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Designing for Tangible Games revisited

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:30:00 GMT

In this class organized by the ID-StudioLab Aadjan van der Helm, students of Design for Interaction are given assignments to design and prototype a tangible game, using Max/MSP and phidgets.

The goal of my lecture is to give the students some ideas, methods and tools to help refine their concepts and ideas to the next stage. To do this, we asked the students to make postcards, explaining their projects visually on the front of the card and using a small area to explain their project in text on the back of the card. This forces the students to make a compact explanation of their project, but it also stimulates the use of plain language.

Last year, I gave a linear presentation about the different concepts, plus what tools, methods and approaches they could use to solidify their ideas. This year the presentation was quite similar, but I used a new tool that allows me to organize, present and annotate images. Instead of a linear presentation, the new presentation format made me group, cluster and draw relationships between the different postcards both for my own thought process and as part of the presentation for the students.

On meeting Eckart Wintzen

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:31:00 GMT

I had contacted Eckart Wintzen after hearing his talk at the Dordtse Doeners in which he talked (metaphorically) about the coffee corner as the most innovative place in the workplace. I was there to present the Panamorphosis Table, which in our view can serve well as an informal virtual meeting space, extending the metaphoric coffee corner for innovation. Therefore I couldn’t resist contacting Eckart about this idea, especially in relation to his Eye Catcher. Also during his talk he asked the audience about the true inventor of TomTom’s navigation technology and of course I had to answer that one.

After some emails back and forth, Eckart invited us over at his Ex’tent Headquarters. We had a long and lively discussion on the differences and similarities of different systems and at one point Eckart put us behind his desk and ran out to do a real-live demonstration of his Eye Catcher system. Sitting behind his desk, in his wonderful office, I just had to shoot the picture above.

Now, just five weeks later, the news arrives of Eckart Wintzen’s untimely death. After loosing people I admire both close and farther away, this month is marked by many losses.

Indistinguishable from magic

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:00:00 GMT

I have gotten to know Arthur C. Clarke’s work (and that of many other sci-fi writers) through my friend Theo Kemp, who died on March 5, 2008. I was happy to use his last of Clarke’s three laws as a way to explain (1) that adding some pzazz, smoke and mirrors, bells and whistles aka magic to your product design is not bad and (2) that you don’t always need the most advanced technology, sufficiently advanced technology will do.

Now for my 2004 sufficiently advanced magical tribute I give you the magical embedding of Vimeo:

Provoking Human Technology

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:05:00 GMT

In a set of slides filled with movies and pictures of examples of my work and related work, I gave my perspective on trends in interfaces, including the themes: multitouch, expressive interfaces, scales of interaction and bridging the physical-digital divide. The slides (61 Mb, interactive quicktime) are embedded below or can be downloaded here. Click on the image to advance the slides.

In the master, these students are trained to look at interfaces from an evaluative perspective, such as checking if the interface meets the expectations of the users. As my talk was about fulfilling unmet needs and taking a step beyond the expected, some students described my talk as “provocative”, which I will regard as a compliment.

For MC Only

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:54:00 GMT

The first appearance, on Tuesday, February 12, 2008, I was asked to facilitate and guide a brainstorming session for the new direction of research for the department of Design Engineering at the TU Delft’s Faculty of Design Engineering. This session came as a direct result from my previous work for the research visitation, and mostly consisted of introducing the different perspectives on the research, plus facilitating a discussion between the different researchers on the commonalities of their research.

The second appearance, on Friday, February 15, 2008, was related to a real-world example of using contextmapping to get insights and empathy with a target group. In this case my task was to present and facilitate discussion on the results of several research projects by a large Dutch insurance company to find out what moves and shakes their target group.

At the end of this week it was clear that the only thing that prepared me for the unexpected reactions of these diverse crowds is my experience of playing in dramas and theatre. Then again, these unexpected reactions have always been part of my fascination for people using products.

WdKAbinet

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 09:37:00 GMT

The lecture will be part of the classes on idea generation organized by Frans van Lent. In it I will focus on the presentation aspects of Cabinet, but of course I will stress that presentation and demonstration are a key part of idea generation itself as well.

This is the second talk at the Willem de Kooning Academy, following talks and workshops at TU/e, Rietveld Academy, MediaTechnology, HKU and TU Delft. The talk will be in Dutch and is not public, but I will keep you posted on my experiences with the students.

Update: The presentation itself was very nice with enthusiastic students. My slides with notes and urls can be found here.

Wii’re at Zefir7

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:13:00 GMT

The organization of this event is done by Lust, whom I previously met at their Generation Random exhibition. On request by Lust, I invited Aldo Hoeben and Bastiaan Terhorst to show their projects that draw inspiration or could be associated with the Wiimote technology. Let me briefly introduce them with associated videos.

Aldo Hoeben will be showing his accelerometered panoramic technology, with which you can use a TabletPC as a virtual window onto a photographic panorama.

Bastiaan Terhorst will be demonstrating a project in which infrared camera detection is used to play Super Mario with your hand and voice.

My role will be merely to give some context and background surrounding alternative interfaces. If you can, meet us there at 20:30 and I will probably beat you in Wii Sports Tennis.

Update: It was an extremely nice evening with a great audience, nice atmosphere and at the end a great Wii Sports Tennis competition as the highlight. I will try to find some more photos and images from the evening, but for now this slideshow should give you some sort of idea. My slides are also available online.

Unpacking my Dream of the Rarebit Fiend

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:06:00 GMT

This news article will not go deeply into the contents of the book, because for this I gladly refer you to Huib van Opstal’s analysis of the Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. I just wanted to share the experience of receiving a coffeetable book weighing 4.3 kilograms, with a size rendering the coffee table itself useless.

I captured the unpacking in this slideshow and set of pictures but the unpacking experience is a true marvel. The book is packaged in a cardboard box, with some nice Winsor McCay like stamps in strategic places. Opening the cardboard box will not reveal the book itself, but does get you in the mood with some nice printouts, excerpts and promotional material. The book itself is still hiden in several meters of bubble wrap. But the reward is wonderful when you finally get your hands on a huge book + DVD with a wealth of reference and inspiration related to Winsor McCay and the full contents of his Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.

But for some real thorough analysis and reflection on the work of Winsor McCay, I suggest you find some inspiration in this guest article by Huib van Opstal.

ONE by Beingserved

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:38:00 GMT

ONE is a combination of a shelf, on which products can be presented, with a dynamic display behind it, on which more information about the products themselves, the brands and the relationships between the products can be provided. Because ONE knows when products are taken from the shelf, it also allows for some very simple, intuitive interactivity. To explain it best, either go to the online presentation of ONE or watch the YouTube movie embedded below:

I do know of several other attempts to bring interactivity to retail and to combine physical products with projected additional information but none of them have been so solid in both physical and digital appearance. The combination of product and service by beingserved really makes it one of the first of such ventures to be commercially viable. It could be a nice addition to the next DWB showroom especially that their next collection has a very apt title.

Panomorphosis Table at Innovation Playground

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 07:56:00 GMT

After the success of Cabinet at last year’s Innovation Playground we, Aldo Hoeben and Ianus Keller, teamed up once again to show our Panamorphosis Table. On the Panamorphosis Table people — yes, this can be more than one — can experience another environment through a mirrored panoramic projection. I will not go too deep into the Panamorphosis Table itself, hopefully Aldo or the two of us together will write up a longer piece on it elsewhere (1, 2, 3).

We first presented the Panamorphosis Table at BrightLive, but in the last year we have been working on improving the quality of the display, resizing the physical table to get it more socially acceptable, shooting better content and making the table slightly interactive by rotating the image. Best of all, the improvements do not interfere with the core values of the table: providing a social setting for informal discussions, using the panamorphic image as a medium for conversation and having a lightweight immersive experience (just a taste).

The Innovation Playground event itself is part of the inspiration week, which tries to bring together professionals from different fields and expose them to innovations from even more diverse backgrounds. On this day, we served as inspiration provider for the audience which was trying to creatively solve problems assigned to them. To make it even more diverse this year the audience also included opinionkids and elderly. The best way to experience the atmosphere and crowd is to view the tour in the panoramic video as shot by Aldo. Hey, you can even build your own mini Panamorphosis Table if you have a small cylindrical reflective object.

The Panamorphosis Table worked great, especially for ourselves; the experience and videos never seem to bore us. The elderly were most pleased with the concept and even provided us with some nice ideas for applications — the ultimate coffee table, a more social Storytable. As a nice bonus Aldo also gave some demos of the accelerometered panorama on his TabletPC. These demonstrations are real eyecatchers and will also be featured at BrightLive 2007 on April 4 and 5, 2008, in the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam.

More photos can be seen on flickr, some videos over on vimeo. Also I found another writeup from the visualizer’s perspective over at JAM.

Touching the iPhone

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:37:00 GMT

Though I am not automatically a fan of the industrial design of the product (nor the complete range of new iPods for that matter), the iPhone interface quickly makes you forget its physicality. The product, truly is a window towards the music, photos or the internet.

With the interface it is just a joy to flip switches on and off, turn the device around for optimal viewing and typing on the impossibly small keyboard. The quality of YouTube content is oddly better than on the web, but the greatest thing on the iPhone is scrolling and zooming in on web pages. I especially enjoyed browsing through the horizontally scrolling news page at fieldOfView as you can see in the video below:

But seeing is believing: either on video or in photos.

il Metodo di Passione

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 15:07:00 GMT

I will not go into details of our presentation itself, just tune in at City TV, at the CHI conference site or right here below. More will follow, it may be chaotic, it may be off-topic, but we will be passionate!

Update: All went well and you can now watch the video registration on CityTV.nl. I also embedded the Intermezzo below. Just click on play to see the rerun (or look at the original slides in parallel):

To find out why I am referring to Tjeerd Hoek during the Intermezzo you can best watch the first keynote and if you want even more you can also watch the closing session which includes me, Tjeerd Hoek and Marc Hassenzahl discussing quotes laid out by Gerrit van der Veer. Meanwhile Dennis is making comments on the slides presented there (they will be posted).

Sketching User Experiences

Tue, 29 May 2007 14:34:00 GMT

After my visit to Microsoft Research, Bill Buxton gave me a manuscript version of the book he was writing for review. The book has now been published at Morgan Kaufmann titled Sketching User Experiences. Getting the Design Right and the Right Design.

The book has been introduced at the CHI Conference and the reactions have been very positive. Rightfully so, because it contains energizing stories from the design practice written with and about great passion. In wonderful spreads (designed by Henry Hong-Yiu Cheung) Bill offers a valuable analysis of the importance of sketching, trying and building your ideas. These sketches can be on paper, in presentation or in simple models or even rough working prototypes. As long as you are willing to throw them away, when a better solution comes along.

In the book, Bill also explains that it is not only the ideas or the designers that are important, but also the culture in which these ideas thrive. The book features very nice examples from the design and research practice at Trek, Bruce Mau Design, Microsoft Research, IDEO, Alias|Wavefront, Imperial College London and many, many more.

Best of all, the book extensively features my research work in one full spread, with a flattering description:.

Finally, due to its simplicity, one of the most elegant solutions that I have seen for sharing both objects and images is something called Cabinet, developed by Ianus Keller
Bill Buxton in Sketching User Experiences

The book also features work by my former colleagues, such as the MP3 prototypes by Caroline Hummels and Aadjan van der Helm and the sketches over photos by Aldo Hoeben. In the acknowledgments both Caroline and I are being mentioned in a list that features many of the people I admire. More photos of the book are available here, but why don’t you just get your copy at of all get your copy at Amazon or your local bookstore?

It seems you can even read it in your car.

I ♥ ISM

Tue, 22 May 2007 12:13:00 GMT

On Tuesday, May 22, 2007, I had an appointment with the people from ISM eCompany to look at their preliminary interface designs for one of my clients. Such a design review in itself can be quite awkward if you have a stubborn designer, but in my earlier contacts with them on another project I already knew them to be quite open and even thankful for my suggestions.

The appointment for the interface design review was originally set on May 15 at the ISM headquarters in the Van Nelle Ontwerpfabriek. Their offices are on the exact spot where the exhibition was of the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival in 2004. Ahh, the memories!

Now, just before Ascension Day the appointment was postponed until the 22nd of May. When I arrived in Rotterdam, right on time, I found out to my dismay that not only the date but also the location had been changed to Sassenheim.

As I was looking for transportation alternatives, the nice people of ISM provided me with a full service solution: a Toyota Prius to drive myself over there. Though I did arrive somewhat later, it was a great experience to test drive such a hybrid car.

Arriving there (50 minutes later) I found out that ISM offers these kinds of solutions regularly to their clients. They told me about how they immediately replaced a client’s broken mobile phone, which had fallen during a meeting. At the end of the meeting I was even driven back home to Dordrecht by ISM designer Sjack.

Designing for Tangible Games

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:52:00 GMT

The lecture was programmed by the ID-StudioLab Aadjan van der Helm in the Interactive Technology Design assignment for students of Design for Interaction. In their assignment, a selected set of students was asked to design a tangible game and develop a working prototype for that, using Max/MSP and phidgets.

Before the lectures, the students were asked to provide descriptions of their first concepts in the form of postcards. On the front a sketch, collage, scheme or other strong visual teaser for the game concept was to be presented. On the back we asked the students to write about the concept in simple non-tech and non-design terms about what it would be. The presentation method with a real receiver (the addressee) and a divided graphical and textual part really helped as a tool to get the concept and atmosphere explained quickly and expressively.

Interactive presentation of the postcards from the session, click through them or use arrow keys.

The resulting concepts consisted of many mazes and games that mimic capture the flag in some way. The assignment confined the student in making something that had to be multi-player and without visual feedback. Best concept presentations were made by the students that bended these rules a bit to their liking. The interactive part of the lecture consisted of me giving suggestions on these projects and discussing how to pursue and explore their concepts further.

Update: The final presentation will be on Friday, June 22, 2007 with all the results from the Interactive Technology Design classes demonstrating their projects interactively. This is open to those interested by contacting the amazing Aadjan van der Helm.

Visiting LUST exhibition

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:35:00 GMT

The exhibition consisted of a tabletop display, which contained visual presentations of the work done by Dutch graphic design agency Lust over the last 10 years. Information can be accessed by taking a labeled box from the archive and placing it on the table. Very smoothly the contents then flows out of the archive box. By touching the table the contents could be rearranged, viewed, stacked and zoomed.

The interface definitely had some nice parallels with Cabinet. As elaborated on in the very nice presentation visitors automatically assume the interface also suppports a multi-touch interaction, which in today’s hype features as a sign of coolness.

Best of it all, with all this wonderful interaction and finesse, the presentation did not distract too much from the very fine work developed over the last decade by the guys from Lust. Impressive stuff!

Methods for Rietveld

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 12:04:00 GMT

After presenting earlier on tools and methods for inspiration at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie on February 5, 2007, Ianus Keller was asked again by Bas van Beek to teach on methods, tools and techniques for inspiration.

Update: View the photos of the workshop at Flickr.

Tools in Leiden

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 09:28:00 GMT

The workshop consisted of two half-day sessions, for which the students had to prepare themselves. In the first workshop Ianus Keller gave a presentation and had a discussion on what it means to think from the tool perspective. Much of which was a further explanation of the Pecha Kucha, but with some more background on tool development and tool thinking.

The true climax happened during the second workshop in which all the students were asked to present their takes on tools, the tool perspective or a specific tool using the Pecha Kucha format. The students took on the challenge and enthusiastically worked their ways through the out-of-control slideshow with applause, laughter even some serious discussions.

I could find three levels of discussions. The whole notion of what it means to be a tool, which included the ethical discussions on using animals (or even people) as tools, the use of tools by animals and a conversation on what makes a tool. Secondly there was the playful, explorative use in tools, with topics such as beermats as brainstorming tools, other uses for tin cans and Circuit bending. Finally there were the examples of tools and related issues, such as exergaming, input devices, Lego and Case modding.

Photos of the presentations can be found on this Flickr set or in the Scrapblog.

Most importantly though, the atmosphere was great, the students enthusiastic and their feedback positive.

MacCover

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:30:00 GMT

I just received the latest Supernana newsletter and it mentioned a very nice product to both protect, personalize and humanize your latest piece of slick white technology. Of course it can also protect a MacBook Pro, a Tablet PC or even one of those Dell laptops.

With the thick felt cover it will protect your laptop against bumps and scratches. Also, it will keep it nice and warm.

The MacCover is made by the very nice Supernana. They create these and many other products locally, on a small scale with a dedicated, passionate group of women. Their other products are targeted at children, but with a quality that can last over many generations. I can’t see my laptop withstand time over generations, but it will hold out longer than without one.

Order yours now, mention my name in the email and it might just earn me one of these amazing podcovers (nano nano)!

Windows Vista Launch

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:07:00 GMT

Microsoft Netherlands is working the press with the fact that there is a great deal of Dutch design at the base of the new Windows Vista User Interface. The Microsoft User Experience team consists of seven designers from the Netherlands, most of them from Industrial Design. The most prominent name is their Design Director Tjeerd Hoek.

To my great pleasure I have gotten to know Tjeerd Hoek from my work on the 2003 Microsoft Research Interface Design Expo. A project in which we got to fly over to Microsoft headquarters in Seattle, WA and present our student’s work. From then on we have stayed in touch and had interesting email conversations on involving users , emotion, social networking and interface design gurus. Conversations that were most insightful.

An inspiring thesis from an inspiring dr. ir.
Tjeerd Hoek, Microsoft, on receiving my PhD thesis

Almost everybody agrees that the updated interface indeed looks smashing. The most heard criticism is that it looks too much like the Apple OS X operating system. Well, since 1989, I have been an almost religious Mac user and I visited their headquarters in 1994 – but reality is more differentiated.

What could Microsoft have done? In my opinion, the company could have made a much bigger step in their interface, especially in the context sensitive interfaces as they are implemented in the new Microsoft Office. But that would have resulted in a lot of resistance from its user base. Apple is blessed with a very innovative – and very critical – user base, which makes it easier to force new user patterns and bold steps onto it.

The biggest thing holding back the design of Microsoft, and the main cause of it being seen as too much of an Apple copycat, is that the program (or product) managers on the different parts of the Windows operating system suffer from death by risk-aversion. This makes it nearly impossible to introduce bold new features. Because only things that are either similar to things of the past or things that have been proven succesful at Apple are accepted. So, instead of the designers being asked to copy the Apple interface, it’s the program managers only selecting or accepting the features that they feel safe with. Within these boundaries the designers did a very good job, but you can really see the lack of risk in the details so well pointed out by David Pogue – in things like the calendaring application, the texturing in the chess game and the pan and zoom in the slideshows.
But lest not forget that Apple’s Dock, the command-tab application switching and the whole widget/gadget thing are not invented by Apple either.

Microsoft’s biggest problem however is the lack of integration of hardware and software. I have been running Windows Vista RC1 in a dual boot on my Apple MacBook and I continuously return to the Mac OS, mainly because I can use two-fingered trackpad scrolling, the built-in iSight and the Apple remote. This is their real amazing feat and we see Apple doing it again in the iPhone.

Though Bizz already did a roundup I will quickly do the same with a set of links to (mainly Dutch) newspaper articles and appearances in which Tjeerd had the chance to explain the complexity of the interface design process and to show off his taskbar drawing skills:

Update: The Tjeerd Hoek appearance on De Wereld Draait Door has resulted in somewhat of a row when Laurens Verhagen reported that Matthijs van Nieuwkerk was actually hired to host the official Windows Vista launch party in the afternoon – an activity which is now even under investigation. Oddly enough the Geenstijl moral crusaders picked up on the story and had a very interesting choice of visual material. The setting shows similarities with what happened in the afternoon.

Another update: Tjeerd himself is clearly not risk-aversive, as he explained at a panel on how to create a kickass in-house design team. Tjeerd likes his clients (i.e. program managers) to get nervous and his designers to cause trouble.

Did you find other relevant news items? Click the email link below.

Van Opstal in Elsevier

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:58:00 GMT

My mentor, friend and longtime collaborator, writer-designer Huib van Opstal has done a four-page review of the Exposition Hergé in Elsevier magazine. Starting in the Centre Pompidou in Paris from December 2006 untill the end of February 2007, plus elsewhere in Europe in the near future. Read all about it and check out his special link page on the Elsevier website. Worth the detour!

Huib van Opstal has written the conclusive biography on Georges Remi, aka Hergé. His revealing tome doesn’t stop at the Belgian Tintin or Kuifje comic strips, it also deals extensively with each and every design aspect in the graphic and sequential work of Hergé.

Update: Nice comment by Huib van Opstal on this page. Seeing the picture on the top, you really have to agree with Frans van Mourik and Paul Mijksenaar that the logo of Centre Pompidou is indeed very strong (too bad it’s not used in the Centre Pompidou website)

An Inspiring 2007!

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 12:27:00 GMT

I would like to wish you all a very inspiring New Year. Keep looking around, searching for things you are not looking for.

I hope to bring you even more and better news than in 2006 and 2005

Research assessment

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:01:00 GMT

As of December 2006, For Inspiration Only will return to TU Delft’s faculty of Industrial Design Engineering to work with the Dean on the self assessment report for the visitation of the research over the 2001-2006 period. It will mean I will have to work with all the professors and program leads to get a good overview of the results. It will also involve getting all the “raw data”, such as number of publications, funding and other performance values.
I hope I will end up with a good looking, well edited book filled with a huge amount of information, references and other documentation.

Update: The report was finished in September 2007 and on November 20, 21 and 22, 2007, the Review Committee visited the TU Delft’s facilities. Though the final feedback has not yet been given out, I have overheard these random snippets from the committee.

…the effort that was put into the attractive self-assessment report were much appreciated by the Committee.

The work of PJ Stappers’ group is quite mature and has become internationally known for its mix of human-centred investigation in conjunction with technological options for demonstrating design solutions. Both the research publications and design activities in this area are noteworthy.

And last but not least for my own ego:

Another way in which the research is judged by the outside world is through the designs set out in the world… One of the research prototypes, Cabinet, was demonstrated as a TU Delft innovation to the Dutch Innovation Platform, a Dutch strategic team with members from the cabinet, including the prime minister and captains of industry and the scientific world.

Pecha Kucha

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 22:18:00 GMT

On Wednesday, December 20, 2006, Ianus Keller will talk about tools in a PechaKucha in Locus010 in Rotterdam. In his presentation Ianus will talk about the effect of tools, looking at design from the tool perspective, creative use and users as makers. Cabinet will of course function as an example of an expressive tool.

Update: The night was a great success. Especially because it gave me a chance to think about my position and thoughts on tools. I did loose my breath and was looking for words, but you can judge for yourself (or better quality on Virb)

Tempel interactive

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:48:00 GMT

On Thursday, December 21, 2006, For Inspiration Only will do an interaction design workshop at Tempel with a new web service as a carrier. The workshop will be followed with a presentation at Tempel’s New Year’s drink on Thursday, January 11, 2007.