ramblings of a creative developer
A year ago, before Microsoft Surface, Microsoft created a video suggesting some of the User Interfaces of the future. Some of these are VERY cool:
None though are as cool as OLED flexible surfaces such as these…
FlicFlex:
And Sony’s OLED flexible screens:
Off the back of my last post on Microsoft’s Touch Wall and my slightly off-topic update dealing with OpenFrameworks, these are the two guys behind OF:
Theodore Watson (http://muonics.net/)
Zach Lieberman (http://thesystemis.com)
United Visual Artists (http://www.uva.co.uk/) are also using it heavily.
Image taken from Theodore Watson’s latest work, Funky Forest: An interactive ecosystem
Christian Behrens has created an excellent collection of Information Design patterns.
Everyone should really go and check out his great work.
Following on from the below quote, AGRs have really taken off recently.
‘Lost’ carved out a huge following last year with it’s online biscuit trail of rumour and intrigue, and it’s going for it again with Fly Oceanic Air.
It started with billboards spotted in Knoxville, Tennessee. The billboards advertised a URL, www.flyoceanicair.com.
On visiting the website, you are sucked into an adventure involving multiple websites, video diaries, photos with text hidden among the pixels, clue hunts, and strategy games. You can even call a toll-free phone number and get progress updates about the search for missing Oceanic Flight 815. Interesting characters and mysteries keep web players engaged and new content is posted at seemingly random intervals, forcing frequent check-ins to see if there’s anything new.
Last week Enitech Technology popped up as well…
ARGs are a perfect fit for sponsors looking to fund immersive, cutting-edge brand experiences and for people who love a good story — not to mention the feeling of contributing to it — There’s a whole genre of interactive experience here that we’re only just seeing the start of…
There’s a fine line between simplicity and complexity. That line is mindset. Let me explain.
In my daily work I strive to ‘make the complicated simple’, yet as humans we always strive for more complexity.
John Maeda, Associate Director of Research at The Media Lab, gave a TED talk in March 2007, which has only recently been uploaded to the TED website. In it he talks about Simplicity in terms of human nature and ends with one simple insight:
“Simplicity is about living life with more enjoyment and less pain”
Watch the talk to understand fully the above statement.
I think it’s a fantastic talk and illustrates why John is at the top of his field.
Back in May(?) I visited his first solo exhibition in London in a tiny gallery just off Berwick St. Alot of the humour he showed in his art also comes out in this talk.
Back to the point though. What struck me about his talk was how it related to another insight I read recently. David Armano, author of Logic+Emotion, re-posted an article titled ‘Navigators, Explorers, and Engaged Participants’.
In it he discusses the same topic of simplicity vs. complexity - but from a different angle. David highlights the different mindsets of people’s interactive experiences.
In it’s simplest form, when you’re making a payment online you want the process to be uncomplicated and straight forward (Navigator). If you’ve got some time to kill then you might enjoy stumbling around, not really caring how you get from point A to B (Explorer). Lastly and most uniquely, if you engage with an experience online you can invest some time in creating something with the pay- off being the ability to share it, such as uploading a video to YouTube (Engaged Participant).
