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The UI is the Hero
by Jon on January 26th, 2012 - Comments (0)
Is the age of ubiquitous computing is upon us? We may not be living yet in William Gibson’s plugged-in future, but there’s no doubt that we’re absolutely dependent on the digital realm. From tablets to smart phones to laptops to car navigation systems, we always seem to be connected. The digital life is everywhere we go, and software is our intermediary between physical reality and the bits and bytes. Over the past two years, the massive rise in popularity of mobile devices has changed the frequency, duration, and level of engagement of our digital existence. No longer is digital interaction reserved for those specific times when we huddle around the glow of desktop monitors. Mobile has made software integral to and embedded within people’s lives, but the convenience and pervasiveness of mobile computing is only part of the story.
People’s attitudes towards software are changing, as are their expectations about how it should work. It is commonly accepted that our day-to-day reality is infused with the digital, and this connected lifestyle has reached far beyond the world of knowledge workers and other geeks. This is a seismic shift in our total cultural conception of computing.
Software is part of the continuous thread of our lives now, and more and more, the user interface defines how we interact. Software’s ascendency in the public mind is clearly reflected in, of all things, our television advertisements, which gives us a view of the digital zeitgeist. Aside from the many advertisements for the iPhone, iPad, and various Android devices that dominate the airwaves, there is more interesting and telling evidence. One example in particular can be found in the television ads of two financial services companies, who, in a fist fight for new accounts, have turned, not to a celebrity or executive spokesperson to entice stock traders to register for their system but to the user interface of their trading software. Both Fidelity and E*trade have recently promoted their professional style trading systems with ads touting the quick response, ease of use, and information visualization capabilities of their platforms. In these ads, the narrator is secondary to the sleek curves of the UI chrome and the flowing lines of the live charts and graphs.
But strangely enough, it’s this Michelob commercial that illustrates just how deeply computer interactions have embedded themselves into our consciousness. In the advertisement, a man goes through the activities of his day, using the gestures normally associated with a tablet interface to move items, transform his surroundings, and generally improve his life. While I’ve never tried gesturing with my hand in the hopes that I could magically move objects out of the way, there are many times I’ve caught myself half expecting an “undo” option in the real world.
As digital products continue to grow in popularity, and ease of use, beauty, and usefulness have become increasingly important, the software user interface has become the key element and product differentiator. The sophistication of the average consumer is growing, and in this new understanding of software the user interface is the hero. For digital product designers, then, our opportunities are many, but our work is definitely cut out for us.
Tagged iPad, iphone, software design, ui, user experience
SOPA, Job Innovation, and Creativity in Isolation
by Jon on January 16th, 2012 - Comments (0)
Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.
SOPA: Anatomy of a Public Uprising
As most of us of are aware, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill in the US House of Representatives, while purported to protect content providers, in fact hides within its depths the chilling ability to freeze online businesses and tech innovation through a set of draconian provisions, that would, for instance, force search engines to filter their search results.
Last week, as the technorati voiced their dissent and decorated their avatars with black bands reading “Stop SOPA”, Representatives began taking notice. In the open forum of the Internet, people circumvented the Washington lobbying of pro-SOPA industries, and voiced their extreme displeasure.
The political situation reached an inflection point on Thursday, when legislators began to backpedal on their support for the bill as they saw public opposition rising.
Then the White House weighed in with a statement against the bill in its current form. In response, the House of Representatives shelved the bill, at least for the time being.
Talk about the bill’s demise is greatly exaggerated however, as it could be reopened again. Adding to the fear of a zombie SOPA resurrecting itself is the fact that its equally malformed Senate twin PIPA is still lurching forward.
Leave Me Alone, I’m Being Creative
Is the future of creative work a collective endeavor? The New York Times featured an interesting piece in their SundayReview opinion pages on “The Rise of Groupthink” and how open office plans, constant collaboration, and group brainstorming may not be the everything it’s cracked up to be when it comes to drawing out creativity and innovative thinking in a business environment. In addition to dissecting the current trends towards a more collaborative work environment, the article also explores explores the introverted nature of creative types, and asks whether the new focus on the group is supportive of the lone genius. In a related article, Business Insider takes a look at “How Larry Page Changed Meetings At Google …” to align them with better decision making. Not surprisingly, Larry limited the number of people in the group, and required a decision maker to be at all meetings.
Where the Wild Things Are
As our cities grow bigger and bigger, natural wildlife is getting squeezed out at every turn. One architecture firm from the Netherlands thinks it has a solution to providing sanctuary for the displaced plants and animals: Sea Trees, or floating wildlife oases.
Job Innovation at Lightspeed
There’s no question that the days of the long-term job are long past. In today’s volatile, technology injected, rapidly shifting economy, how can we expect to know what jobs will be around in the next five years, let alone the next ten? Fast Company takes a look at the new skill sets required for the new world of “quicksilver” work.
FTC Fires Back at Google+
As Google attempts to leverage its massive search traffic to give Google+ an edge in the burgeoning social network wars, the FTC is firing back, by expanding its antitrust investigation to include Google+. With such a juicy prize as social network dominance at stake, it’s no wonder we’re seeing a no holds barred approach from the search giant.
Tagged creativity, facebook, ftc, google, innovation, job innovation, search, social networks, SOPA
Laptop Music, Kinected Hacking, and Supply Chain Design
by Jon on November 9th, 2011
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Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.
If You Make Sure You’re Kinected, the Xbox is on the Wall
Last week, Microsoft’s Kinect turned one year […]
Software Design is a Team Sport
by Jon on November 4th, 2011
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I’m a big Boston sports nut. And, as cliched as the sports metaphor may be for discussions on teamwork, there are lessons to be learned from the collapse of the Red Sox, which was the worst in baseball history and […]
What’s Next?
by Dirk on October 6th, 2011
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As countless, near-identical Steve Jobs obituaries spew out of the blogosphere/Twitterverse today, let’s honour his contribution by doing what he did best: anticipating at what will be next…
As Robert Fabricant eloquently wrote in a recent Fast Company […]
The New Age of Software
by Jon on September 4th, 2011
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Last month Marc Andreessen published a significant essay in the Wall Street Journal, outlining the many ways in which software has become not just important to our world, but the critical guts and infrastructure of it. Andreessen is, of […]
Cloud Co-opetition, Hurricane Irene Infovis, and Nokia’s New Design Emphasis
by Jon on September 3rd, 2011
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Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.
Visualizing Irene
For those of us on the Eastern seaboard of the United States, last week was quite a […]
Wearable Health Tech, Beautiful Subway Stations, and Democratizing Data Analysis
by Jon on August 27th, 2011
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Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.
Health Tech: Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve (or Maybe Your Arm)
It won’t be long before the walk-in […]
Car Sharing, Comic Book Art, and Intellectual Jazz
by Jon on August 21st, 2011
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Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.
Better off TED?
Richard Saul Wurman is re-inventing the conference format for the 21st century with his follow up […]
On Talent, War, and Devastation
by Jon on August 12th, 2011
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Ever since the U.S. started on its long road to recovery from the Great Recession and tech companies began expanding the ranks of their employees again, there’s been a dearth of talent to choose from, especially those most important senior […]
Console Game Memories, Low Cost Internet, and Facial Recognition
by Jon on August 10th, 2011
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Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.
The History of the Game Console
If you were a console gamer back when it all began in […]
Visualizing Data
by Jon on August 4th, 2011
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In this age of ubiquitous information, knowledge workers and organizations can be overwhelmed, even paralyzed by the mass of data presented to them daily, unable to make sense of it all. Our ability to collect data has increased exponentially as […]
The Trouble with Tracking
by Dirk on August 3rd, 2011
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I’ve had a few brushes recently with different tracking technology deployed in automobiles used by professionals. When the Geek Squad came by to help with printer problems, the tech explained that his company-provided car has a tracking device that logs […]
Boston Talent Wars, iPhone Facial Recognition, and Freedom of Tweets
by Jon on August 3rd, 2011
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Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.
Tech Talent Wars: Boston
The Talent Wars are heating up in Boston, as tech companies of every kind, from […]
Technology, Health, and Our Memory of Art in the Internet Age
by Jon on July 27th, 2011
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Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.
The Therapeutic Touch of the iPad
The iPad may be the most important new computing device since the PC, […]
Lion Roars, Google Labs Shuts its Doors, and Math Gets a New UI
by Jon on July 20th, 2011
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Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.
Lion Roars
Apple launched the latest version of their ground breaking OS X operating system today with a host […]
Facebook Domination, Driving Distracted, and NASA TV
by Jon on July 13th, 2011
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Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.
Facebook Closes the Door on User Data
Facebook is racing to shore up the walls of its garden, […]
Seven and Seven: A Look Back on Involution’s History
by Jon on July 7th, 2011
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Last week Involution Studios celebrated seven years in business. We’ve had a bunch of highs, a handful of lows, and a whole lot of fun in that time. We’ve had amazing employees, partners and clients, and even as another recession […]
Design Lessons, Home Health, and Killing the RFP
by Jon on July 6th, 2011
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Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.
Death to RFPs
A List Apart has a great article on why RFPs are no way to hire […]
Where are you, Edward Tufte?
by Jon on July 1st, 2011
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On Tuesday, Involution Studios Creative Director, Juhan Sonin challenged infovis guru Edward Tufte to engage more fully in the discussion regarding our nation’s greatest problems, including education, energy, finance, and health, among others, during a segment on The […]
Talent Wars, Typography, and Standing Up
by Jon on June 30th, 2011
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Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our third links round up.
The Hiring Wars
The tech talent crunch, especially in Silicon Valley, is leading to all sorts of crazy […]
Gesturing Towards the Future
by Jon on June 22nd, 2011
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This week, our links round up on design and innovation in the digital life features a little something for everyone: from the future of gestural interactions to a ground breaking transparent concept plane to J.K. Rowling’s latest online endeavors. […]
Law and Order and Social Media
by Jon on June 16th, 2011
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At Involution, since we’re fully immersed in the digital life, we’re often deluged with articles via RSS and Twitter. In this, our first links round up, we thought we’d share some of what we’ve been reading online on the topics […]
Planting seeds and tilling soil
by Dirk on June 10th, 2011
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Jared Spool delights in being provocative. Listen: I like provocative. Much of the way people frame our professional world is outdated or out-of-touch. It takes provocateurs to get most of us to look in a different direction and consider new […]
Considering Transhumanism
by Dirk on May 15th, 2011
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This weekend I attended the Humanity+ Conference at Parsons in New York City. Subtitled “Transhumanism Meets Design”, the conference aspired to “explor(e) emerging technology, transdisciplinary design, culture and media theory, and biotech.”
My exposure to transhumanism was […]
Investing in Africa: challenges and constraints
by Dirk on March 30th, 2011
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This series on technology in Africa is written by Involution friends and emerging markets experts Niti Bhan and Muchiri Nyaggah.
Imagine counting kilobytes while surfing the web. Or keeping track of how much data capacity you have left for essential […]
Software in Africa: more, better, different
by Dirk on March 25th, 2011
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This series on technology in Africa is written by Involution friends and emerging markets experts Niti Bhan and Muchiri Nyaggah.
It may come as a surprise that great software has been coming out of Africa for some time. By 2007, […]
Mobile in Africa: from SMS to Android
by Dirk on March 16th, 2011
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This series on technology in Africa is written by Involution friends and emerging markets experts Niti Bhan and Muchiri Nyaggah.
It wasn’t so long ago that if you wanted to post a letter from Ghana, a former British colony, to […]
From OLPC to VC: Africa leapfrogs the digital divide
by Dirk on March 1st, 2011
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This series on technology in Africa is written by Involution friends and emerging markets experts Niti Bhan and Muchiri Nyaggah.
I reach out
Gather the dust in my hands
Let it sift through my fingers slowly
It […]
Get over it: Silicon Valley remains the international capitol of software
by Dirk on February 24th, 2011
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I’m in the midst of a four week trip to downtown Venice in Santa Monica, a little enclave amidst the commercialism and sterility in this little part of the world. While driving down Wilshire the other day something inescapable hit […]
Africa: The Next Frontier
by Dirk on February 22nd, 2011
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This series on technology in Africa is written by Involution friends and emerging markets experts Niti Bhan and Muchiri Nyaggah.
2011 is the Year of Africa
The Economist kicked off 2011 with an in-depth look at the latest reports […]
Facebook Game Design is an embarrassment
by Dirk on February 9th, 2011
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After a conversation on The Digital Life with Brenda Brathwaite and Soren Johnson about “Social Game Design”, it became clear that I needed to get to know Facebook Games better and see if there was more there than I […]
Someday soon, your OS and browser will be the same thing
by Dirk on November 10th, 2010
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This week’s much-ballyhoed launch of RockMelt is again getting the tech intelligentsia in a lather about a potential new browser. What they seem to be ignoring is that the battle has already been won and lost: the best case […]
Knowledge comes from depth, not breadth
by Dirk on November 3rd, 2010
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What search engines do best is immediately give us lots of scattershot information. It may be relevant, or it may not. It may be timely, or it may not. It may be useful, or it may not. While search engines […]
How the Internet made fantasy football stoopid
by Dirk on September 27th, 2010
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It is with no small bit of wonder that I recently realized my participation in fantasy sports began 20 years ago, in 1991. Originally “Rotisserie Baseball“, within a couple of years I was also playing fantasy football and […]
Business and treating others with humanity belong together
by Dirk on September 20th, 2010
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I’m perplexed how common inhumane customer service is among large companies. While I’m raising the issue to generally encourage people to design their systems and policies to be human-friendly there are two specific contexts that compelled me to write this […]
Plugging in means exposing yourself
by Dirk on September 15th, 2010
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The widely-circulated story today that Google fired an employee for reviewing the “private” files and information of users, and even harassed a user based on their “private” information might seem shocking, but it’s really only illustrating something that those […]
Community vs. Connection
by Dirk on September 15th, 2010
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Remember Classmates.com? Arguably the first-ever social networking website it “connected” each of us to the people we went to school with over the years. Plagued by clumsy and poorly executed “Web 1.0″ thinking, and an absolutely atrocious pay-to-play business […]
A new era of IT consolidation?
by Dirk on September 13th, 2010
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I don’t use the moniker “IT” very often, typically only to talk about the internal stuff at my company that has to do with computing technology in the vaguest way. Under “IT” falls our hardware and software that runs the […]
Point n’ click, bon voyage!
by Eric on August 30th, 2010
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I recently returned from a 2 week vacation and my source of digital consumption was with my iPhone or iPad. So for 2 weeks I was only using a touchscreen – and digging it.
Once I settled in back home […]
Implications of a “desktop iPad”
by Dirk on August 24th, 2010
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The press is reporting today on a patent filed in January by Apple for what amounts to a “convertible” iMac – Apple’s line of large screen all-in-one desktop computers – that also functions as a giant desktop iPad. […]
Losing faith in “UX”
by Dirk on August 3rd, 2010
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I’ve been slowly backing away from the field of “user experience” for some years now. More and more, I’m beginning to think it is time that I turn my slow retreat into a full-fledged race to the hills. This evening […]
The end of the mouse
by Dirk on July 27th, 2010
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Leave it to Apple to turn speculation of the future obsolescence of the mouse as a computing input device into present reality. Today Apple launched the Magic Trackpad, a mouse replacement that accomplishes all of the input interactions […]
Crowdsourcing creative = cannibalism
by Dirk on July 21st, 2010
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There are a lot of interesting things happening around crowdsourcing, many of which intuitively seem really good. Companies like Jovoto and Genius Rocket are serving as global connectors of people who want work done with people who are […]
Apple’s real iPhone vulnerability
by Dirk on July 15th, 2010
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Today the Droid X was released, Android’s latest salvo in the smartphone wars.
I’m taking an interest in Android phones because, as an iPhone user, I’ve been waiting for them to put the white version of the iPhone 4 […]
Google App Inventor: an interesting little app
by Dirk on July 13th, 2010
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Unveiled yesterday, Google App Inventor aspires to provide everyday people – extensively tested with sixth graders – to easily build their own Android apps using a relatively simple WYSIWYG editor. The interaction model appears based on LEGO toys, taking […]
Open vs. Closed: A tale of idealists vs. realists
by Dirk on May 13th, 2010
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Today Adobe launched an aggressive ad campaign skewering Apple’s “closed” philosophy. Retaliation for Apple’s muscling Adobe’s Flash technology off their mobile operating system, Adobe is choosing to take a “high ground” argument by ignoring their specific exclusion and focusing instead on the closed ecosystem Apple prefers.
Apple and Microsoft Need a Love Child: the real future of portable computing
by Dirk on April 5th, 2010
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I’m one of the fortunate few who has had the opportunity to use both a Microsoft Surface and an Apple iPad. While both are “magical” and “revolutionary” devices in their own unique and incomplete ways, I’m struck by the fact that both of them remind me of the only Palm device I ever had, back in 2003: a novelty that did some things well but most things poorly, and ultimately left me ignoring it in its charger.
A Most Unholy Testament: The Crusade of Patient-Centered Design
by Dirk on March 8th, 2010
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Doctors were once the high priests of health,
oracles whose absolution has diminished.
Now, the gospel of patients is preached.
“Patient centered design”, being flocked to by the masses.
But our path to salvation cannot run through
these seductive false gods and prophets.
The heresy of “user-centered design”
reached digital design decades ago.
At first it seemed enlightened
but rarely did great software come forth.
The Rise of Google, Part III: A decade of leadership awaits
by Dirk on March 3rd, 2010
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At the dawn of this new decade, Google sits comfortably atop the computing industry. Dominant in search – still the killer app of the Internet, with all due respect to social networking – Google has a variety of other essential and emerging products that put them at the very pinnacle of software.
Where is technology taking us?
by Dirk on March 2nd, 2010
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Over the last few years the Internet has become an integral part of the lives of a majority of people in the United States. Important to that sentence is integral: while the Internet became a central engine to business well over a decade ago, for huge groups of people – children and adolescents, retirees, houseparents – it is only through the rise of mainstream social networking that we have truly become what could be termed a full-time computing nation.
The Rise of Google, Part II: From start-up to superpower
by Dirk on February 15th, 2010
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With apologies to Apple and Microsoft, Google is the most important company in computing. Their rise over the past decade has been meteoric: from a struggling start-up operating out of a small office in downtown Palo Alto, […]
The Apple “tablet”: what to expect
by Dirk on January 25th, 2010
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Tomorrow is the expected announcement of the new Apple “tablet” computer. Predictions for this device are all over the map, ranging from a “true” tablet computer, down to an oversized iPhone, and everything in between. I don’t have any inside […]
The Rise of Google, Part I: A history lesson
by Dirk on January 12th, 2010
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This is part one of a three-part series that will detail Google’s rise to becoming the dominant company in the computing industry. Part one will review the history of IBM and Microsoft, Google’s predecessors in this position; part two will […]
The trouble with Twitter
by Dirk on December 18th, 2009
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This week, embattled R&B artist Chris Brown closed his Twitter account after a profanity-laced tirade. This makes Brown just the latest public figure to have an embarrassing meltdown and then abashedly terminate their account on the social networking giant.
At […]