October 2010
6 posts
Design For The Network: An Evolving Manual of... →
designforthenetwork:
When you’re designing an identity for a relatively young company like Normative, you have to consider not only the present, but also the ways in which the company might extend itself. Our new style guide is built around the Normative assertion: it’s how things should be. Rather than a…
Design For The Network: Card Table, for iPad →
designforthenetwork:
The Idea There are many popular “design decks” in existence today. However, most of them are inaccessible (expensive, require shipping, hard to find). To address this market/user need, we have begun to develop an app platform for iPad that makes many types of decks available to designers in…
Bruce Sterling: The Complete Interview « 40kBooks →
Interview with Bruce Sterling about The Internet of Things.
The Cultural Significance of Down Time →
Great post by @sladner
“But the desire for “down time” suggests that successful design is more this kind of appeal. It is also building in the ability to “cut off” or disconnect from all those distant events. It allows people to engage wholeheartedly with what is in front of them in that moment.”
Design For The Network: Provoking the future by... →
designforthenetwork:
(@elledog)
I helped run (and participated in) a Design Fiction workshop with Torch Innovation and Scott Smith of Changeist yesterday. It was a great day that was preceded by a great lecture on “Provoking the Future by Making It” from Scott.
I love this idea of provoking the future…
September 2010
2 posts
Destroyed by Design: The Joy of Print →
aisforayla:
We just got the print proof for Normative Design and Torch Innovation’s first Design Research: Methods, Techniques, Outputs deck. This set is specific to Customer Research, and in the future we’re going to expand the deck to include Business Research and Competitive Research. The…
August 2010
1 post
74% of Social Media Users Expect Cries for Help to... →
Not sure how I feel about this. Facebook just doesn’t seem like a reliable place for emergency cries for help.
July 2010
1 post
Humanitarian design needs co-creation and...
I read an interesting post by Bruce Nussbaum at Fast Company about whether or not American and European humanitarian design is a new form of imperialism. I think there’s something to this and immediately agree that a co-creation approach, and forming the right partnerships with the people/designers who are actually from, and live in, lower-income countries is critical here.
Some...
June 2010
5 posts
iPhone App + Bookmarklet + Website = Designing for...
I just started using Instapaper, “simple tool to save Web pages for reading later” and I think I like it. I like the idea of it, anyway. Reason is that it’s a really nice, simple example of designing for the network.
Instapaper links information across multiple devices and platforms. It networks information: you read a blog post on your laptop at work, then on the commute home...
Future Of Health: Printed Underpants Sends Vital... →
Wow. This is pretty cool. Working with a hospital group right now who is developing research networks across high and low-income countries and I can see a lot of opportunities here to share data globally.
Global User Research | Practical insights to... →
I like the looks of this book. I especially like how they followed researchers from 20 different countries to develop this book.
How are Mobile Phones Changing Social Media? /... →
Interesting facts and nice info-graphics.
Great post about prototyping from @emenel
Recently, @emenel this is a really interesting post: http://www.emenel.ca/post/664271114/prototyping-beyond-validation. It brings to mind something i’ve been thinking of lately, which is that in most other fields of design the designer follows through with creating the thing they designed. They use their hands, and tools, to manipulate their materials (wood & lathe, or thread &...
May 2010
8 posts
Watch“58 billion paper coffee cups are thrown away, unrecycled, each year…the betacup challenge was founded in May 2009 to reduce the number of non-recyclable cups that are thrown away every year by creating a more convenient alternative to the reusable coffee cup.”
Yay betacup! I’m so happy to see this moving forward from Overlap 09!
Facebook to Simplify Privacy Controls -... →
Looks like Zuckerberg heard the Quit Facebook Day rally!
Great list of links re: connected devices →
Again from psfk, a great list of links re: interaction design, connected devices and better living.
The Birth of the Microhood →
This is an interesting concept via psfk. The notion that high-density cities have “microhoods,” or 2-3 blocks that are so fantastically great that they deserve to be a hood all to themselves. I think this holds true in Toronto.
WatchInterested in how to “do” innovation…?
My Boss on quitting facebook - CBC News →
(via aisforayla)
February 2010
3 posts
Using design ficiton to prototype
normativedesign:
You’ll probably agree when I say that as a designer one needs to make stuff up a lot of the time. I struggle with this and love it because, on one hand, I am a vehement believer in the value of research and data (facts), while on the other hand I get butterflies at the prospect of a blank sheet and imagination. Somewhere in between research and imagination is prototyping....
Layar Looks to Create the App Store of Mobile... →
Commercializing augmented reality
Relentless – The Difference Between Motion And... →
I really feel like we practiced ACTION versus MOTION this weekend in our work sessions. Like Steve Blank says, we didn’t focus on process, but focused on the end-point and worked through activities to get there. Very inspiring!
September 2009
1 post
“No product is an island. A product is more than the product. It is a cohesive,...”
– Don Norman, Systems Thinking: A Product Is More Than the Product, http://interactions.acm.org/content/?p=1286
August 2009
4 posts
Overlap 09 - The Confluence of Old and New
What struck me most about Overlap 09 is the confluence between what I’ll call “ancient approaches” and new ways of thinking. Overlap represents a new or innovative style of gathering and working together. It involves collaboration around big problems in a free-flowing, open, highly communicative, creative way. Our typical ways of working see us pounding out deliverables or...
July 2009
1 post
Overlap 09
I was fortunate to be invited to Overlap 09 in Pacific Grove, California. It was quite the experience. I met a ton of brilliant people, had many intriguing conversations, worked on a challenging project that I believe in, and felt sufficiently intimidated, which is a good thing. I love being around smart people because they encourage me to think deeply about things that often just cross my mind.
...
June 2009
3 posts
People like to "test run" books
Something struck me the other day: people like to test run books before buying them. This isn’t a new idea. Libraries. Duh. But, while libraries are beautifully analog environments, there is no beautiful digital equivalent that I’ve found.
I love to borrow a book, read it, and then decide if I’ll buy it or not. So, I can return the borrowed copy and then go purchase it for...
April 2009
2 posts
“The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same...”
– Albert Einstein
What learning to snowboard and drive stick really...
There are two things I launched myself into learning as an adult that most people would recommend avoiding: driving stick and snowboarding. These are things I didn’t HAVE to learn. After all I can drive automatic and ski quite well, so what’s the point?
Well, the point came to me this week at a talk by Jeanne Liedtka (http://tinyurl.com/cxebnd) at the Rotman School of Management in...