception of a few celebrated cases, futurists have had a dismal track record when it comes to the history of predicting the future.

This article was published on Johnny Holland. To read the rest click here

Painted 1967 by German futurist visionary Klaus Bürgle. More of his paintings here.

How Your Coffee Mug Controls Your Feelings (& What You Can Do About It)

seth — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:45:21 +0000

What would you say if I told you that objects you use every day are now believed to be practicing a form of mind control on you? Sounds crazy, right? Well, although cognitive scientists probably wouldn’t use the term “mind control”, they wouldn’t disagree that while we interact with physical elements of our environment, our brains are performing what’s known as embodied cognition, a sneaky sort of intuition that drives how we feel and behave and is breaking down century-old mind/body link claims with a vengeance.

This article was published on Johnny Holland. To read the rest click here

photo by: Tagirov

Prototypes of Future Nature

seth — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:40:05 +0000

How do YOU design nature? Whether we like it or not, nature evolves, following its own path towards the future. But is it really its own path? It’s probably fair to say that most people agree that Darwinian evolution is still happening today – natural evolution, survival of the fittest, species evolving to best fit their ever-changing environments. But what about the kind of evolution that some may consider, not so “natural”? Man-made species, genetically modified organisms, test-tube body parts, and creatures that have been forever tweaked by human interference.

This article was published on Johnny Holland. To read the rest click here

Design as Predictive Storytelling

seth — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:36:34 +0000

In 1973 the renowned author and member of the so-called ‘Big Three’ of science fiction Arthur C. Clarke decided to put his opinions of successful predictive storytelling into law. Behold his third and most famous law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here and modify Clarke slightly to read “Any sufficiently designed interaction is indistinguishable from magic.”

This article was published on Johnny Holland. To read the rest click here

Augmented Reality: Gimmick or Game Changer?

seth — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:29:42 +0000

It’s hard to look back at 2009 and ignore the rather sudden blooming of augmented reality. What was it that made AR suddenly so popular? The rise of ‘mobile’ apps helped. But was that all there was to it? I don’t think so.You can learn so much about a culture by observing how they take in new information. It’s easier than ever to watch how the internet community responds to new things; whether it be a new president, a new episode of Fringe, the death of a pop icon, or ‘new’ technologies. When something happens you can literally watch the connected swarms absorbing the news, assimilating it into their lives, and regurgitating it in the form of comments, tweets, articles and other hip ways of communicating.

This is my first article to be published on Johnny Holland. To read the rest click here

Bits n’ Morter: Why Can’t We Feel the Internet?

seth — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:23:55 +0000

I bet I’m not the only person who has wondered why we can’t feel the internet as it flows all around us, from our routers to our computers. What would it feel like if we could? Are there certain people who CAN feel the internet…a sort of sixth sense, Luke Skywalkerian “Force”? My point is, the internet is a magical, invisible thing. Its’ invisibleness is undeniable and naturally creates turmoil amongst humanity. We take it as a challenge. How to best make the internet more visible, more tangible, more REAL? As with any good challenge there are plenty of attempts at solutions; I’d like to share a few with you.

The most ubiquitously used attempt is the well-known concentric arc symbol displaying signal strength on your computer. But that doesn’t really get at the true nature of the internet being all around us, does it? I want to feel the internet, really touch it. The Wi-Fi Detector T-shirt from ThinkGeek gets at it a little deeper by allowing its wearer to display the presence of the internet wherever they go. It’s still a visual representation but at least now we can have an ambient feeling of wearing the internet. Maybe its more about bringing something so completely grounded in the internet and transforming it into a brick n’ morter physical location like the new eBay store popping up in Manhattan this Black Friday. PSFK describes this as a “blurring of the real vs. internet space” but can we really go so far as to say that we are touching the internet when we pick up our designer wares on a rack in the eBay store? Close, but no virtual cigar, if you ask me.

Danish Designer Sebastian Campion has taken a stab at reinventing how people touch the internet with his Urban Cursor project as part of this year’s Ingràvid Festival in Figueres, Spain. A giant fabricated cursor is tracked on a Google map as people move it around, creating a virtual map of the tangible cursors’ movements. Some refer to projects like this as Mixed Reality and I think they get us the closest than anything else we’ve looked at to touching the internet. At the end of the day, you really can’t just reach out and touch the internet. But advances in ambient computing and sensory technology may one day make my dream a reality…or not.

Walt Disney’s iKids

seth — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:19:19 +0000

I knew when my girlfriend suggested that we go to DisneyWorld together (I had never been there before, ever…I know, its crazytalk) that this would not only be an opportunity to have basically non-stop fun and get out of Rhode Island’s miserable climate but that it could provide a rich source of professional inspiration. I’ll have you know, I was more than right on both fronts.

The technology on display at Disney was astounding. Holographic projections, animatronic robots, 4D movie experiences, and cell phone based mobile games were all as plentiful as the pudgy British tourists that had invaded the parks that week. Yet amongst all this techy magic sprinkled around Walt’s kingdoms, the technology that stood out the most to me at Disney was the iPhone, and how many freakin little kids were using them!

Two thoughts came to mind as I watched frazzled parents hand their prized 3G’s to their toddlers in feeble attempts to calm them down or entertain them: (1) Even in the vast stimulus overload that is DisneyWorld, kids still manage to be bored and (2) What’s going to happen when the generation that grew up with iPhones for pacifiers grows up? How will their digital, app-for-everything childhood prime them for the challenges of adulthood? Granted Disney is no place to worry about being an adult, perhaps the parents may have been wondering what affect their mobile device might be having on their tots? Somewhere in between the Peter Pan ride in Magic Kingdom and the countries of Epcot, it hit me that these kids will be so radically different from us when they grow up. It’s a strange feeling being surrounded by thousands of little kids, many of whom used an iPhone as much as me that morning. I suppose it’s impossible to know how massive iPhone exposure at a young age will affect these future adults, but I’m optimistic (albeit cautiously).

The educational possibilities are glorious. For starters, kids with iPhones will have every answer to every question they could ever have at their fingertips for instant learning. They will never again feel they are asking a stupid question because they simply wont have to ask. While the risk associated with this is that they may develop a¬ detachment from reality as they no longer feel the need to interact with their surroundings or ask others questions, I’m confident the benefits outweigh the risks.

The sense of autonomy that iPhones give kids could breed a generation of entrepreneurs and great thinkers. Empowering kids by making information more accessible is clearly a noble effort.

Portable social media is tricky. KinderFacebook could cause little ones to lose touch with communicating with friends face-to-face. On the other hand, the sheer volume of online communications taking place could produce social geniuses! These kids will be capable of managing multiple virtual selves. They will be experts in capturing and sharing experiences with their networks in a variety of media.

The rich emersiveness of the iPhone will train kids to perceive the world in much more sophisticated ways, all while improving hand/eye coordination.

There are no doubt more potential benefits and pitfalls so let this be a conversation to be continued. I heard recently that this year marks the first graduating college class that was born using the internet. Time will tell how the iPhone babies fare. Thanks for the eye-opener Disney. Oh and thanks for a great vacation too!

Special thanks to Sean, Joel, and Molly for their thoughts on this one.

Hack My Pain

seth — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:32:42 +0000

I’ve been saying all along that we humans are way better at predicting the future than we give ourselves credit for. Nevermind the significant lack of sincere scientific proof, I am certain that we are all pre-programmed with the weakest of future predicting abilities. And just in the nick of time Wired comes along and presents me with a fascinating article on the placebo effect’s effect on Big Pharma. It turns out that sugar pills are being shown to outperform real drugs in more and more trials, leading to the strengthening of the long-considered-fringe-science placebo effect’s case as a legit psychological mechanism. And what better way to prove a fringe theory than with another fringe theory, huh?!

What’s really happening when a fake pill actually relieves someone’s pain, you ask? According to Wired’s Steve Silberman, “one way that the placebo aids in recovery is by hacking the mind’s ability to predict the future.” There ya have it folks. Not only can we predict the future, but our ability to do so can be HACKED! “We are constantly parsing the reactions of those around us – such as the tone a doctor uses to deliver a diagnosis – to generate more-accurate estimations of our fate,” continues Silberman. This is great stuff. We’re not talking about knowing that a lamp is about to fall, or that it will start hailing later this afternoon, we’re talking about carnal human instincts and our pervasive will to survive. In a way, this is our subconscious providing an additional layer over our perception, making us feel good if it thinks we should or making us feel terrible when it deems it necessary. And the way that our subconscious makes this decision is by calculating how the future will affect our body. I suppose if you want to get technical, its more like extrapolation than prediction. If it looks freezing outside, your mind will prepare your body to feel cold when you get there, even if it’s not cold at all. Imagine the possibilities! If designers or marketers could get a hang of this, they could make their potential customers think, well, anything they want them to think! Terrifying or really really cool…? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.