Category: design-and-ideas

Is the future of user interface design actually, perceptive?

Jason Silva in his latest shot of awe, talks about the paradox of choice we all face with the advances in technology and increase choice. He also mentioned the fast company piece about the trend towards less choice, especially in user interface design.

Companies are catching on quickly. With the realization that data is much more valuable when used with other information, protocol is increasingly being adopted to ensure that data sharing is seamless. With the explosion of both data collection and unification, we’re creating an environment that, while not fully exposed, is at least open enough for information to be meaningfully aggregated.

Taken together in four steps—collection, unification, analysis, and implementation—we have an environment where information is working for you behind the scenes to do things automatically, all in the service of letting you focus on what’s most important to you in work and life.

I have concerns about this along with my thoughts about who/whom is writing the software and what is their opinion?

What Jason and others are talking about is contextual design or as I prefer perceptive design (along with perceptive media). As context only explains half of the solution and frankly anticipatory design sounds like when I first talked about intrusive media.  It will never find the mindshare with a name like that!

I think of Apple products as anticipatory and antihacker. I remember the blog I wrote when I saw Aral talk about user experience at Thinking Digital in 2013.

Perceptive design needs to empower people with  chances and experiences for mastery, not enslave them and ultimately make them feel trapped, lost and cut off from others.

Get involved in Mozfest 2015!

Mozfest 2014

Mozfest, oh Mozilla…!

Get involved in Mozfest 2015 – Proposals!

Last year we put out a call for participation but this year we have been so distracted with the changes, summer and other stuff, that we haven’t blogged or tweeted about the call for 2015’s mozfest! (our bad)

Our focus this year is around civic, community and social sustainable practice. We will explore the tension between the public and private in our creation the connected library. Its going to be quite different from last years focus on data ethics, but don’t worry its there in part.

In addition Mozilla are keen to see sessions that explore: 
  • Privacy and the web
  • Ethics of the web
  • Web literacy
  • Economy of the web
  • Inclusion and the web
  • Environment and the web
  • Future web now
  • Place and the web

So if you can please please read this blog post and then fill in the call for participation before it closes on Monday 31st August (I know I know! at least its BST+8) If you need more time, please please get in touch with me on twitter or email,ASAP…

This year things have changed, quite a bit. This year we are much more deeply involved and actually took part in a mozretreat in deepest darkest Fife, Scotland.

In the little Scottish fishing village of Anstruther, at the edge of nowhere, 40 community facilitators met to think about the future of Mozfest.

The upshot is a slightly changed Mozfest, which is no bad thing after 5 years of doing what it does well. Many people thoughts and ideas were squeezed into the retreat and the result was a slightly changed programme thoughts for the future.

Mozfest has always had a participatory community focus but there was a feeling things had gotten a little fragmented with people going to one track and not really checking out other things going on the floor above and beyond. Is there a way to have both the community participatory focus and something which encourages people to explore? So things have changed,  what exactly is complex  but luckly I don’t need to because Michelle has done this in her blog post.

Mozfest is a collection of participatory experiences.

As organizers, we set a framework for others to design and host these experiences. This builds on a set of learning principles as well as elements that can be combined to make the overall Mozfest program.

The main program elements are:

  • Session (an experience or activity)

  • Pathway (a series of sessions)

  • Space (a series of pathways)

So last year we were space wranglers and build a couple of spaces for people to experience and learn in (the framework). We also pulled together sessions and thought about how they connect and build on each other (aka we were doing the pathway role without realising it)

What are pathways, besides a series of sessions strung together? Well Michelle outlines the idea fully in another blog post. Basically pathways are like the lines on a train maps with interchanges to take a different route to the same goal.

Its going to be one heck of mission working this all out but frankly BarCamp and Mozfest shouldn’t really work but they do, extremely well!

 

Marching to the beat of my own drum

Time To Walk Like A Rebel

I had a read of Thought Catalog over breakfast in Vivid Lounge and came across this post which I certainly could identify with.

10 Signs You March To The Beat Of Your Own Drum

  1. You have a strong distaste for the status quo.
    Its less of a distaste, more a lack of interest in a system which rejects and marginalizes people because they are different.
  2. You lack respect for authority figures.
    I’m more skeptical and wary of authority. Partly down to previous experience but it can also be an advantage in compliance and social engineering scams.
  3. You can objectively look at both sides of an issue.
    Yep its a bit strange, as I can always play the devils advocate. It tends to frustrate.
  4. You’re passionate about learning
    I’m all about life long learning and admitting I quite enjoy learning.
  5. You’re always up for a good debate.
    This plays right back at the devils advocate things, I won’t lie a good debate is how you learn and refine.
  6. Sometimes people think you’re crazy.
    Indeed…
  7. You’re always refining your ideas.
    Through debate, discussion and collaboration.
  8. You limit the amount of media you consume.
    This one is something I find interesting. People always wonder why I haven’t heard about this and that. I mean how could I not know about this and that? Interestingly the Freakonomics covered something similar a few weeks ago in a podcast.I do limit how media I consume, by limiting the number of time I spend looking at Facebook, Twitter, etc. I’m also a chooser, so I don’t just put the Radio/TV on and watch whats on. Likewise I’m choosy on what and where I spend my attention.
  9. You fear being average.
    Doesn’t everybody? I do wonder if most people think about this?
  10. You’re never bored.
    Indeed, theres so much that can and should be done. Be it physically, mentally or elsewhere. Life’s too exciting to be bored…!

Great stuff… and I leave you with this… Thanks Chris

https://twitter.com/chrismessina/status/614201228952797184

Mindmapping the VR space

Chris McCann started mapping  out the VR ecosystem on his medium blog. I found it interesting but noticed a few missing things. I was going to craft a tweet to him but decided actually this might make better sense in a mindmap, because the stated aim is…

I wanted to get a better understanding of all of the different players and how the whole ecosystem fits together.

So I created a mindmap using the excellent mindmup and I got a chance to try out their new atlas service to show and share. I’m already thinking about collaborating with people I know and connecting some of the items together. I also wouldn’t mind doing the same on the AR side of things.

Think like a child?

Many people have said and commented I think like a child or that I am childlike…?

On the face of it, it can be seen as a negative thing, I mean who wants to be compared to a child? Heck theres even game shows asking if you are smarter than a child. But I don’t see it that way.

This is a side effect of my dyslexia in daily life, and has a interesting affect on relationships. However I and the freakonomics think this is a good way of going about life…

It may be that we embrace the idea in this book of thinking like children because we’re kind of, you know, childlike. We have kind of obvious observations sometimes. There’s observations that strike people as obvious. We ask a lot of questions that are not considered, you know, the kind of questions that people ask in good company or smart company. But one of the most powerful pieces of thinking like a child that we argue is thinking small.

Thinking like a child is a gift and a advantage I would argue.

…what I find is that kids are better at paying attention to more than one thing. Their attention is more diffuse. Adults are really good at focusing on one thing and ignoring peripheral distractions, whereas kids are really good at sort of shotgunning their attention all over the place. Which is a good way to learn. It’s good when you’re first learning how things work, when you’re first exploring the world. But in magic, you want the person to focus on one thing. You want to direct their attention to one particular thing so that they won’t see what’s going on in the shadows…

Ah attention… They tell us that multi-tasking is a bad thing but regardless I feel better when multitasking. Unless I’m delving into the flow state with others, but I’m still wondering elsewhere.

…I think it’s also that they’re approaching it with this curiosity and it’s this sponge-like desire, and that they’re always making theories. That’s the other thing. I don’t feel like adults are like that. I sort of feel like they watch it and they’re waiting for the punchline, and then they sort of see it, and then they maybe go back and think about it. With kids, you get this sense that at every step of the way they’re trying to understand it. From the second they see it, they’re always coming up with theories

I think the general picture, when you talk about risks as adults, when we’re trying to decide on a course of action, we’re always balancing the risks and utilities. Whether that’s a risk to my reputation or my ego or my future interactions with other people or just a risk to my profit margin. And kids aren’t in that world of—or at least, if they’re being taken care of properly—they’re not in that world of risk and utility calculations. That liberates then, that frees them to, as we say, play.

Curiosity and play, something which we as adults seem to lose for many reason. Risk of being wrong in front of peers is a big one. This seems linked to the fear of rejection in my mind. But I guess risk is a better word for it in general.

The point I’m making is, a child like outlook isn’t a bad thing and actually we might be better off with child like thinking.

There is something about being a child, about having that particular childlike mind and brain, that is the thing that’s letting you explore more and, in some sense, be more creative. And that there are things that we could do even as adults that put us back into that kind of state.

Variations not versions

https://twitter.com/martynkelly/status/624266599000838150

It was Si Lumb who tweeted me about Pixar’s Inside Out contextual visuals.

Now I know this isn’t anything new, I mean films have had region differences for a long while but its good to see it discussed openly and I was interesting to read about how (we think) they do it.

It’s interesting to note that the bottom five entries of the list, starting with “Thai Food,” remain consistent throughout (maybe Disney/Marvel Studios’ digital wizards couldn’t replace the stuff that Chris Evans’ hand passed over), but the top items change a lot.

Which leads me to think its all done in post production using things like impossible software?

Post producing this stuff is a mistake in my mind, but then again I’m working on the future of this kind of thing with Perceptive Media. I also imagine the writer and director had no time to think about variations for different countries, or wasn’t paid enough?

Rather than write up my thoughts of how to do this with digital cinema (isn’t this part of the promise of digital cinema?) plus I’m writing a paper with Anna frew about this. I thought it was about time I wrote something about the project I’m currently working on.

Visual Perceptive Media

Visual perceptive media is a short film which changes based on the person who is watching the video. It uses profiled data from a phone application to build a profile of the user via their music collection and some basic questions. The data then is used to inform what variations it should apply to the media when watched.

The variations are applied in real time and include different music, different colour grading, different video assets effects and much more. Were using the WebAudioAPI, WebGL and other open web technologies.

What makes this different or unique…?

  • We had buy in with the script writer and director (Julius Amedume was both and amazing) right from the very start which makes a massive difference. The scripts were written with all this in mind.
  • It was shot and edited with its intended purpose of making real-time variations.
  • Most things we (BBC R&D) have done in the responsive/perceptive area has been audio based and this I would say is a bit of moonshot moment like Breaking Out 3 years ago! Just what I feel the BBC should be doing.
  • Keeping with the core principle of Perceptive media, the app which Manchester based startup Percepiv (was moment.us, wondered if working with us had a hand in the name change?) created using there own very related technology. Is mainly using implicit data to build the profile. You can check out music+personality on your own android and iphone now.

Its going to be very cool and I believe we the  technology has gotten to the point where it makes sense that we can do this so seamlessly that people won’t even know or realise (this is something we will be testing in our lab). As Brian McHarg says, theres going to be some interesting water cooler conversations, but the slight variations are going to be even more subtle and interesting.

This is no branching narrative

I have been using the word variations throughout this post because I really want us to get away from the notion of edits or versions. I recently had the joy of going Learn Do, Share Warsaw. I was thinking about how to explain what our thinking was with the Visual Perceptive Media project. How do you explain which has 2 films genres with 6 established endings with 20+ types music genres and a endless number of lengths and effects?

This certainly isn’t a branching narrative and the idea of branching narrative is certainly not apt here. If this was a branching narrative, it would have upwards of 240 versions not including any of the more subtle effects to increase your viewing enjoyment. I considered them as variations and the language works, when you consider the photoshop variation tool. This was very handy when talking to others not so familiar with perceptive media.  But its only a step and makes you consider there might be editions…

I was talking to my manager Phil about it before heading to Warsaw and came up with something closer to the tesseract/hypercube in interstellar (if you not seen it/spoiler alert!)

Unlimited Variations

Unlimited isn’t quite right but the notion of time and variations which intersect is much closer to the idea. I say to Si Lumb maybe the way to show this would be in VR, as I certainly can’t visualise it easily.

When its up and running I’d love people to have a go and get some serious feedback.

On a loosely related subject, Tony Churnside also tweeted me about Perceptive Media breaking into the advertising industry.

Airbnb’s new slightly creepy advert?

The nextweb say airbnb’s advert is a little creepy…?

And I have to say there are not wrong… Not quite sure what to make of it. Of course Airbnb have their reasoning.

But if you do book my spare room, please don’t think…

Sleeping in my spare bed will fill you in on my dreams. This really sounds like the promising start of horror film…?! Honestly what on earth Airbnb? Human? More like scary movie?

What conversations would you put in the national archives?

Chatting

Kate pointed me towards the BBC Radio 4 listening project which is touring and coming to Manchester in October.

The Listening Project is a partnership between BBC Radio 4, BBC local and national radio stations, and the British Library.

Capturing the nation in conversation

We are asking people up and down the country to share an intimate conversation with a close friend or relative, to help to build a unique picture of our lives today. Some of these conversations will be broadcast across BBC radio and archived by the British Library, preserving them for future generations.

I like the idea of this and funny enough I started listening to 33 Voices which reminds me of the sadly gone IT conversations.

There is something about conversations which are fascinating, its what made podcasts so raw and  interesting…

Nothing like a overheard conversation although there are ethics too, maybe its the reason why I don’t use headphones when in cafes and on standard class trains?

I look forward to hearing more and maybe even contributing to the project in some way.

Time to be creative, BBC Microbit

https://twitter.com/andywilson460/status/618508749070843909

The BBC has had a bit of rough ride recently especially in the press and with the 600 million they have to take on and the cuts announced.

With all news stories like this, its easy to feel and think the worst. But its important to be positive and think about the way forward. The BBC must innovate and be creative about what happens next.

Talking about creativity, the BBC Microbit project finally was launched and it was great to finally see the concluding chapter to BBC Micro. I’d love to see a micromen style tv show about the many many years of getting this project to launch. So many people were involved in the process and they must all be proud to finally see the project come to this stage.

Ant's talk on 'BBC Micro for the 21st Century

I still remember Ant Miller’s talk about the BBC Micro for the 21st Century at BarCampBrighton3 which Rain blogged. I’m not saying that was a turning point or anything but was one of many many people trying to make the BBC understand its essential position in the 21 century by looking at its legacy with the old BBC Micro.

If I tried to list others it would go on for ever! I did 4 years ago create a mindmap of all the people doing something and influences, be interesting to look back at now. A few core people stick out in my mind when talking about this project…

Michael Sparks, Howard Baker and Jo Claessens. These 3 people are deservingly front and centre of the microbit shot above. For me personally they put their blood, sweat and tears into the BBCmicrobit. They pushed and pushed, and made it work. They are embryonic of what the BBC needs to do now and into the future! A future which of course will be open!

Of course I can’t help but mention Alan O’Donohoe, which had little to do with the BBC microbit, but  following the BarCampMediaCity BBC Code lab stunt and momentous rise upwards, had a (mainly) positive external influence. Very interesting to hear and read some of the blogs and opinions back in 2012.

The BBC Microbit is a long list of creative things only the BBC could do. Its great to finally see the positive and negative feedback but ultimately the biggest critics will be the  year 7’s who use it this coming September.

The BBC needs to keep knocking it out the park and build a better future for us all.