BumpTop

This is directly from TED Talks which is a way cool conference held once a year. I only found out about it this past year in one of my design courses at RIT. Basically a bunch of really diverse, really smart people come together and give short presentations on their ideas, or something they are working on at the time.

This one is about BumpTop, http://bumptop.com/#TEDVideo and I highly recommend you watch the video. Its a sweet concept about re-thinking the computer desktop and how we organize our files and folders (specifically on the desktop).

I think I will definitely sign up for the beta version of this. I think it can work on both mac and pc but I can foresee it being frustrating when I am frustrated, but that I suppose comes with anything new. If I could turn it on and turn it off, that would be ideal, at least in the beginning when I am getting used to it. None the less, a very neat idea. Something the creator mentions is that this concept relates really well to photos and I could definitely see a company like Flickr jumping on board to try it out real soon.

David Armano’s Fab Slideshow on Interaction Design

This is David Armano’s Slideshow and his actual blog is http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/. He has a lot of really interesting things to say about interaction design. Since starting my new job as an Interaction Designer, I have started to pay attention more to how design and human factors specialists come together and create some really unique experiences for the public.

I highly recommend this presentation David Armano put together. It goes over general principles and his thoughts about how to create really great products/experiences. The one to my left titled “Four Simple Steps to Becoming a Compassionate Designer” and it encourages us (the designers/creators) to step outside our cubicles for a day and interact with those people who we are designing for. This is important because I see so many people who think that google or their own thought processes are the ideal for figuring out what people really want…or even worse…they simply adopt the philosophies of other great designs. Don’t get me wrong, some people cough::cough::Apple::cough have created simply amazing products, but who wants to design something as cool as those products? The goal is to surpass not the company or the coolness of the product, but the experience. Talking to the target audience, and really listening to what they have to say, their needs, wants, how they interact with products they already own – might be critical in finding the next greatest experience or product for them.

The “Human Hierarchy + Creative Collaboration in the Workplace” slide is a thought process starting to commonly occur in modern day. The time of the rigid levels of the work place is starting to disintegrate. Not totally, everyone (I personally think) needs someone to ground them, but whether that is a boss, or a co-worker is debatable. And I can proudly say that the only reason I am intimidated by my bosses (that is, my boss and my boss’s boss) are because I totally respect them and feel totally comfortable asking their opinion on a design concept I might be working on, or a problem I have. But, I digress. I think the biggest thought to take away from this slide of Armano’s is knowledge share across the board, from the highest up to the farthest across from you in the work place.

Overall, this is a great presentation and though I am sure it helps to have the creator of it explain the presentation along the way, the slides themselves are quite thought provoking and well done. Hats off to David Armano.

A quote to put near your desk

The best products aren’t the ones with the most features. The best products are those whose features are tightly integrated with the solutions they provide, making them the most usable.

- From Apple’s Fundamentals Guide to User Experience (pg 31)

Apple’s Design Philosophy

Originally, I was reading an interaction design blog when I came across a quote of a quote from the article, The Secret of Apple Design by Don Norman.

“The hardest part of design, especially consumer electronics,” says Norman, “is keeping features out.” Simplicity, he says, is in itself a product differentiator, and pursuing it can lead to innovation.

Every Industrial Designer, Interaction Designer, and Human Factors guru would agree (I hope). To me, that sums what product design should be quite nicely. But, I wonder if the innovation that Don Norman is talking about is for the designers own satisfaction, or for the consumers satisfaction. Consumers, though they might want feature upon feature in a new device, what they need in the end is to be able to use the device effectively – does that mean the device has to be innovative? No, might be as simple and conforming as the next product on the shelf. I think, for Apple, the innovation came when they decided to focus more on basic design (aesthetics) as well as the Interaction Design early on in their products development.

If you read the article that Don Norman is quoted from, then  you will get an excellent idea of Apple’s design philosophy – not how they design, or their process, but their philosophy based on people who have crossed paths with them. Apple supposedly doesn’t like talking to the press, so the article uses people twice removed. Still, a good read.

Another memorable quote from the article:

“Jobs is a dictator, but with good taste,” says Norman. “He is good and driven to the perfect experience. He doesn’t want good design; he wants great design.” Brunner similarly lauds Jobs’s “driven, singular focus.” And Rolston says, in what is perhaps the best explanation of Apple’s design ascendancy, “It’s a happy coincidence at Apple that the designer in chief is the CEO. He has a fantastic sense of what people want. And after all, that is design.”

(Robert Brunner was Apple’s director of industrial design from 1989 to early 1996 and Mark Rolston is senior vice president of creative at Frog Design, a product-design and strategic-branding firm that worked closely with Apple from 1982 to 1988.)