Surprise, Surprise Microsoft and Corning envisions a world of screens as an answer to productivity. These visions of the future concepts make should be looked at with a large set of skepticism. The philosophical issue that underlies these visions is the corporate attitude of Microsoft and of Corning. The business models of where each of these companies makes money defines the near and distant future. The idea that a screens can possess the solutions to modern problems. The ubiquitous nature of such screen interfaces is becoming more and more a reality, However, just because a screen interface can be implemented into a system such as the kitchen the question is should it? Would a touch screen interface applied to a refrigerator actually improve the natural productivity of such a product? Does access to data actually improve productivity? The experience and interaction model of a refrigerator is actually quite intuitive and applies to simple ideas of natural mapping and physical interaction that make using such a system successful. Adding a screen becomes a impediment to the content inside the fridge. Microsoft places a huge amount of importance on the use of technology to reinforce reality. I have a fridge and I know what I have bought and stored in it with out a lot of effort. Do I need a computer data system telling me everytime I use my fridge that my milk is 5 day old? Probably not!  I am not saying the inventorying a storage system is a bad idea but I image the average use case for a fridge would not allow access for the interface of a screen. A fridge is simple I open grab what I want and then close it. I would not spend anytime interacting with the screen on that product. Microsoft attempts to explore a world through which all of our systems are embedded with data broadcast functionality. In reality the absence of interface is more productive.

The question that should be asked is. Do we want our world to be seen through the scope of an interface or do want to see the world as it is and then use an interface when appropriate? The affordance of a screen should have been considered in these future vision but instead it is seen a baseline for productivity.  Human interaction with data has been touted as the solution to systems problems. This is an idealistic future with glossy interesting interface solutions on some of their screens. The irony is that if the same amount of attention that has been put into these highly produced and motion graphic influenced visions as went into lets say Microsoft powerpoint I would treat their vision differently. It is evident that productivity in Microsoft’s vision is that of interaction with a screen, rather then solving the task at hand through the affordance of a screen. Some of the visions layed out in this video are not unrealistic to current interaction trends. What becomes an interesting outcome of future visioning is the influence of data tracking with in systems.  Our world is pretty complicated and Microsoft seems to believe that their screen interactions are the ways to understand that complicated world. I understand the attempt to look into the future how ever there is a level of idealistic utopian energy that implements it self throughout their vision. It completely blurs the use case for where a user should or should not interface with a computer. It is hard to argue that technology doesn’t embed itself into our systems but should it be done so with reverance for how it impacts the exisiting system and communication potential. When we can put a computer that collects data everywhere due to making it cheap should we? Or should the world maintain a productivity division between tasks that require computation and those that don’t. I believe interfaces should disappear and not be there lens through which we interface with the world. However it would be fun to work on one of these teams that gets to envision the future.

http://www.kstoolkit.org/Storytelling

An open question was left at a former post : Reading Facts. which I wish to revisit. When knowledge is not valued over its ability to be fast or slow what does is become? The issue with fast or slow knowledge rests on the delivery form factor, ie through computation (kindle, ipad internet) or not. The ability for the message to be lost due to the form factor it becomes delivered through has change dramatically due to technology in the past 10 years. Marshall Mcluhan said “the medium is the message” This statement has become widely accepted when discussing media theory especially print material. We are acutely aware of how content delivery changes between tabloid news, newspaper news, and news Television, and that is only taking into account a line of similar content. As content types diversify the ability of the medium to affect the message is compounded. There is a lively debate in academia as to how new media devices are affecting education and to that extent society. The level of pervasiveness within technologies like the internet, smart phones, computation and the like are having on sectors of society across all economic positions remains a huge challenge from both a standard of living access point but also a society & educated populace stand point. Because of that, education is on the head of the technology spear. The ubiquitous nature of information technologies has forced the systems of education to reevaluate their methodologies for better or worse. However I believe there is a massive gaping hole in the collective thinking process of education when it comes to communication technologies. Ubiquitous computation is seen as a barrier to teaching methodologies due to the nature and speed at which computational devices alter and change and access of content especially the content that is attempting to be taught through the teacher. The 19th century education model still dominates a vast majority of theory of education system especially k-9.

I don’t teach in k-9 but I would imagine it would be super difficult to dish out lessons, mandated curriculum and dated textbooks when a majority of that content can be accessed, parsed and delivered at the touch of a mouse. I am not saying that the speed of the information age is a bad thing, I can only imagine how it throws a wrench in to the teaching methodologies of countless classrooms. Similarly I am not suggesting that there should be a free fore all on the Internets access and ubiquitous nature. Many have discussed the difficult bind to which education is in and me rambling on about it is not really the point especially when there are writers & educators like Sr. Ken Robinson. But education has to find a what to establish what it means to be educated in our modern times.  Is this going to be based on the old model of memorization and specialization or will it me more the ability to ask the right question and be endlessly curious with the ability to use technology to not only find the answer but contribute back to how the questions are asked?

I do believe that the ubiquitous nature and speed of our current technology has had a profound impact on our ability to tell stories. It is arguable that we have more stories then ever before and I would agree with that, however, it is purely an outcome of access not quality. The saying quality over quantity has never been more appropriate than when speaking about the internet and the amount of content that is added to it knowledge bank daily (to which I am adding with this blog). Therefore I believe that a fundamental piece that is missing in education is truly great storytelling skills, conceptual thinking and lateral thinking methodologies and subsequent devices to assist those skills. The ubiquitous catch all nature of computers is, in my opinion, having a detrimental impact on thinking out side the computer and impacting the skills of students, designers, teachers, and businesses.

I recently took place with the generosity of the AIGA Los Angeles Organization in the Student Portfolio day as a reviewer. Although I did not review hundreds of portfolios, one thing that I was immensely disappointed in was the lack of storytelling when in came to presenting visual ideas and solutions. Students seemed to have a prescribed set of things in their somewhat unimpressive collections of work. It made me sit back and think about what it is that a designer does? In the 5 portfolios I looked at it felt as if I was looking at a predetermined script. It went something like this. 1 to 2 logos with 1 of those logos as a letterhead business card etc, 1 to 3 print posters (just the solutions no context), 1 to 4 ad campaigns (non of them a systems of ads just a single advertisement),  1 to 3 editorial spreads (no context), 1 package (a cd jewel case, no context), and 2 to 3 misc illustrations, photographs, or typography pieces (again no context).  Each having between 12 and 15 pieces. Only one person had even the hint of digital competency with an overwhelmingly simple html site but I gave her some slack because she was only a sophomore as USC and I appreciated the gusto to get evaluated at such a early stage in her schooling. However the predicted procedural nature of the portfolios made me stand back for a second and say wait? Is this really how education views the role of designers? Has the system of curriculum’s and dated industrial needs reflected so poorly on the skill sets of designers? Can we as visual professionals be so quickly summed up.  My frustration with the lack of story telling lead me to be quite harsh on my last review of the day. I told my student. “Yes you have the required 15 pieces of work that has some how been determined this makes you a designer, however I know nothing about you! You have not told me a single story or lead me along any thinking path that has convinced me that your visual solutions are the correct ones.” I followed it up with “a logo and business card are the baseline of designer however if you can not tell me a story or show me that you have a making and thinking methodology then I really don’t care about your work. Period.  I want to know if you draw, how many images you collected how many versions you did, why you chose to do this the question you asked the things you were looking at and thinking about when you made it.  If I was going to hire you which I am not, I would want you. Not a prescribed set of 5 to 8 baseline skills, yes they are necessary but not unteachable in industry. If I were you I would find a way to let your portfolio be a mirror of your passion and your ability to think and think as a designer not the curriculum of your design education”  After going a bit of a rant I said I was sorry for being overly harsh but without it all the work becomes useless to which he disappointingly agreed.

After all the reviews were over the reviewers and educators gathered as a recap of the day. During the discussion a number of  reviewers shared the same frustration with a lack of personality and passion and storytelling in their students work. I am convinced that this lack of story telling is based in the narrow minded approach most educational systems are equating to design. Design rather than a thinking approach is a determined set of skills. However the collection of design professionals siting in the room were disgusted with the lack of understanding of what industry is looking for out of our design education systems. It seemed to me the design education systems were looking to teach predetermined skills where industry was looking for creative visual thinkers. Somewhere there is a missing element in the teaching of skills to designers. I believe that skill is storytelling. Design is not making a logo, the logo is the culmination of visual problem solving that requires a huge set of skills including design research, anthropology, biology, visual taxonomy, system thinking, business, drawing, computer skills, history etc etc.

“Design is that area of human experience, skill and knowledge which is concerned with man’s ability to mould his environment to suit his material and spiritual needs.” _archer, B

This lack of story telling could be a vision problem of education to design or it could be something more systemic as I had mentioned at the beginning of this post. Regardless of the root of misbegotten storytelling,  I think that until we as educators, designers, professionals, and thinkers articulate the importance of media specific storytelling methodologies and start charting changes in the education delivery systems to meet these new changes, our society will start to see the growing effects and missed opportunities from not teaching and learning from profound stories and storytelling processes.

http://designspiration.net/image/40370/

( I wish I would have had this quote to give to the students I reviewed because passion will always trounce innate talent -

Picasso said ” inspiration does exist, but it must find you working” )

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

http://www.storynet.org/conference/index.html
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It may come as a surprise to many but the idea of adding daily value to a digital object is a relatively untrodden landscape. Some would say its the beginning of the end for the newspaper, however this day has been long coming. Now don’t get me wrong, I like the physical newspaper it has an experience that is uniquely its own which I believe is a reason it has both dissipated and stayed beloved by many. The ritual of the morning paper sufficed generations of engaged and interested citizenry, but the fact of the matter is that ritual is no longer. A causality of a mediated and techno social world. However the content that exists on the pages of newspapers, some would say dieing media, is still relevant. I would argue more relevant then ever because the access of citizen journalism and the 24 hour news cycle has severely watered down the quality of content. Therefore the success of the “The daily” iPad app, which in my opinion took them way too long to launch, will rest on the quality of the content and subsequently the advertising.

In the feature laden demo, an emphasis is placed on the interactions with the content. The swipe, the carousel, the saving and sharing of content. However not one attribute or hint to how advertising infiltrates the content or coincides with the content is shown? Plus what kind of information will the daily know about their subscribers (With facebook connect they can know a whole lot) I believe the content is priced very reasonable. Low enough to make it worth a lark but also an amount that makes me wonder how Murdock is making ends meet? Since there was no inclination to the severity of advertising within the content then it is safe to presume that individualized use data is what he is hoping to mine! Similar to Facebook personalization of advertising is accessed through the tracking of users. What better way to track users then by giving them an app to read the news from every day. Now I am probably over reacting but it would be nice to know what kind of information “the daily” keeps track of? But this is the trade off for cheap content, right? Something has to give. Now I have no proof of this hypothesis but it is a logical explanation unless “the daily” is strangely populated with ads which very well could be the fact. Either way these new technologies allow for a much different level of interaction between content provider and company. The newspaper model was relatively simple before, deliver a paper into people’s hands and charge advertisers for that access. Similar is the iPad but now an advertiser can have proof of that delivery rather than a guess like that of a newspaper subscription. Now the burden of access is left to the trackers of that unique fact.

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ILUVUXDESIGN from lyle on Vimeo.

User Experience design has been a contested title for those designers who already think they accomplish these tasks as graphic designer / art directors. User experience is a title that is vague on purpose. What is the roll of a designer in a system or product. For 100′s of years designers have taken visual language and communication skill and applied them to the purposes of commerce and business. Graphic design is the use of art to sell. How ever in an ever changing technological world the ideas of usability and engagement have confronted the business world and created a void for which graphic designers need to fill. For some industries like the music industry there unwillingness to adapt to the changing music experience allowed other companies more versed in the experience of new technologies to take the legs from their business models, ie apple. User experience is vague for the reason that it can encompass so many facets of the business cycle from strategy of a product launch to the specific of how a user logs in. The spectrum of experience is the importance of the role of a UX designer not just the specific of a swatch color.
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Tattoos of Ships & Tattoos of Tears from Chris R Becker on Vimeo.

An Interactive poster using conductive ink with a five color print (edition of 12) serigraphed artifact. Functionality of poster is activated through the user touching the conductive ink switches on the poster which both activate a LED light and a canon sound. Image inspired by a CocoRosie song.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

Conductive Marginalia from Chris R Becker on Vimeo.

The video prototype concept utilizes the conductive inks I have been experimenting with to generate interactive switches that are designed with in the margins of the narrative. The conductive switches illicit the context of the footnote for the narrative. The switch both lights up an embedded LED in the page and also triggers a screen / projection / smart phone message that could be accessed simultaneously through out the narrative. The content is a short story from David Foster Wallace’s Interviews with Hideous Men : Suicide as a Sort of Present. David Foster Wallace is an author the has utilized the footnote context annotation through out his body of work especially Infinite Jest

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

Engaging users with an interaction is a difficult process. I am attempting to engage users in natural mapped interactions through iconography the associats a particular action of touch. Natural mapping is a term for the proper and natural arrangements for the relations between controls and their movements to the outcome from such action into the world. Like that of a door knob or a book.The real function of natural mappings is to reduce the need for any information from a user’s memory to perform a task. This term is widely used in the areas of human-computer interaction (HCI) and interactive design discussed in Donald Norman’s book : The design of Everyday Things.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

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Through out my experimentation with conductive inks and screen printing, I have started to try and engage the user in interaction with the tangible printed artifact. Paper and ephemeral material is inherently tangible and physical you can bend it, tear it, crinkle it, touch it plus it has a texture a quality and a materiality very unique to its form. Unique to the conductive inks is there ability to engage a user. The current experiment is a test to see if certain form structures are inherently engage-able.  With out any signage does a user know to touch the paper and interact with the strips.  This experiment utilizes the nature the higher contact equals a brighter light.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

Now the conductive inks that I have made work, I have started to dive into breaking the perception of what a circuit should be and should look like. With the addition of user interaction, turning a light on becomes more interesting and engaging. The earlier experiments are mostly a process of seeing and thinking about paper differently, this is a experiment into giving paper an added interaction through the conductive ink and the simple switches.  The form of the conductive lines are skewing the efficiency ideas associated with circuit board design, and the interaction allows the user to piece together the shapes of both the form and of the shape the lights make.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

Now that I have gotten an ink that can conduct an current over a relatively decient distance, I have started to play with the notion of what can a circuit look like. Can it be anything you want it to be as long as there is a positive and negative in and out. Can the form start to speak about it functionality, can the forms be unique and artistic rather than function based. Most circuitry disappears and becomes invisible. To most who use electronics and understanding of the work, skill, craft, and planning that has gone into a majority of the things they operate on a daily basis is pretty minimal. Electronics work and we rarely pay attention until they stop working. An interest in involving conductive ink is to challenge the expectation and visibility of otherwise invisible things. The mixed media piece of conductive ink, copper tape on paper is an experiment into changing and evaluating the expectations of electronic conductivity and use.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook