Paper This from the

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Paper

This from the new WiReD… like the way it frames the use of paper as a
medium that people understand that can be extended. Seen three separate
presentations/articles about 3g ‘smart pens’ in the last couple of
months… seems like a lot of people are converging on it.

“This is the most advanced digital
input screen ever developed,” he declares. “It has very high
resolution, perfect contrast, and costs a fraction of a cent to
produce. Any graphical interface can be printed on it, and you get
years of full-time education, paid for by the government, to learn how
to use it. It will not be beaten in our lifetime.”

He puts the paper in my hands. “And I can give it to
you, because I have hundreds more,” he offers, gesturing toward a stack
of blank paper on his desk. Fåhraeus isn’t handing me a sketch of the
input screen. The paper is the screen.

Wired 9.04: The Hot New Medium: Paper

JC Herz on ‘The Sims’

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JC Herz on ‘The Sims’ and information architecture

The author of ‘Joystick Nation’ writing in The Standard, with things to
say about the context and the determinist, isolationary viewpoints in
which some information architecture and online business are designed;
and how looking at game systems like The Sims show a way forward for
experience designers.

“For the business community, The Sims’ lessons are
twofold. The first is that interaction design trumps graphics. The Sims
is less photorealistic than any computer game on the market, or any
broadband site on the Web – it’s not even fully 3D. Yet it succeeds
tremendously because it allows players with different agendas to
interact as consumers, producers, mavens and community leaders and to
reap rewards for all of these activities. The richness and complexity
of an online experience, like the richness and complexity of a city, is
created by the people who live there as they engage with the place and
each other.

The second lesson is that online businesses don’t just
exist, like buildings, in space. They exist, like cities, in human
context over time. The best ones are designed to grow more
interconnected, not just bigger, as the population evolves. They’re
always messy. They’re never finished. They harbor an almost palpable
sense of around-the-clock activity and a sense of place that owes as
much to collective experience as to snazzy signage. When you open your
window, there’s a there there.”

The Standard.com: Learning From The Sims

FT: More on 3G reality

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FT: More on 3G reality and interesting piece on consumer behaviour…

These from the excellent ‘Creative Business’ supplement that comes with the FT every tuesday – i had to email their helpdesk
to find this stuff which is nothing to do with their interface design,
but everything to do with their interaction/content strategy of deliberately reducing the mapping you can make between the print edition and website… arrrgh.

Firstly, a looming 3G handset crisis further
widens the gap between the realities of wireless and the expectation –
a gap which wasn;t managed well last time (WAP…)

“Third generation mobile phones do exist. Oh yes, they
do. I met somebody yesterday who had heard of a colleague who had
actually handled one. This sort of throw-away line is becoming a sick
joke for most of Europe’s mobile phone operators. In Britain and
Germany alone, they have paid more than Pounds 50bn between them for
licences to offer mobile internet, full motion video and other glitzy
services – they hope from next year. That’s fine. But where are the
handsets? Realistically the chances of working phones being ready in
quantity next year are small. Many observers think it will be 2004,
2005 or even later before commercially attractive handsets are
generally available. ”

CREATIVE BUSINESS: Third generation mobile phones : Financial Times, Mar 13, 2001

and…

Some research shows that there may not be such a thing as an unquestioning early adopter of technology in the consumer market place… good news for user-centred interaction design…?

“Even early adopters are becoming suspicious of new
technologies and new formats,” says director of strategic solutions Sue
Unerman. “If you are selling technology, make the benefit clear.”

CREATIVE BUSINESS: New media : Financial Times, Mar 13, 2001