For some reason, I’m reminded of a lottery commercial that ran in my hometown in the 80s. The refrain was “Look, there goes another winner,” over and over; I guess the subliminal messaging has attached itself to other things in my mind.
Anyway, been busy lately, so here’s a recap of some stuff that I’ve found interesting, a curated list of cruft or something.
Ambient Technology
Somewhat ironically, ambient technology has crept into my consciousness and now seems to be a hot topic, to wit Ambient Reality and The Ambient Economy.
Ambient technology is evolving, but it seems to fall somewhere between gentle, environmental signals that let you know to pay attention and yet another notification mechanism to ignore. I like the intersection of real things and digital ones, made possible by IoT, and the opportunity to couple industrial and digital design.
It’s an interesting space. Stay tuned for more.
Infographics Reactionism
In the vein of WTF Visualizations, I give you Why We Hate Infographics (And Why You Should), a thoughtful look at the infographics fad. As an old school bar-chart-line-graph dude, I got a huge kick out of this.
Big Brother and User Experience
How Monitoring Can Affect User Experience is an interesting read. The Prius example resonates for me, since I’ve ridden in many a Prius cab. I’ve always wondered how distracting the UI is; Paul (@ppedrazzi) told me years ago that the UI dramatically changed his driving habits simply by showing the impact of a tire-burning start.
All interesting stuff, presented for comment.
