Right, then, it”s a quarter of the way into the year. Time to take stock, maybe, to look around and see what you”ve achieved so far in 2013.
That”d be pretty nice. We”ve been heads down on a bunch of intense, fast-turnaround projects that the recent past is a bit hazy and thinking is a little painful. Still, fun. Here are some things that have filled our eyes and minds in between.
- Skip to about 1″24″ on the above video if you want to get to the particularly interesting bit. When Nintendo launched the Wii U, there were some queries as to what they had in mind for the NFC capabilities on the U-controller. Now, we are reminded that Nintendo started as – and will essentially always be – . The integration of the NFC-enabled Pokémon figures is a natural extension of both in-game and out-of-game behaviours: collecting, training and upgrading your characters. At £1.50 a pop, Nintendo should probably have some time left before it becomes just a publisher.
It”s nice to see Nintendo designing with existing behaviours in mind, even if they”re applied in different ways, moving the technology to its role as an enabler rather than The Thing itself.
- Absolute Radio are taking the commercial road towards Perceptive Media to create personalised adverts based on user data, delivered using object-based programming of music and buffers.
- James saw Mark of Mark Boulton Design talk around their task of redesigning the CERN website at Refresh-LX last year. A few weeks ago the the new CERN site went live and Mark wrote an interesting blog post about the strategy for reshaping such a huge project.
- Bruce Sterling took the opportunity at his SXSW closing keynote to denounce much of the start-up scenes” exhortations of . A bold, and welcome, statement reminding all that not everything that can be disrupted by the market should be.
- Good post by Alexandra Lange on the always-reliable Domus looking at the content strategy and the visual architecture of current social sites/mobile apps. The discussion around shifting attention behaviours and trends towards users “not always looking for the whole experience, but just a taste” is very important. Now Flipboard are making the DIY magazine explicit with user “curated” magazines.
- BERG”s long post about their Connbox project seeking to solve video calling for Google Creative Lab is a masterpiece in showing your working. Starting with the broad brief, through history, low tech prototypes, collaborations, in-house behaviour testing, and video-as-design. It”s always good to see the design processes behind projects – especially when they”re this open.
- From the good of Google to the bad: we”re all a tiny bit pissed off with their planned killing of Reader. Luckily, Paul Bradshaw from OJB set up an open Google Doc of best alternatives. There are 54 so far, so the choice is still a bit dizzying.
- In the future, every single thing you do will be mapped as an input and you won”t know how to cook a carrot. Thanks, Microsoft.
- Timo”s brilliant essay on the current debate/headless march towards No UI is as fascinating as it is well argued. It takes in everything from the industrial architecture of the cloud, to the materials that can fail and takes task with open misunderstandings of what “No UI” is (eg Nest). People will always trip themselves up with absolutism, but ultimately Timo argues of “understandability” in products and appropriate UI as clear and necessary tools.
Frank Chimero provides a good follow-up piece, The Cloud Is Heavy and Design Isn”t Invisible, that looks at the negative impact of popular myths in obscuring the truth.
- Recent projects have seen us using a more explicit “designing for behaviours” approach: to start using ambient behaviour as a material, rather than as a “input”. As well as Timo”s essay, it has also led us to revisit an excellent Tom Armitage post from a couple of years ago about Technology As A Material, which is always worth reminding yourself of.
- Matt Locke writes about the growing trend of agencies becoming their own publishers/product creators – not necessarily bifurcating their services, or doing part-time projects. Of course, this brings with it a wealth of freedom but also difficulties, as we know from our experiences with and Chromaroma.
Nick Cave mood-wheel
- The Nick Cave app for Spotify is an excellent thing. Part curated, part powered by metadata. It points towards the happy medium where data and personal insights can actually make useful, enjoyable things together. A furrow we”ve been attempting to plough in various projects.
AND FINALLY
- Dark Igloo make me want to contact them.
- Going to the edge of the Earth and making do without your usual tools, and from noma”s perspective.
- Strelka post about the lifespan of technology, and the items considered “household essentials” in the UK by the Office of National Statistics – which now include eBooks.
- Enjoying the Pitchfork Advance album previews. Some sort of digital version of listening to a new LP with the liner notes.
- Gyford has been collecting the public announcements as companies shutter after being aqui-hired.
- The Guardian have made a snazzy interactive panorama of London from the top of the Shard, complete with field recordings and stories.
- What we”ve been listening to: , & .