Video game weaponry

The screenshot depicts a GDF Artillery Interceptor Turret from Quake Wars (left) and the original device that inspired it: Raytheon’s Phalanx Close-in Weapon System (right). Both have been taken from an insightful article in Popular Mechanics by Erik Sofge which deals with the design of weaponry in video games and what it means for real weapon design. As the caption in the article says "how long can games mimic reality while still adhering to the balance of their arsenals?". The point the author made is that video game designers are less concerned by sci-fi or real-warfare inspiration than in the game balance.

More interesting IMO, there are intriguing arguments there about the relationship between fictional material and military warfare gear that shed some light between imagination and design:

"If empowering the player by grounding his artillery in the real world is gaming's way of staying current, it's the more distant war-zone style of the alien enemy—ever reliant on their gadgets to do the fighting—that represents gaming's way of building toward the future.

That might explain why futuristic video games—and science-fiction movies and TV shows, for that matter—are such a strange blend of old-fashioned values and forward-looking technology. (...) game developers, ultimately, are almost narrow-minded and self-limiting in their visions of future warfare—not forecasting wars so much as dreaming up cool toy soldiers and tossing them into a virtual paintball arena (where both teams have a fair shot at victory). In our collective fantasy of the wars to come, however, the central fiction of warfare prevails: The fight is ever fair, and clean, and inherently good. Even aliens—the ones that leave plasma mortars behind, not flesh-eating blood stains—have mothers. "

Why do I blog this? as I've already made the case, I am definitely not a fan of weaponry, I just find this article interesting as it uncovers the relationship between a collective imaginary realm (the one of sci-fi warfare) and the design of digital and virtual devices. To some extent, it's a relevant case study about innovation.

long+slow+blurry innovation

The introduction of "Mobile Usability: How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone" by Lindholm, Keinonen and Kiljander features this interesting excerpt:

"the only way to get a working assumption of what the technology enable us to do and how they are likely to be used is to be involved in these projects long enough. Even then, educated guesses and developed intuitions are only approximate. Something that was supposed to be easy to implement turns out to be practically impossible. Sometimes, the opposite occurs. Solutions that were originally postponed to allow technology to catch up are suddenly realized in unexpected ways"

Why do I blog this? This quote is an interesting summary of what I believe as it covers different aspects:

• The importance to have a long-term involvement in an organization which design something: I personally work with a french video game studio for 7 years and it strikes me how much I learn in the long run and not through short gigs on their projects. For example, it's been almost from the beginning that we discuss the usability test and user experience field study ideas. It took us approximately 4 years to turn what was "user research as a R&D project" into "user research in the production pipe-line". The time to convince people, to show the value of user research, the importance to insert it in the production process, and finally to get some funding to make it accepted...
• The notion of "educated guess" and "developed intuitions" is important. For that matter, I like how Jan Chipchase frame the results form his work: not facts but "informed opinions". Although the quote does not refer to user research, I find an interesting pattern here in the sense that knowledge construction about the evolution of technology is rarely absolute. There are contingencies and idiosyncrasies that plays an important role.
• The difficulty in forecasting results because the world is a complex system.
• The importance of time: innovation is slow, change takes time and as foresight researchers say, we always tend to overestimate the short term and minimize the long term (tail).

Design Thinking in HBR (Tim Brown)

Once in a while the Harvard Business Review tackles topics close to my field. Sometimes it's about foresight, today it's about design with this article by Tim Brown called "Design Thinking" (in the june 2008 edition). Starting an insightful model in R&D/innovation, namely Thomas Edison, Brown describes design thinking as a descendant of that tradition of a "blended art, craft, science, business savvy, and an astute understanding of customers and markets". He simply defines it as:

"it is a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity."

In these days of desperate need of innovation as "a source of differentiation and competitive advantage", design thinking is literally more and more invited to the business table (hence a publication in HBR). Brown definitely make clear that design evolved from

"put a beautiful wrapper around the idea (...) making new products and technologies aesthetically attractive and therefore more desirable to consumers or by enhancing brand perception through smart, evocative advertising and communication strategies"

to

"Now, however, rather than asking designers to make an already developed idea more attractive to consumers, companies are asking them to create ideas that better meet consumers' needs and desires. The former role is tactical, and results in limited value creation; the latter is strategic, and leads to dramatic new forms of value.

Giving some examples, he also enters in more detail in the process itself, discussing the role of prototypes and "tools for design thinking". As well as an interesting deconstruction of the myth of the creative genius, Brown shows how it's not about ideas popping up out from the blue, but instead the results of an hardworking process with human-discovery and iterations.

Why do I blog this? it's a decent overview of what is design, to be kept up handy for upcoming teaching gigs. The good thing here (for designers) is the acknowledgement of the strategic value of design and the intrinsical importance of adopting a user-centred approach. The sidebar about designers' profile and the non-importance of black clothes is also a good start.

As a side-note, I find intriguing that the term "behavioral scientists/researchers" is more and more used. It sorts of echoes with the NYT piece about Jan Chipchase. Working in that domain and having troubles to define in 2 words what I am doing, I am always intrigued by the terms employed by different stakeholders: behavioral researcher seems to be the term for the press lately, whereas consultants and companies use "user experience" (I know there are nuances though).

video interview about urban computing

it's always anxious to be on video... but i've been interviewed by infonomia.tv about "the future of urban computing" (following the text version). The video is available there. Thanks Alfons Cornella and Doris Obermair.

Softness for the ears

Ears are an important part of our body and consumer electronics is often adapted to them through various process. But sometimes, the aging of technologies make them fall apart and people need to fix the device they have. When it comes to intimate products such as headphones, people look for easy-and-soft solution so that it's still adapted to the ears.

Cotton and the mandatory duct-tape can be of good help here as shown by this headset found during a home visit for a field study few days ago. A fix that will not age, gentle anyway. Again an interesting example of people's creativity in repairing their own gear.

Video games and its influence on the military industry

(via) In The Disruptive Potential of Game Technologies: Lessons Learned from its Impact on the Military Simulation Industry, Roger Smith discusses how computer games have a disruptive impact on military industry and suggest that these will disrupt other industries in the future. It basically tells the history of military simulations and how video-games' relationship to them, showing how game technologies rapidly moved into the industry from which they were originally created (military simulation). What happened is that new types of defense simulation companies "have emerged and do not attempt to re-create products from scratch, but instead seek out customers who require modifications to commercial tools with which they are proficient".

Why do I blog blog this? Personally, I am less interested in the "serious game" aspect of this (plus I don't like that term), but instead, by the conclusive sidebar of the paper, which is about how we can draw lessons for other industries. Some excerpts:

"Specific lessons that have been learned in the military simulation industry are:

1. Not Good Enough. The game technologies often do not appear to be good enough for the core customer base of the industry. However, (...) game technologies have the power of Silicon Valley behind them and the potential to become more than good enough for core customers.
2. Raising the Standard. The visual appeal and human usability of games is far beyond that of most industrial software applications. These features are very attractive to customers and enable vendors to sway customers to their products much more easily than is possible with the traditional software tools.
3. Customer Pull. As customers become aware of game-based tools in their industry they pull on their current suppliers to offer similar products. If established companies ignore these requests it creates a disruptive opportunity for an upstart company that will satisfy these needs.
4. Explore Applicability. Established players in other industries should explore the potential improvements that game technology offers for their customers.
5. Build Capabilities. If game technologies are entering an industry, leaders must determine whether to create their own in-house expertise or develop relationships with smaller game technology studios. There are a number of game studios that have been only marginally successful in selling games for entertainment, but who possess the skills necessary to apply these technologies to a new industry."

Some more general lessons about innovation and how people from the military industry sees the video-game business.

Game on the street

Simpler than ARG but surely along the same line, this sort of street game (spotted yesterday in Lyon, France) always makes me wondering about Jane Jacobs and the importance to have people/eyes/activity on the street.

Conviviel/Mixware

Via Etienne Mineur, I found some photo captures of this amazing book about designing for the french minitel. The book's called "Conviviel 1, dialogues et images électroniques de grande diffusion" (in english: "Mixware: electronic dialogues and images for the general public"). See here some parts of the book scanned by Mineur.

What is interesting is the "rules" described by the books' author (my translation form french to english):

"The relevant "telematic" applications:

1. Does not imply training on the user's part, nor manual
2. Answers a need and bring an advantage compared to the means of communication employed thus far
3. Never fail to logic
4. Has a personality, its own brand
5. Does not have dead-end or wrong tracks
6. Give surprises and lives with its own time
7. Take into account the user's training level
8. Take into account the user's personality
9. Gives benefit rather than costs
10. Let people get back to it

"

Why do I blog this? although this gem is impossible to find, I would crave to have a copy (even a pdf) as the ideas described there seems very relevant (as aesthetically great). A side-reason for this blogpost is that I am collecting material for a discussion about "hidden sources of interaction design" to show how certain paths are valuable (and shaped?) interaction design: some good lessons for the field can be drawn from the minitel and also CD-rom applications.

The iPhone as a gaming platform with gestural interaction

People interested in tangible/gestural interfaces and mobile devices may be intrigued by this patent filed by Apple. Called "Techniques for interactive input to portable electronic devices", the patent is about:

"A game input area (surface or plane) receives input for multiple applications including an interactive application executed in connection with a scene. The input received is directed to the appropriate application based on one or more locations (e.g., points, positions, regions, portions) of the input area effectively identified when input is received (or entered). In addition, the manner in which input is received (or entered) can be used to determine which application should receive the input. The input area can additionally resemble or approximate the shape of a scene (e.g., game scene) to allow a person to provide input in a more intuitive way. Accordingly, input can be provided in a simple and more intuitive manner by effectively allowing the user to interact with the input area in a way that mimics or approximates a desired action (e.g., moving a ball or bat around by inputting a rotational movement). Examples of such interaction include positional, directional (e.g., rotational), press or pressure input (or movement) which can easily be provided by a thumb or a finger, for example, on a touch screen. (end of abstract)"

That website gives more concrete details with some pics that are more explicit about "Examples of such interactions include that can be characterized as positional, directional, rotational, pressing and/or pushing type inputs (or movement)":

Why do I blog this? the idea of the patent is to have "multitasking" input techniques that would enable iPod/iPhone users to play games on the touch-screen while at the same time maintaining control of a secondary application from the screen. I take it as an interesting signal of upcoming applications on the iPhone; of course it's not the "iphone" word that is important here but instead that there is some good potential to see entertainment innovations with such interface due to a combination of factor: flat-fee internet subscription, touchscreen, easiness to develop web-apps, etc.

mundane creativity

Mundane creativity is always fascinating. Even when standing at a tram stop, you encounter these little details which make you wondering about the wisdom of people. The guy's shoes protection made out of plastic bag is a tangible representation of this (certainly of interest with an unexpected rain like the one we had).

why is this important? because it shows that people can adapt and find solutions in mobility issues, so that they can cope with the context contingencies. What does that mean for urban computing and mobile services? are there any direct transfer to mobile phones for instance? perhaps not directly but if we design platform open enough and understandable enough to be personalized and modified, similar solutions can emerge.

Product ecology as a design framework

Recently, in my daily data farming, I ran across several sources mentioning the notion of "product ecology". It generally refers to how (interaction) design broaden its focus from systems targeted on one person to more socially or culturally situated products. Among the sources about this, Jodi Forlizzi's work struck me as very relevant. In this article in the International Journal of Design, she focuses on the interesting notion of "product ecology" and how it can be employed as a theoretical design framework:

"In the Product Ecology, the product is the central unit of analysis. (...) The functional, aesthetic, symbolic, emotional and social dimensions of a product, combined with other units of analysis, or factors, in the ecology, help to describe how people make social relationships with products. These include the product; the surrounding products and other systems of products; the people who use it, and their attitudes, disposition, roles, and relationships; the physical structure, norms and routines of the place the product is used; and the social and cultural contexts of the people who use the product and possibly even the people who make the product. "

(image taken from Forlizzi's paper)

But how does that help designers? Forlizzi highlights few key ideas about the assumptions of the Product Ecology framework[I recommend reading the whole paper here]:

"First, each product has its own ecology, resulting in subjective and individual experience in using the same product. (...) Second, the factors in the Product Ecology are dynamic, and interconnected in several ways. (...) Third, changes in product use cause changes in other factors of the Product Ecology.(...) When a product no longer plays a key role, it is marked by events such as people changing roles, or going in and out of the ecology; (...) Fourth, the Product Ecology can be delimited by a group of people in close proximity, or a group that is spread out over a great distance. (...) Factors in the Product Ecology can be examined in isolation or in combination at the level of a single product, to understand what particular product features will inspire social use, or at the system level, to understand how a particular product will have an impact on a system of products retained for similar functional, aesthetic, symbolic, social and emotional factors. Similarly, behavior of individuals or groups using products can be studied."

So, to some extent, the "product ecology" can be employed to study variety of products/services. An interesting example of such use can be found in this article (from CSCW 2006) about how robotic products become social products. The paper basically shows how different people within a houselhold formed different social relationships with Roomba vacuum (and not with the more classic vacuum). The classic vacuum, in this ethnographic study, affected significant change in the families, while the stick vacuum did not: people cleaned more often, more members of the family participated and there were more prone to make social attribution to the roomba. The author then draws some design implications concerning the importance of social attribution: "when simple social attributes are part of the design of robotic products and systems, people may adopt them more readily and find them less stigmatizing". Why do I blog this? find interesting this notion of product ecology and how to apply it in UX research. Some ideas/methodology to dig up for current projects about gaming platforms (Nintendo DS and Wii), as well as the perception of the devices and services in families.

Royal McBee interface

Another week-end encounter. A Royal McBee computer/typewriter, heir to one of the non-human participant of the "The Sory of Mel".

Why do I blog this? documenting different sorts of interface. There was a time when human-machine interfaces were not so homogeneous and you had both keypads, switches, potentiometers and stuff. I am often fascinated by the proximity between the input and the output (with the green/red switches on the right) and how it can change the task at hand. I don't mean here it's better to have that setting (it's certainly less flexible) but there is strong link between input/output (not to mention the device aesthetic).

Talking with the person who operated this machine, she said there was a pleasure of immediacy when using it and a limited flexibility which was appealing to her. "no diversion" as she reported.

design+future+optimism

In the last issue of ACM interactions, Richard Seymour has this good piece entitled "Optimistic futurism" in which he articulates an interesting vision of design+foresight. After discussing how a wave of relevant innovation stopped around the 70s ("what the hell happened to the future") people realized that the future dystopia represented in pop-culture may happen (although people though it couldn't possibly happen): "shrinking ozone layers, global warming, airplanes into buildings, rising fuel costs etc." The good point of the articles comes when Seymour states that "It's something we all need to see" (visualize the future!) and the role of designers in this, as in this excerpt:

"Designers cannot be, by definition, pessimists. It just doesn't go with the job. We're supposed to be defining the future, aren't we? (...) There's nothing on the planet that can't be made just that bit better (rather than just that bit different). But before you do it, you need to have an idea of where you want all this to go eventually, a vision of the future, with a set of stepping stones to let you get from the now into the future in an effective and efficient way. " (...) that's what we should be doing: leading the way by visualizing and articulating achievable futures that get us out of this hole.

I'm pretty sure the folks at Apple don't call themselves optimistic futurists, but that's exactly what they are. My favorite Steve Jobs one-liner is: "It's not the consumer's job to know about the future; that's my job." And he's absolutely right.

Jurassic corporations need to learn from the mammals. The secret of the "next big thing" isn't lurking inside the consumer's head, waiting to be liberated by some well-paid focus group. It's inside the heads of the dreamers, the futurists, the utopians."

Why do I blog this? some good thoughts here about the design+foresight issue and how both are connected through this notion "optimism", which correspond to a direction given to the future.

Also, the "beyond-focus-groups" design stance is important as shown by the quote from Steve Jobs; I guess some people may mistake it with a "don't pay attention to the user" but I don't think it's contradictory with having a user-centered approach by any means. It just reinforces the role of designers, who can him/herself base the work on informed opinions/educated guesses about people's life/motivations/desires/needs through field observation.

don't touch my touch screen

Taken today while visiting a big industrial factory. The left sticker says: "touch screen: no BEWARE: don't touch the screen... except me: I am the operator" and the right one says "Don't touch my screen". It reads like a Kraftwerk song.

I found interesting the existence of these stickers which gives order about ownership of touch-screen. There aren't any sticker about keyboard ownwership but in that factory, it seems that touch screens make me people willing to touch/interacti with the device.

How to refer to people

As discussed by David R. Millen in Rapid ethnography: time deepening strategies for HCI field research

"Even the terminology used to describe the research sample belies different research perspectives. For example, psychologists refer to subjects, HCI researchers talk about users, market researchers refer to consumers or segments, and anthropologists refer to informants. "

Geography of cloud computing

The ever-growing need of relying on server infrastructure caused by cloud computing is an interesting recombination of space and technology. The Economist has a good piece about "where the cloud touches down", i.e. where to locate data centres and server farms. The fact that these facilities spring up in unexpected places such as old bunkers or shopping malls is an interesting indicator that their whereabouts is a serious concern and less an afterthought at it use to be.

"Now this haphazard landscape is becoming more centralised. Companies have been packing ever more machines into data centres, both to increase their computing capacity and to comply with new data-retention rules. (...) with demand for computing picking up in other parts of the world, the boom in data-centre construction is spreading to unexpected places. Microsoft is looking for a site in Siberia where its data can chill. Iceland has begun to market itself as a prime location for data centres, again for the cool climate, but also because of its abundant geothermal energy. (...) So will all data centres end up in remote places like Quincy or Iceland? Not necessarily. For many applications (...) firms want to have access to trading data in real time, which explains the high density of data centres near New York and London. And fast-moving online games must be hosted near their players."

As described in the article, the criteria that companies use to pick a site keep evolving. It's not only market economics but also local incentives (e.g. tax breaks). And we're heading to more complex recombination of technologies and space:

"In future the geography of the cloud is likely to get even more complex. “Virtualisation” technology already allows the software running on individual servers to be moved from one data centre to another, mainly for back-up reasons. One day soon, these “virtual machines” may migrate to wherever computing power is cheapest, or energy is greenest. Then computing will have become a true utility—and it will no longer be apt to talk of computing clouds, so much as of a computing atmosphere."

Why do I blog this? a sort of fascination towards the friction between the digital (allowed by such infrastructures) and the physical. In a way, this is a concrete example of how technologies physically reshape the material environment through new building typologies and new places colonized by technological facilities. This notion of "cloud computing" is intriguing as there is a clear paradox between the ethereal idea of a "cloud" and its very fixed geography.

Some sort of side urban computing issue that has lots of relevance anyway. Or perhaps given the remote location of some data center site, it's an example of "countryside computing"

Status of objects

Encountered in a french hotel lately. With the flat affordance of screens, TVs can get a status update through this sort of frame. Supposed to be classier? or to fade in the background.

On a more ironic glance, it can look as the deification of TV.

Miyamoto on alternative controllers

A recent interview of Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto by Chris Kohler (Wired) deals with alternative game controllers employed with casual/sport applications:

"I'd always wanted to try to find a way to make a game out of that, and I felt that with the Wii, that's something that I would normally do in the bathroom is weigh myself. But, with the Wii, if there was a way that we could take that into the living room and turn it into an experience that everybody takes part in, then that might be fun.

What about the timing of this device seems auspicious right now? Does it have to do with the acceptance of alternative controllers now?

I think there are a couple of reasons. One is that at this point the Wii is wireless, and so I think the fact that it's wireless certainly makes it easy to use. For me, personally, also, in this NES era, I myself didn't really think that weighing myself and tracking my progress every day is something that I could turn into a game. (...) initially we created the Balance Board in order to create Wii Fit, and it was essentially designed to enable that experience. And, then after we finalized the design, we looked at it and realized -- or as we were finalizing the design, we realized it could potentially be something that could be used for other games, as well. And, so in finalizing those designs and finalizing the final Balance Board, we ultimately tried to do it in a way that would enable other developers to also take advantage of it. The other thing that we found is that actually in the sports world there are devices that are somewhat similar to this that are used for training athletes. (...) there's actually a game out already called We Ski. It's a skiing game that uses the Balance Board that's developed by Bandai Namco. (...) Using a Wii remote, you could track the timing of the swing and the shifting of the balance on the Balance Board to calculate kind of how good the swing is. Of course, there's still the question of whether or not the mass market would want a game that perfectly replicates that type of an activity. But, in terms of golf training, you could certainly do something like that.

Is there a danger of maybe burning people out on extra controllers?

we are creating a number of different controllers and peripherals for the Wii, as well, so in that sense, I can see your point of how having so many different controllers can be a little bit inconvenient. But, at the same time, we feel that the videogame audience has gotten to the point now where it's so broad that there are different tastes and different needs within people, within the audience of people who are playing the videogames. (...) when we're designing games and designing peripherals, we're not designing them for the purpose of simply creating more devices to use with the Wii. We're trying to create devices that are creating a more streamlined and intuitive approach to gaming so that a broader audience can feel that they're able to interact with and better use the device."

Why do I blog this? great lessons here, with good connections to some current research about tangible interactions. There are good things to wonder about concerning the relationships between the user experience and different use of tangibles interactions. For instance, the "direct mapping" rule is often perceived as the best solution for intuitive apprehension of games. Using the same movement in the physical space as the one rendered in the digital world is indeed a relevant approach but is it that simple? is it that fun? is the movement so physical that it becomes less fun? And what about the overemphasis on gestures, playing soccer by doing gestures which are not a direct translation from the physical to the digital (yes I am thinking about PES on the Wii with its click-and-drag system)?

On a different note, the scale-turned-into-game-platform reminds me of 2 projects which focused on transforming everyday objects into game controllers: Everyday games by Are Hovland Nielsen and Control Freak by Haiyan Zhang.

Everyone has a [private] monitor

So, as it seems, the new "big thing" is consider "everyone as a monitor" as attested by this article in the Economist. Some people now claims that "The sheer ubiquity of mobile phones amounts to “the biggest leap in history, bigger than the printing press, which, after all, stayed in the hands of very few people,” (Katrin Verclas from MobileActive.org). Although I am not sure about this, it does not dismiss the whole issue. The article interestingly addresses the different modalities of such a "monitoring" feature: be it explicit (people take pictures, shoot videos, send messages, etc.) OR automatic. As they say in the E, "this is now on the horizon" for the good (participatory urbanism for instance) or the bad ("a coming surveillance state"). Funny enough, this article appeared in my RSS feed reader right next to this other one by Bruce Schneier on Wired which basically states that "What happens to our data happens to ourselves / Who controls our data controls our lives". Why do I blog this? quick references for later. It's again the tension between explicit versus automatic sharing of personal information, a topic I am interested in.

Architecture and game design

Reading this interview of Daniel Dociu on BLDGBLOG, I was intrigued by a comment from Greg Smith about the relationship between gaming and architecture:

"Seeing real discourse about gaming in an architectural context is very exciting for me. Architecture tends to have stock discussions about gaming: the eternal resuscitation of the Situationist International and the expected conversations about 3D modeling. The winfall in thinking about gaming is much bigger when you consider the medium without being crippled by these limitations. While I do appreciate the fine art of "level design" I think the real prize in comparing gaming and architectural design is the exploration of simulation, interface and play (the latter of which is to gaming as programme is to architecture). (...) what interests me the most is how the medium ties into the history of architectural representation. Given the intimate relationship between architecture and "viewing apparatuses" (from the panorama through orthogonal projection on the drawing board) gaming can be read as the latest in a procession of technologies and techniques for constructing images and ideas"

In an insightful blogpost, Greg Smith also discusses this topic. He mentions two interesting projects relevant for that matters:

1. Echochrome: a puzzle game created by Sony's JAPAN Studio n which the player must direct a mannequin through a series of Oscar Reutersvärd's impossible constructions. You have to control a character figure traversing a rotatable world where physics and reality depend on perspective (See for example this video).
2. The Orange Box expansion pack for Half-Life 2, as Smith points out " the player finds themselves immersed in the familiar architectural trappings of the stock first person shooter space. The key difference with this game from your run of the mill FPS is the tools at your disposal. Portal revolves around the use of the "aperture science handheld portal device", a tool that allows you to shoot a pair of wormholes into surfaces and then pass through them allowing you to cut through game space in a non-linear manner."

(A example of Echochrome)

Why do I blog this? I find this topic interesting and touched it last year during my year at the Media and Design Lab. It's good to think in both directions: what urbanism/architecture can bring to game design and how game design can influence urbanism/architecture. And it's not only about aesthetic concerns. The "Space Time Play book is a good resource about this topic.

Also, what does this mean in reality? are there signals of echochrome-like structures in the physical space that would allow parkour-like interactons? See for example the following example that I've already mentioned in this blog: