I joined up with many British ex-pats at Adaptive Path yesterday evening for Schulze & Webb's The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Interaction Design. Suffice to say, the talk was excellent and thoroughly enjoyable.
In the Q&A session at the end I was delighted to hear a slip of the tongue from one questioner*, asking about Continuous Partial Attention: he wondered whether there wasn't a risk of being overflowded with information. OVERFLOWDED? That's lovely!
Coming a close second for me, but first for Yoz, was uncertainun. It was a good word day.
Update: It was Reto Laemmler of Xcellery, who writes "I'm not a Poet or Writer and rather a Swiss guy who hasn't mastered English very well yet." No matter! I hope the road to mastering English is paved with words like overflowded.
I'm enjoying the first public fruits of Schulze and Webb's work with Nokia on personalisation, in particular their explorations with mobile phone design in wood and fabric.
Anne Galloway asks if this is "personalisation for the many or the few?" and this talk of personalisation, local manufacture and crafting leads me to revisit my thoughts following a visit to the V&A's International Arts and Crafts exhibition this summer.
I can't say that the products or design values of the movement weren't to my taste, and nor can I deny the influence and impact of the movement on current design. However, the ideals of the arts and crafts movement as told by the exhibition were seemingly at odds with the pieces on display and the works of the designers who most actively promoted it. Ostensibly the movement was aimed at making high-quality everyday items accessible to the masses, and a desired return to simpler values, natural materials, high quality craftsmanship and in particular the notion of house and home as work of art. Unfortunately it seemed to be composed of well-off city-dwellers whose desire for so-called simple life arose from a romanticised and fetishised view of the countryside. Save a brief nod to Gustav Stickley's desire for commercial viability it wasn't clear how ordinary people would ever attain the wealth required to live that lifestyle, but meanwhile the apparent worthiness and endearing qualites of handicrafts and one-off items were co-opted to design and furnish the houses of rich patrons of the arts in Victorian urban centres.
Perhaps I missed something and just neatly summarised a total misunderstanding of the Arts and Crafts movement, but sticking my neck out a little I can see the some of the same contradictions at work in Schulze and Webb's explorations. On the one hand, the assertion is made that personalisation and craft should be (and arguably are) accessible to everyone, but on the other hand the waters are muddied with talk of one-off/short-run bespoke and luxury items for a designer market. I'm pretty sure that arises because they quite rightly believe in the value both areas of design, but I'm interested to hear Jack and Matt's thoughts on why these areas are seemingly so easy to mix up, and I'm especially eager to see what comes next.
Matt Webb on pockets and mobile form factors:
"The modern form factor is that of the mobile phone: a fat oblong. You can have two of these per pocket and a handful of change. It fits in the palm, and comfortably in any pocket you're likely to have. There are pockets made in suits for exactly this size. New cameras are this size. You could probably sell a change of underwear and some breathmints in a disposable package this size. When we have glue devices - to plug into tvs to play games and see photos, to provide connectivity to a group, to play adhoc karaoke - they aspire to this size. What else?"
I see these mobile-form pockets in all sorts of places, normally empty, or (like two people I saw on the tube today) packed with tissues or sweets. I don't use the one on my bag, because it is uselessly placed between the strap and me. Outdoors, I need my phone against me so I feel it vibrate, and because I don't want the ringer on loud (it's rude). The custom pockets often have zippers and velcro, making them too inaccessible. So trouser pocket it is.
My new Rio Carbon is wedge-shaped, so it can be the last thing to go in my pocket. The scroll wheel can remain unlocked, so if I get the pocket arrangement right, I can change volume without looking. This wouldn't be the case with a custom fancy zippered pocket.
My pockets have holes in too, especially since I now have to carry four front door keys. Any solutions out there for a pocket-friendly key ring?
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