Jeff Howard's obligatory foray into blogging at howardesign.com. Six years and counting. There aren't any grand themes, but most of what I post relates to the world of design. http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/ If it seems a little quiet around here it's because I've been redirecting most of my energy toward another weblog that I started about a year and a half ago focused on Service Design. It's been a great way to keep abreast of developments in the service design community and contribute to what I think is an incredibly important facet of human interaction design. I'll never abandon my obligatory weblog, but for now you'll find me more frequently over at Design for Service. Stop by and say hello... http://www.howardesign.com/4.1/obligatory/comment.php?post=20081019200724 Early last year I took some time to dig into the Wii and figure out what makes it tick. I wanted to see if I could prototype my own gestural interfaces. Turns out it's not too difficult. Here's the beta WiiMotion Program. It requires some familiarity with the Terminal to get it up and running, so it isn't for the faint of heart. http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=2008030411200 I love what this graphic says about realism and idealism. Now I just need one that defends intuition against Cartesian rationality.... http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=2008012741033 For a little over a year now I've been working on my unofficial discussion reader for the Interaction Design Association. Today it's officially live! http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=20071105182629 A few months ago I decided to finally dig in to the canonical literature on Service Design to get a better sense of the history of the discipline. I went back about thirty years to compile articles from Marketing and Retail Journals, Design Journals and the Harvard Business Review. To make sense of the piles of reading I kept notes on concepts and examples that reappeared in multiple articles so I could track their progression. I've put those cross-references together into a system to find pa... http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=20070909184213 They say that a good theory gives you something to think about but a great theory gives you something to think with. By that standard, Rob Bryanton's theory about the existence of ten dimensions is merely good. But the video that explains his theory is still worth checking out. The verbal and visual communication work in harmony, taking us through the basics of the first, second, third and fourth dimensions with which we're familiar, then leveraging that familiarity to lead us into the tall gras... http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=2007061812402 I've been fascinated by the use of photography in wayfinding since well before I began exploring the idea at CMU five years ago. A9's Blockview impressed me back then but Google has absolutely raised the bar with their new Street View version of Google Maps. http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=20070602184005 Grant McCracken runs a site called This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics. Some of the posts can be a little overwhelming--not many people can get away with using terms like diplomatic non-indexicality in their blog--but it's worth it to dig out some consistently good insights. Check out his Notes on Ethnography and Fearless Noticing.... http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=2007042303552 I'm in awe of the sustained brilliance of infosthetics.com. I stumbled across it a few months ago and they just keep finding mouth-watering examples of data visualization and information design. Skip the RSS feed and jump straight to the content. http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=20070319211447 I'm the proud owner of a small, white, wi-fi enabled ambient rabbit called Nabaztag. It's one of a new breed of smart objects that I'm using to investigate the design properties of calm technology. http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=20070312232041 I've been experimenting with the Nintendo Wii off and on for a few months now. It's a pretty remarkable piece of technology, and I'm glad that it's making gaming seem more approachable but all the talk about gestural interfaces being more intuitive is completely overblown. http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=20070227214744 I've been reading Print and Communications Arts since college, but my periodical selection doesn't get much more eclectic. That's a problem. Design is a synthesis of Science, Politics, Anthropology, Literature, Art, Architecture, Technology, Business, Culture... My New Year's resolution is to start casting a wider net. What publications should make it across a designer's desk? http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=2007010121205 A9 Visual Yellow Pages is no more. I guess the collective shrug from the rest of the blogosphere suggests that I'm alone in my mourning, but how could something so over-the-top cool with no obvious competition just cease to exist? It's incomprehensible. http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=20061112145927 In the late 19th century, the architect Louis Sullivan coined the aphorism Form Follows Function. He believed that a building's shape should be determined by its intended purpose. It's remained largely unchallenged as a core tenent of design thinking. In this entry, I examine the ways in which form might actually inspire function. http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=20061104212236 A few months ago, my friend Dan released his first book Designing for Interaction. Today, I came across a site for the similarly titled Designing Interactions. It's a subtle difference, but an important one. I'm with Dan in believing that we design for interaction, that is, we don't actually create the interactions themselves. We provide a framework for people's experience with their world, a way to help them create their own positive interactions. That nod toward the importance of co-creatio... http://www.howardesign.com/4.0/obligatory/comment.php?post=20061010182508