All Streets - Ben Fry

A conceptually related follow up to Fry’s US zipcode map: “26 million individual road segments. No other features (such as outlines or geographic features) have been added to this image, however they emerge as roads avoid mountains, and sparse areas…”

Stanford’s Human-Computer Interaction Seminar on iTunes U

Wow, awesome. “36 lectures by people such as Bill Moggridge, Bill Buxton, Elizabeth Churchill, Paul Dourish and Donald Norman.”

Dramatic Features in Interaction Design

Talk by Chris Conley at the Interaction 08 conference exploring how elements of drama can be incorporated into interaction design. Case studies include the iPhone’s wiggling icons and Pixar’s story development process.

Wooster Collective: Joshua Allen Harris’ Inflatable Sculptures

Seeing the city in a new and creative way. Subway air vents as a street art opportunity. Something poetic about how the creatures come to life with the rhythm of the subway.

Moonwalk Map

Very cool map detailing Armstrong and Aldrin’s landing on the moon! I like how it combines traces of the lunar geography with their paths and activities. The soccer field underlay communicates well the scale of the area. Nicely visualized.

Bringing Medical Devices Home

As medical devices increasingly become a part of outpatient care, designers will need to consider how best to create devices that will be used in the home and operated by patients themselves.

Videos of Interaction 08 Presentations

Fantastic! Putting People First has a roundup of presentation videos from the Interaction Design Association conference that just finished up.

Design Thinking & Innovation - Tim Brown

Talk by Tim Brown of IDEO given at MIT.

Eames Lounge Chair Debut in 1956 on NBC

Interview with Charles & Ray Eames on the Arlene Francis “Home” show broadcast on the NBC television network in 1956. Neat time-lapse depiction of assembling the chair towards the end!

Dieter Rams - Ten principles of good design

A summary of Dieter Rams ten principles for good design, and an article written by him in 2001. The first: “Good design is innovative.” The last: “Good design must be ‘the least designed’ as possible!”

Portfolio: Dieter Rams

Wallpaper magazine assembled this gallery of work by designer Dieter Rams. Includes many of the iconic pieces he designed for Braun in the 60’s.

Jun Murakoshi Design

Stacked stools evoke sculpture, stored chairs double as a clever bookcase. Nice, simple design.

New Work: ‘Dairy Today’ - Pentagram

Pentagram’s striking redesign of the trade magazine Dairy Today. They certainly achieved their goal of making the cover memorable and visually impactful. I wonder what the farmers have to say about it!

From observation to design insights

Some thoughts on the purpose of collecting informal observations of “thoughtless acts” encountered in the course of daily life. Some of these reasons resonate with me as I think about why I collect cameraphone photos of design-related things I run across.

Insight & Innovation: Design Research - Jan Chipchase

Video download of a talk by the Indiana Jones of the design research world, Jan Chipchase. He discusses his research topics and methods, why his work is valuable and how it’s used by designers at Nokia.

Audio recording of Ericka Hall’s presentation “Copy is Interface”

Excellent! It’s wonderful that the presentation audio is also available.

Copy Is Interface - Future of Web Apps, Oct 2007

Presentation by Erika Hall of Mule Design on the importance of thoughtfully designed interface copy. Plenty of examples of best (and worst) practices.

Let me off of this bus!

Ride the bus in San Francisco enough and you’ll see the following scenario play itself out over and over again. Just as the bus is about to speed away from the curb a cry will come from the back of the bus: “Back door! Back door!” Either the person wanting to exit is waiting for the doors to open automatically, or they’re pushing on them in vain. Whichever the case, they’re panicked, confused, and (rightly) convinced that any second now the bus is going to whip away from the stop without letting them off.

So what’s the problem? As tempting as it is to place the blame on clueless passengers, it’s really not their fault; there are several design issues that are conspiring against them.

Locked or unlocked?

Doors unlocked indicator light While in motion the rear bus doors are locked and must be unlocked by the driver before they can be opened at each stop. There is a mirror mounted at the front of the bus that the driver can use see if anyone wants to exit through the rear doors, but frequently their view is blocked by people standing in the aisle, or they’re distracted by processing passengers entering the bus, of they’re in a hurry to try stay on schedule. For passengers, there is a green indicator light which illuminates once the driver has unlocked the doors however it’s mounted high above the rear doors in such a way that it is easily missed.

As a result, it’s no surprise that passengers end up on the rear stairs pushing on the doors while they’re still locked. The information passengers need in order to know whether or not the doors will open for them isn’t being presented in a sufficiently visible way and there’s no mechanism in place to relay feedback to the driver (short of yelling) when someone is beating on the doors unsuccessfully.

Magic doors

Muni's magic doors Another stealthier issue that trips passengers up has to do with the fact that not all doors on Muni work the same. Some buses require that you push on vertical bars mounted on the doors to open them, and people seem to understand this configuration well enough. In other buses, however, the doors lack push-bars and you must know to start descending the stairs while the doors are still closed; a pressure sensitive mat on the stairs causes them to magically open in front of you. These magic doors are problematic enough that the common cry from confused passengers (back door!) and the surly response from the driver (step down!) has become an in-joke among locals.

Muni’s magic doors suffer from a lack of perceived-affordances. Without bars or handles, passengers lack any obvious cues as to what to do in order to get the doors to open. (The large stickers inside the bus that warn “Do not stand in stairwell” in large red type can’t be helping either.) The designer or engineer may have felt that the design was both clever and efficient in the way it takes advantage of the action of exiting the bus, it turns out the design is just a bit too clever to be effective.

A modest suggestion

Redesigned doorsIt’s my hope that incorporating the doors unlocked status light into the push-bars would make this crucial bit of information more visible to passengers by placing it in a position where their attention is likely to be focused as they prepare to exit the bus. Activating the green light within the translucent section of the push-bars could also serve as a prompt for action, uniting the knowledge that the doors are ready to be opened with an obvious affordance for doing so. To complete the communication loop, the driver should be notified, either by light or sound, when a passenger is pressing on the doors when they are locked.

Standardization across Muni’s vehicles would also be part of the plan. “Magic doors only” buses would have the new push-bars added, and the push-bars on Muni trains would also gain the integrated door status indicator. The clever mechanism behind Muni’s magic doors need not entirely be abandoned, it could be relegated to a secondary status, sensing when passengers are crossing the threshold and making sure the open doors don’t close on them as they step down.

Phew, who knew so much could be said about bus doors? The result of far too much time spent commuting on Muni and an urge to exercise my observation and design skills.

22nd Amendment

The divided frame approach makes the placement of the type really hypnotic.

dConstruct 2007 Podcast

Where session audio will eventually be posted. Check back later.

Principles and Practices for Successful Experience Design

Gigantic presentation by Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path presented at dConstruct 2007. First half is devoted to conducting research, the second to interaction design. Will be an excellent resource once the session podcast is posted.

Filling Much Needed Holes - Don Norman

“How many times do the never-ending ethnographic studies coupled with ever-eager design groups lead to unwanted, unnecessary, overburdening, and environmentally insensitive products? How many times are these unmet needs best left unmet?”

Finding the primary pivot

“The primary mode of navigation on Chowhound… is the discussion thread. The elements of the interface are all organized around the idea that the topic of discussion is the most important thing. Therefore, the features tend to be those that support it.”

Chicago Transit Observations

I’ll admit to being a bit of a public transit nerd. A daily commuter on SF Muni, I delight in observing the ways in which the system works and doesn’t work from an interaction design standpoint. A recent trip to Chicago (my first) gave me an opportunity to explore and experience a new system with fresh eyes. Along the way I jotted down a few notes and took some photos with my mobile phone.

Airport to Subway

Upon touching down at Midway my first task was to find my way to the “L”. Airport signage was clear early on but became sparse as I left the main part of the terminal. Passing through several empty rooms I became unsure of whether or not I had gone astray until a bold orange line appeared on the floor guiding me to the station. Perhaps the line could be extended right into the terminal?

Tickets, please

CTA ticket machine I noticed a few things at the ticket kiosk, the first being the rather large section up top devoted to instructions. There’s quite a bit of text up there that’s rendered fairly small and it’s positioned high enough that I wonder if everyone who could benefit from such thorough instructions could actually read them.

Getting a ticket went smoothly enough - select an action, insert money (it accepts $2 bills oddly enough) and press the “Vend” button… really hard. The amount of force required and the feel of the button definitely caught my attention. There was virtually no give to the button, mechanically. It made me wonder if the tactile design of the button was deliberate, but if so why? Though I visited in the fall, I wondered how it feels to use the machine with heavily gloved hands during Chicago’s brutal winter months.

Navigating underground

View of streets above Chicago subway station In several of the stops downtown I came across large panoramic images of the street view above, customized for each exit of the station. A really fantastic idea,
and one that I wish SF Muni would duplicate. There were also well placed bits of wayfinding signage placed at the bottom of station escalators as well. Handy.

Traveling by ear

CTA recordings and announcements were informative and clear, which is more than I’m used to when riding Muni in San Francisco. Announcements included which line you are riding, the name and transfers available at the next station, and on which side the doors will open. Upon exiting the train on elevated platforms the conductor would announce to waiting passengers the line color of the next arriving train. Several times when the train was held up due to construction the conductor announced the reason the for the delay and an estimate for when we would be moving again. Refreshing! Delays are never explained when riding Muni, which only further aggravates my fellow captive passengers.

Hang-ups

Elevated tracks No trip to a new city is completely confusion free. Among the times I felt disoriented and cast adrift was the first time I had to transfer from an elevated station to the subway. I wandered around confused for a few minutes searching for a transfer corridor before I realized I had to completely exit the station and re-enter the subway a half block away. Later in the week I was trying to transfer to a rush hour only express train and for a moment thought the train I was waiting for would bypass the stop (the duration of rush hour schedules was unclear).

In Portland, a Golden Age of Dining and Drinking

New York Times on P-town’s thriving restaurant scene.