Summer School 2006
After Ivrea, Roma, Split and Timisoara the 5th Convivio Summer School came to Edinburgh, August 14th-25th.
The theme this year was: "Technology, Enjoying or Enduring it? Visions, Boundaries and Transformations in Extending or Replacing Human Capacities."
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Archive for the 'Books' Category
01-12-2006 by
The Design of Future Things.
Don Norman is writing a new book, “The Design of Future Things”, but you can already take a sneak peek at the first chapter, which reveals quite a bit of what it will likely be about:
“We need our technologies to aid us, not control us. We need more devices that act as servants, as assistants, and as collaborators. It is time for a humane technology.
We fool ourselves into thinking that we can solve these problems through even more intelligence in the devices, even more automation. We fool ourselves into thinking that it is only a matter of communication between the devices and people.
I think the problems are much more fundamental, unlikely to be solved through these approaches. As a result I call for an entirely different approach.
Augmentation, not automation. Facilitation, not intelligence.
We need devices that have a natural interaction with people, not a machine interaction. Devices that do not pretend to communicate, but face up to the fact that they do not and cannot.
It is time for the science of natural interaction between people and machines, an interaction very different than what we have today.”
(via InfoDesign)
Posted in Human Centered Design, Books | No Comments »
15-11-2006 by
The laws of simplicity.
John Maeda’s “The Laws of Simplicity” is a book (and website) devoted to Maeda’s ongoing thought processes regarding the topic of simplicity.
LAW 1: REDUCE
The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
LAW 2 : ORGANIZE
Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
LAW 3: TIME
Savings in time feel like simplicity.
LAW 4:
Knowledge makes everything simpler.
LAW 5: DIFFERENCES
Simplicity and complexity need each other.
LAW 6: CONTEXT
What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
LAW 7:
More emotions are better than less.
LAW 8: TRUST
In simplicity we trust.
LAW 9: FAILURE
Some things can never be made simple.
LAW 10: THE OBVIOUS
Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.
Posted in Human Centered Design, Books | No Comments »
08-11-2006 by
Design & Emotion.
Design & Emotion posted “Getting Emotional With… Pieter Desmet“, a nice interview with Peter Desmet, author of “Designing Emotions“.
“Emotion is now widely recognised as an indisputable ingredient of the human product relationship.
Nowadays, most of the conferences in the fields of ergonomics, human computer interaction, product design, and marketing, present an emotion track with design and emotion research papers.
We have now a new generation of designers that is familiar with tools, techniques, and structured approaches to emotional design. It is just a matter of time before these designers will have established positions that enable them to push the real progress in design for emotion.
Ignoring the emotional side of products would be like denying that these products are designed, bought, and used by humans. I believe that it is our responsibility to think about the emotional impact of our designs.
My experience has taught me that science has many insights to offer that can help building a vocabulary that enables us to think about and discuss the abstract concept of emotion.
Design for emotion requires an understanding of the contextualised concerns of the users; their goals, standards, and attitudes. The relationship between product and emotion is not universal, but at the same time the principles that underlie the processes that elicit emotion are universal.
The principles that shape the processes that underlie emotions apply to all emotions, in all cultures, in all times, in all contexts, to all stimuli.
The challenge is to find a balance between universal principles on the one hand (that can be too abstract) and context driven product and emotion relationships (that can be too contextualised).”
(via Putting People First)
Posted in Human Centered Design, Books | No Comments »
06-11-2006 by
Worldchanging, the book.
Worldchanging has published “Worldchanging: A Users Guide for the 21st Century“, 600-pages (!) for anyone interested in the forces currently shaping our collective future(s), and how individual choices can make a difference:
“Worldchanging works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us.
That plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected.
That the motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present.
That another world is not just possible, it’s here. We only need to put the pieces together.
This is a groundbreaking compendium of the most innovative solutions, ideas and inventions emerging today for building a sustainable, livable, prosperous future.
From consumer consciousness to a new vision for industry; non-toxic homes to refugee shelters; microfinance to effective philanthropy; socially responsible investing to starting a green business; citizen media to human rights; ecological economics to climate change, this is the most comprehensive, cutting-edge overview to date of what’s possible in the near future — if we decide to make it so.”
Covered categories include stuff, shelter, cities, community, business, politics and planet.
Posted in Human Centered Design, Books | No Comments »
06-10-2006 by
Designing Interactions.
The MIT Press just released “Designing Interactions“, a new book+DVD by Bill Moggridge, one of IDEO’s founders.
The book is structured around 40 interviews with leading thinkers and practitioners who have been shaping the field, including Convivio’s own Gillian Crampton Smith.
“Digital Technology has changed the way we interact with everything from the games we play to the tools we use at work.
Designers of digital technology products no longer regard their job as designing a physical object, beautiful or utilitarian, but as designing our interactions with it.
In Designing Interactions, Bill Moggridge, designer of the first laptop computer (the GRiD Compass, 1981) and a founder of the design firm IDEO, tells us stories from an industry insider’s viewpoint, tracing the evolution of ideas from inspiration to outcome.
Moggridge and his interviewees discuss why a personal computers have windows in desktops, what made Palm’s handheld organizers so successful, what turns a game into a hobby, why Google is the search engine of choice, and why 30 million people in Japan choose the i-mode service for their cell phones.
And Moggridge tells the story of his own design process and explains the focus on people and prototypes that has been successful at IDEO, how the needs and desires of people can inspire innovative designs and how prototyping methods are evolving for the design of digital technology.”
If all of the above is not enough to wet your appetite maybe the words of Don Norman will:
“This will be the book - the book that summarizes how the technology of interaction came into being and prescribes how it will advance in the future.
Essential, exciting, and a delight for both eyes and mind.”
Posted in Interaction Design, Books | 1 Comment »