Illogical Design

I'm currently exploring an interesting way to approach design and problem solving. In problem definition stages, I believe it can be beneficial to imagine doing illogical things with intention. For example, I could imagine spilling water on my keyboard on purpose. This thought serves to free my mind of the natural constraints of logic (for a moment) and potentially grant myself access to a circumstance I wouldn't otherwise consider. Now that I've thought of the absurd action of watering my keyboard, I could maybe consider ways to prevent water from reaching critical PC components after accidental spills, or some digital interface or robotic plant that can be nourished by watering. This could serve as some educational instrument for children or as some rudimentary start to a robotic Oxygen/CO2 exchange device, say. And so the unique human capacity to think of silly things on purpose has some use outside of "Family Guy" after all.

Interactive Design and Sustainability Awareness

Level Green - Interactive exhibition staging from ART+COM on Vimeo.

Augmented Reality and Architecture

Mediating Mediums - The Digital 3d [Short Version] from Greg Tran on Vimeo.

User Experience Deliverables

User Experience Deliverables

Excellent article on design deliverables by Peter Morville. It does a great job breaking down the components of experience design and provides links to detailed explorations of these snapshots of the user experience workflow

Game Design and Interaction Design

Short Thoughts on Games and Interaction Design

An interesting blog post on using mobile game interfaces as a tool for developing and evolving web interaction.

We need to open gaps before we close them. Our tendency is to tell people the facts. First, though, they must realize that they need these facts.

~Made To Stick, Chip Heath & Dan Heath

User Experience Design for Non-Designers

Shawn Konopinsky of Infusion gives an excellent speech on the history and process of user experience design. One interesting point was on the development of GUI and how it used metaphors such as file folders to assist users in their interactions. This "metaphoric learning" is a key component of human intelligence and language. As children we develop our understanding of concepts of the world such as "insidedness" through correlations between what is natural (such as eating) to what is outside of us (such as putting coins in to a jar). These relationships extend to the development of language, as words and phrases are symbols of world concepts.