Observation

Personal object tagging practices

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Two remarkable forms of "object tagging" encountered recently at ENSCI two weeks ago: 1. Tagging for temporary storage

ENSCI is a design school in Paris. The kind of place where students need stuff for their practices, which means that they have storage facilities (small boxes made of steel). Besides, students are encouraged to take one semester abroad, off the school OR to make an internship in a design studio. This situation often leads to what you can see on the picture below: there's plenty of packages and student's boxes distributed in the different rooms of the school building. Some leave bike frames, others leave their old tent. And some students have the delicate practice of tagging their belongings with their names/email/telephone/reason for being elsewhere/time of return.

2. Tagging to give names for one's artifacts

Another curious example consists in this series of artifacts owned by one of the students I taught to last week. Each object (apart from the glasses) have a dedicated name indicated by the colored adhesive tags. The heart-shaped mirror is called "Pocahontas", the Black-Berry cell phone is called "Johnnie" (it's a "she") and the deck of cards is called "Suce-Vieille" (which is hard to translate literally in English, it means something like "Blowing Old"). The owner of these objects told me that it was important to give a name to objects which are close to her. Definitely uncommon with tiny objects like this but much likely in the case of cars, vaccum cleaners or roomba bots recently.

Why do I blog this? Preparing a speech about the people's practices in the house of the future, I am convinced that these two observations have something to say about our interactions with objects. Whenever you chat with people with similar practices, you end up discussing very important matter concerning how they project meaning in their personal artifacts. Working on a conference project about robots definitely makes me think about such elements.

Urban tragedy: a street sign that lost its performativity

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This street sign, which indicates that it's not allowed to park your car along this sidewalk recently went through a very intriguing process: it used to be several inches on the right, next to the curb (a careful observer would see a tiny black dot on the sidewalk). Being there, it was conveniently placed to prevent cars to be parked on the sidewalk. Few weeks ago, the signage has been moved next to the wall... It plays a limited role in preventing cars to park there.

The signage used to have both a meaning AND an affordance (preventing cars to park there)... it now has only a meaning... that people generally do not follow because they park their cars there in the evening.

To put it differently, these street signage lost its performativity; the capacity of an artifact (or language) to intervene in the course of human events.

An impressive series of Virtual reality helmet drawings found in the US patents:

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Virtual reality interactivity system and method by Justin R. Romo (1991):

Helmet for providing virtual reality environments by Richard Holmes (1993)

Optical system for virtual reality helmet by Ken Hunter (1994):

Virtual reality visual display helmet by Bruce R. Bassett et al. (1996):

Helmet mounting device and system by Andrew M. Ogden (1996):

Virtual reality exercise machine and computer controlled video system by Robert Jarvik (1996)

Virtual reality system with an optical position-sensing facility by Ulrich Sieben (1998):

Multiple viewer headset display apparatus and method with second person icon Michael DeLuca et al (2002):

Visual displaying device for virtual reality with a built-in biofeedback sensor by Sun-II Kim et al (2002):

Virtual reality helmet by Travis Tadysak (2002):

System for combining virtual and real-time environments by Edward N. Bachelder et al (1997):

Why do I blog this? Working on a potential chapter in my book concerning recurring failures of digital technologies led me to investigate patents about VR. As usual when I dig Google Patent, I am fascinated by the graphics (drawing styles) and how much it reveals about design preconceptions. There's a lot to draw from these... especially about what the "inventors" (this term may look anachronistic but it's the one employed in the patent system) bring up in the graphics. Moreover, it's also great to see the different shapes that has been proposed (of course the patents are not just about shapes and design). These elements puts the current 3D glasses discussion in perspective.

Mechanical faces in Sevilla (with a different number of eyes)

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As soon as you see this kind of gas counter in Spain, you start noticing that its design is pretty similar to a face:

A face likes this:

And then you see a similar device with 3 counters, which you recognize as a "3-eyed face" (see also the native american version):

Later on, you encounter one-eyed faces such as:

Or the wounded version:

Why do I blog this? These observations are close to a phenomena we described with Fabien in Sliding Friction: Mistaking an interface or a device for a face corresponds to a psychological phenomenon called “pareidolia”: a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus perceived as something clear and distinct.

Recently, I also dealt with the link between this and design... showing how Gerty, the robot in sci-fi movie Moon had a pretty basic face cued by a display that showed a smiley. It's fascinating to see how very minimal features can trigger (1) a face-like appearance, (2) rough forms of emotions that individuals can project on the device.

Steel and discarded electronics collection

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As usual, observing people who collect steel pieces, metal parts and discarded electronics will never cease to interest me. This picture depicts a guy I spotted last week in Sevilla, Spain. As the quantity of manufactured artifacts made is increasing, the fact that some folks toss them on the street make this kind of re-collection pertinent for certain people... who will re-use this and sell them to other parties.

Few days in Spain + Augmented Reality and best wishes for 2011

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Currently in Spain, spending few days of vacations till next week-end. A good opportunity to work on a book project (in French, about recurring failures of technologies), read books, take some pictures and test applications such as World lense.

In general, I am quite critical with Augmented Reality but in this case, I find the idea quite intriguing. This app is meant to "translate printed words from one language to another with your built-in video camera in real time". Of course, the system does not work all the time and you often get weird translations and tech glitches (especially when pointing at a large quantity of text on a newspaper)... but the use case itself is quite interesting and I am curious to see how such a concept can evolve over time. It's basically relevant to see how an old technology such as OCR has been combined with the ever-increasing quality of cell-phone lenses. Lots of problems to be solved but interesting challenges ahead.

Best wishes for 2011!

Christmas electronic shop

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Several pictures of a lovely electronic shop in neighborhood (Geneva). I just love the way the vitrine is decorated. Each moment of the year leads to specific artifacts and light. Each event (such as Michael Jackson's death on picture 6) leads to the addition of weird artifacts.

Why do I blog this? I take this as sort of "ballet of electronic devices in an highly slow motion". All of the artifacts presented there represent an interesting ecosystem of possibilities. A very Latour-ian perspective for Christmas.

Observations on seating arrangement in Jardin du Luxembourg

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Seven years ago, I wrote a short entry on this blog about seats arrangement in Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. I happened to pass by yesterday (en route for a seminar in the neighborhood) and the seats struck me as a fascinating assemblage to capture with my camera. "A perfect arrangement for grooming"

The "we stand together" group

"Mom, Dad and a bored kid"

The lonely urban observer

The "hidden and lonely soldier"

The "unidirectional couple"

The "main group and the left-overs"

"Some of us are closer than the others"

Why do I blog this? To some extent, the pictures below shown below represent different arrangement... that reflect social configurations. The "movable" chairs from this park in Paris can be seen as an interesting example of the implicit "traces" people leave when undertaking very simple activities. It's definitely a good material to expand my thoughts about the social aspect of "urban traces". Along with the pictures above, I tried to infer some meaning (about social configurations); I might be wrong but the exercise is valuable in itself.

Readers interested in this kind of artifacts might have a look at "Seating arrangement and conversation" by Mehrabian and Diamond.

"A micro-dictionary of gestures"

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Why do I blog this? Looking for material for one of my student, I ran across this curious diagram recently and found it interesting. It's curious to see how a comic artist and theorist (Will Eisner) propose a way to describe embodiment in the language of comics. The body postures and gestures are important in comics and they definitely helps to convey meaning in the sequences, as shown by the quote by Eisner: "In comics, body posture and gesture occupy a position of primacy over text. The manner in which these images are employed modifies and defines the intended meaning of the words"

Observations about a networked key

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This key I've been using for few weeks reveals an interesting assemblage: a tiny LCD display inserted in the key. Some observations:

  • A smiley that smiles only if the door is inserted in the door it's meant to open. This means that the door detect which key has opened it and of course the list of visitors is kept somewhere on a server. The basic human-like representation on this key is highly odd as it reveal a sort of door guardian... that you eventually hide in your pocket afterwards.
  • The indication of a battery life... which is not very relevant for the key itself but itindicates whether the screen will be readable or not.
  • The quantity of information on a small device like this is quite intriguing.

Why do I blog this? I am fascinated by doors and the use of various technologies in door control. In this case, we have two curious ingredients of recent technologies: networked objects (this might very well be the "door case" for the Internet of Things) and a tiny display (much subtler than the so-called "urban screens").

With this kind of assemblage, the level of delegation left to the door is even more important than what it used to be. This is surely of interest in conjunction to Bruno Latour's work on this topic (see my blogpost). Opening a door is not that simple and would leave more traces than previous version of doors. As a side note, it's also interesting to contrast this version to automatic doors in train/public space/etc. In the former case, the necessity to control who opens what (in an office environment) seems to make it necessary to use this solution (before retinal scan?).

Gestures from the 21st Century: train ticket control

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Seen yesterday in a Swiss train. Digital device to iPhone interaction for visual marker recognition. Yet another curious situation to observe in the train (after train sensors) because there are sometimes some problems for the system to read the 2D code. As usual with new forms of interactions, it leads to lively discussion with the other passengers (who have their own stories about the problems caused by this).

About a voting device

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A voting interface encountered last week in Lyon at the local city council. It's interesting to note:

  • The possibility to interact with the room using the micro feature (which stands to "microphone"),
  • The arrow on the right indicate a LED that is switched on when the person enter a identification card in the device... which enable the participation in the voting process,
  • The range of possibilities (from ++ to --, via the neutral 0), which surprised me as more complicated than a "yes/no" system,
  • A LED (at the top) that indicates whether the person already voted.

To some extent, this device partly embeds a small portion of the representative democracy. As you can see it's fairly asymmetrical (the only feedback the user can get is the LED that show if she/he voted).

Why do I blog this? Local observation of a curious object. It would be intriguing to re-think such a device in different ways (more symmetry, open to third-parties and citizens, etc.). Pressing one of these buttons is important given that the person who is entitled to do so "represent" a bigger number of people ("citizens"). Could this be reflected in the design of the interface?

Human-cell-phone proximity on the beach

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Seen in Marseille, France last week-end. An interesting occurrence of very close proximity between a human being and his cell-phone. Various remarks here:

  • The user seems to have a certain level of trust in leaving his phone like this, while being asleep. Thieves can take it readily (I've often seen people's phone being stolen like this in café).
  • The contact of the phone on the human skin is definitely useful to know is someone calls you or if you received a message (through vibrations). It's also possible to have a quick glance to the screen, in case it's needed. The effort to interact with the phone is then quite low.
  • Some people fear being so close to their phone because of waves/electrosmog, this guy doesn't seem to mind about it.

Why do I blog this? documenting practices from the 21st century, surely some material to be reused later on in courses/articles/speeches.

Skateboards, golf clubs and other bodily engaging artifacts

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This quick varial observed in Geneva few years ago is one of these pictures that I keep using to show how skateboard practice is interesting in the context of tangible artifacts. As a matter of fact, my argumentation about it is more based on personal intuition (and gut feelings) than serious observations. Which is why I was intrigued by this academic article I ran across recently. In Bodies, Boards, Clubs and Bugs: A study of bodily engaging artifacts, Jakob Tholander and Carolina Johansson adopt a rather interesting perspective about non-digital artifacts. They examine how the examination of golfers, skateboarders and body buggers can be relevant for design purposes. Their approach shed some light on the "qualities for design of interaction that allow for full body experiences, and engagement of a rich array of our senses and bodily capabilities for being-in and moving-in the world." The authors also compare their observations and results from interviews to a new interactive device designed for movement and bodily engagement (called the BodyBug).

Based on different artifact descriptions and experiences, the articles describes various lessons drawn from their observation and certain design implications:

"key qualities for design of interactive artifacts that connect body and world in an intriguing way:

  • make it necessary to engage with the physical environment
  • avoid perceptive modalities (in our case vision) that remove attention from body and environment
  • the response should not be discrete but open up for individual experience and interpretation
  • the artifact should allow users to continuously be socially aware."

This challenges designers of experience-oriented artifacts for body and movement to view the artifact as a medium for engaging in movement based activities, while not letting it become the sole and primary focus of the movement. This would allow the “outcome” of the activity not to be determined by the output of the system, but to be determined by the experience of the user.

Among the three examples, it's the description about skateboarders that I found the most intriguing with comments such as "The skateboard was rarely a primary element of what they talked about; instead focus was on the embodied experience or "Skateboarders talked about “surfaces” such as slopes or rails and how they were used to carry out tricks".

Why do I blog this? sorting different papers for my class about user research and interaction design. This one is relevant as it shows how the study of non-digital activities can inform the design of tangible artifacts.

In addition, this paper is relevant to my current research because it moves from observing humans to the analysis of non-humans (objects). There would be a lot to draw from analyzing both skateboards and skateboard places (street furnitures, bowl, etc.).

About sailor messages, café and Lift11 in Geneva

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I ran across these post-its notes at Café Sport in Horta, Azores. They feature various questions and messages about sailing crew. You want to go to Marseilles? Bermudas? You have certain kinds of skills, help yourself.

These inscriptions are interesting as they show the social importance of certain places where people could access this kind of messages. Sailors know that if they show up at this café, they might meet like-minded people to help them. Life being what it is, social interactions are generally asynchronous, which is nicely supported by the yellow inventions of 3M: post-its notes (printed and folded A4 papers too).

The place enable a sort of filtering: in terms of people who come over here, and in terms of messages that can be exchanged. One of the dream of location-based platform designers (and the social media crowd) is to enable this kind of touchpoint with digital tools. This is by the way a topic we will address at Lift11 in Geneva.

Letter box agency and new metaphors in service design

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An interesting new form of signage recently appeared in our cities.

See this example in Geneva: few weeks ago, letter boxes in Geneva featured stickers telling people that they will be moved. Interestingly, as shown on the example above, the message was not just a message from the Swiss Post telling me that "The letter box will be moved to XXXX". Instead, there was a speech bubble expressing that "I am moving" to show that letter boxes were in the process of being transferred to a new location. Then, this week, a brand new yellow box was located in the announced place; and it featured another message: "Let's know each other" with two signatures: "Your new letter box" and "Postmail".

Why is this interesting? Well, some aspects I find intriguing:

  • The fact that the message is given from the letter box perspective (see the use of the first person and the term "relocation"), as if the object was given a form of agency by the Post institution. I don't mean here that objects never had agency but let's say there is a stronger acknowledgement of what is delegated to the object. The use of the speech bubble meme also reinforces this trend.
  • The temporal aspect of this is strikingly curious: from the relocation announcement to the new place, there are different ways to interact with the box. First people need to know that their old pal will move and that a new one will be located in a different place (see the new box design).

Why do I blog this? these observations led me to wonder about how service design is evolving. New metaphors are being employed and it's curious to run across them in a city. Beyond this, I am also intrigued by the way objects are more and more anthropomorphized and how people perceive this sort of communication.

Overall, my intuition is that this sort of communication is far more effective than what robot designers are putting in place. It's IMO another example of using basic means to convey certain messages (see recent examples).

Finally, this kind of observation shows that there seem to be a common thread in my interests lately: human-object interactions (human-robot interaction?), artifact agency, user's understanding of objects, etc. Surely some good material for projects about robots, networked objects and blogjects. What is funny and relevant here is to think about how to give objects agency using basic elements such as smiley faces (Gerty) or speech bubbles. Will this be a new idiom for objects? Should robots look like human/animal or should they be stay as things and communicate through simplified devices? Let's discuss this with friends in the robot industry.