More and more examples of new data visualizations are available now. Processing and other software make them super nice looking. But this artist / designer goes in a different direction, worth taking a look.
by Sarah Illenberger
more: here
I would like to place a topic for discussion:
Yesterday I was talking to George and Jannes about the power of the words we use to name things or activities. Although we designers are very visual oriented people, words and textual concept still drive the way we perceive the world around us and also how we create new things. For example, if someone wants to design the new chair, she or he will most probably design another chair, because of the power of the archetype in the brain. Thinking about seating instead, might be better to create the new chair
Ok, my question is: we all use this Mystery Box, as called by JJ Abrams in his TED Talk, and we call it a computer. But is it appropriate in the present time to call this machine a computer? According to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, a com·put·er (kÉ™m-pyÃ…ÂÃ…Â’tÉ™r) is:
1. A device that computes, especially a programmable electronic machine that performs high-speed mathematical or logical operations or that assembles, stores, correlates, or otherwise processes information. 2. One who computes.
In the light of talking about experience design, user centered design, this term seems to me very obsolete, from the time of the perforated card and totally disconnected from its users. This machine now does so much more than compute if we think of the way it’s used: a device to connect to the web; a device that enables people to create whatever they want… Fair enough that it does that by computing data, but this original purpose has been now placed in the background, and new uses have come forward, and I wonder if a new name should follow this movement.
The point of this discussion, going back to the chair example, is that maybe rethinking the way we call this device we might broaden its uses and find newer ways and metaphors to design to and with this fantastic device.
Cheers,
Vitorio
Category:
Motion Graphics / Human Interface Design / Animation and Visual Effects
Description:
Sony Ericsson Experience Creation team is seeking a technology forward, confident, personable, Interactive Motion Graphics Designer with an incredible eye for lighting and motion theory, but also the ability to handle very technically complicated problems – especially interactive procedurally generated effects. Strong scripting and programming skills are essential for this unique multidisciplinary strategic role.
Responsibilities
• Work alongside the multidisciplinary team to create convincing motion experiences of all types and styles
• Provide leadership for the multidisciplinary team including education and mentoring
• Work with the creative leads to assign shots and ensure all relevant references are available
• Create and manage a project’s motion library
• Ensure that models are suitable for rigging and performance needs
• Work with software engineering for the continued development of all UX frameworks and animation tools, identifying bugs, and providing workarounds and suggest feature improvements
• Author highly detailed motion design library and specifications for consumption by a wide variety of stakeholders
• Special projects as assigned, including strategic research and travel
Requirements:
• Demo reel in HD on DVD demonstrating mastery of the fundamental mechanics of animation and outstanding visual effects and / or interactive concepts
• 4+ years experience working with Adobe Flash, Apple Motion and / or Adobe After Effects
• 4+ years experience working with 3D packages (Maya preferred)
• Ability to perform visual and analytical problem solving in 3-dimensional space, including the ability to accurately interpret 3D layouts and analyze 3D forms
• Exemplary knowledge of Systematic Design
• Must be wildly creative and obsessively meticulous
• Strong knowledge and appreciation of the Interaction Design discipline
• Agile learner with a command of core Adobe Creative Suite applications and ability to learn new creative tools as needed within the changing environment
• Client-side presentation layer and other Object-oriented programming knowledge and experience a plus, especially working closely with engineers
• Aptitude and cultural fit to inspire and collaborate within the multidisciplinary team (see Desired Characteristics for more detail)
Sony Ericsson Experience Creation – Desired Characteristics
The candidate should be a cultural fit within the organization. The following characteristics define a candidate that will succeed in our culture and for this position.
• Leadership / Vision: a pro-active, take charge leader with proven strategic vision; can manage, motivate, challenge, empower and delegate to others while leading by example; gains the trust of other parties quickly. Possesses the wisdom and confidence to take educated risks. Has ability to see both the bigger picture but not be afraid of getting involved in the detail when necessary. Is sought out by others for strategic advice and counsel.
• Curiosity: Has a naturally curious mind, loves to explore and nurture intellect; knows how to observe and identify patterns that identify trends and key insights early; knows how to ask the right questions (relevant) and quantity of questions necessary to uncover key information that can be made actionable. Probably, an avid observer and follower of popular culture and societal trends.
• Creativity: An innovative and resourceful person who thinks and acts “outside-of-the-box.†This individual possesses a left brain/right brain mindset. Recreationally they are likely to most enjoy nurturing their creative passions and hobbies.
• Technology Forward: Has a passion for technology, tinkering under the hood, and enjoys being a sought after authority and the resource that others turn to for emerging media and technology.
• Communication: Excellent oral and written communication skills; a great presenter, an active listener with consultative capabilities; skillful communicator in tough situations where striking a balance between being direct/forceful and diplomacy is necessary.
• Open Minded: Approach to listening and problem solving is inclusive and open minded.
• Action Oriented: Self-motivated and self-starting individual who can take limited direction and produce tangible results.
• Service Orientation: Recognizes the importance of providing outstanding service and support to both internal teams, agency partner teams and externally to partners.
• Decision Making: Makes good decisions in a timely manner based on analysis, sound judgment and wisdom.
• Team Oriented: Works well in collaborative team environments and matrix reporting Structures
• Willingness and Passion for Travel: Candidate will travel regularly for project and inter-organizational meetings. Frequent travel within Japan, Sweden and to/from the U.S. and other regions will be necessary. Location:
San Francisco, CA, USA
Minimum Experience (yrs): 2
Required Experience or Education:
Based on experience, background and candidate fit / desired characteristics.
Business Unit / Location:
Sony Ericsson
Experience Creation
NorCal / San Francisco
Contact: jorge.furuya@sonyericsson.com
Title:
Human Factors Engineer / Interaction Designer
Category:
Human Factors Design / Interaction Design / Strategy and Research
Description:
• Sony Ericsson Experience Creation team is seeking a technology forward, confident, personable, Human Factors Engineer who will focus three to five years in the future, understanding how the convergence experience can be seamless and beautiful. You will integrate within a core multidisciplinary product design team, represent the human factor at the design table and will help define interaction design and information architectures. Your research and insight will be used as one component to help inform and inspire the strategy, planning, and design of future products, features, applications, services and platforms. You are an expert in human cognitive and physical performance and have experience in bringing technology solutions to market that are based on profitable product strategies.
Responsibilities
• Create a long-term research plan based on the long-term product portfolio lineup
• Conduct laboratory and in the field research projects such as anthropometric analyses of user interaction with hardware and quantitative analyses of performance and perception with software prototypes
• Create interface design prototypes and deliver data analyses that help drive design decisions
• Author highly detailed design specifications for consumption by a wide variety of stakeholders
• Special projects as assigned, including strategic research and travel
Requirements:
• Exemplary knowledge in Human Factors Design / Human Interface Design
• Must be wildly creative and obsessively meticulous
• Strong knowledge of IA / wireframing tools, OmniGraffle, Illustrator, InDesign, Visio
• Agile learner with a command of core Adobe Creative Suite applications and ability to learn new creative tools as needed within the changing environment
• Client-side presentation layer and other Object-oriented programming knowledge and experience a plus
• Aptitude and cultural fit to inspire and collaborate within the multidisciplinary team (see Desired Characteristics for more detail)
Sony Ericsson / Experience Creation – Desired Characteristics
The candidate should be a cultural fit within the organization. The following characteristics define a candidate that will succeed in our culture and for this position.
• Leadership / Vision: a pro-active, take charge leader with proven strategic vision; can manage, motivate, challenge, empower and delegate to others while leading by example; gains the trust of other parties quickly. Possesses the wisdom and confidence to take educated risks. Has ability to see both the bigger picture but not be afraid of getting involved in the detail when necessary. Is sought out by others for strategic advice and counsel.
• Curiosity: Has a naturally curious mind, loves to explore and nurture intellect; knows how to observe and identify patterns that identify trends and key insights early; knows how to ask the right questions (relevant) and quantity of questions necessary to uncover key information that can be made actionable. Probably, an avid observer and follower of popular culture and societal trends.
• Creativity: An innovative and resourceful person who thinks and acts “outside-of-the-box.†This individual possesses a left brain/right brain mindset. Recreationally they are likely to most enjoy nurturing their creative passions and hobbies.
• Technology Forward: Has a passion for technology, tinkering under the hood, and enjoys being a sought after authority and the resource that others turn to for emerging media and technology.
• Communication: Excellent oral and written communication skills; a great presenter, an active listener with consultative capabilities; skillful communicator in tough situations where striking a balance between being direct/forceful and diplomacy is necessary.
• Open Minded: Approach to listening and problem solving is inclusive and open minded.
• Action Oriented: Self-motivated and self-starting individual who can take limited direction and produce tangible results.
• Service Orientation: Recognizes the importance of providing outstanding service and support to both internal teams, agency partner teams and externally to partners.
• Decision Making: Makes good decisions in a timely manner based on analysis, sound judgment and wisdom.
• Team Oriented: Works well in collaborative team environments and matrix reporting Structures
• Willingness and Passion for Travel: Candidate will travel regularly for project and inter-organizational meetings. Frequent travel within Japan, Sweden and to/from the U.S. and other regions will be necessary.
Location:
San Francisco, CA, USA
Minimum Experience (yrs): 2
Required Experience or Education:
A master’s degree and relevant work experience in human factors, biomechanics, or consumer product development support preferred. PhD candidates are encouraged to apply.
Business Unit / Location:
Sony Ericsson
Experience Creation
NorCal / San Francisco
Contact: jorge.furuya@sonyericsson.com
The work of these students is really great, quite fittingly with the works by this recently passed away japanese master of the graphic arts.
Even though this is more what one would consider ‘classic’ graphic designâ€â€in the sense that it is printed materialsâ€â€, I still thought it was very relevant for IxD 1’s upcoming multi-layering graphic design course.
More info on Shigeo Fukuda.
[Via DesignObserver]
Joseph Dombroski presented a nice lightning round session titled Waiting at Interaction’09. He talked about time, perception of time and how interaction designers can manipulate it (to some extend). Joseph presented many fine examples and resources related to time. Here are two:
Pretty Loaded is an archive of flash preloaders.
It’s a tribute to a vanishing art form amid a constantly changing digital landscape.
Designing and Engineering time, a book by Steve Seow.
I met David Merril at TEI’07 where he presented early prototypes of Siftables. These interactive blocks are very interesting as they have embedded electronics while being physica Message To Get My Ex Girl Back l and fully portable. David has now graduated from MIT and he is developing the Siftables as a commercial product.
A new TED video has just been released about the Siftables
His website: http://web.media.mit.edu/~dmerrill/
… Not really, but I came across this website through Build‘s (Michael C. Place) Blog.
Also, for those who (kind of rightfully, I guess) find it pointless to order one t-shirt and have it shipped to the North Pole, there’s a better but however as environmental-unfriendly alternative: The Select Series t-shirts for filmmaker Patrick O’Brien’s foundation for film-documenting his battle with ALS.
*NOT (necessarily) !
“The Interactive Institute UmeÃ¥ have an inauguration party happening on the 18th of Feb at 16:00 in the MIT-building at campus. There’s also some food afterwards (around 17:00). Anyone interested in joining should mail [Daniel Fallman] at daniel [dot] fallman [at] tii [dot] se before Feb 13â€Â.
via a mail received by Mr. Fallman
Antonelli just started her column. Intersting stuff. Seedmagazine is really good reading anyway. Read it or die.
See this talk on the TED website
A Q&A with Bill Gates and Chris Anderson on the TED blog:http://blog.ted.com/2009/02/bill_gates_qa_w.php
Interaction’09 is now over and I have to say it was one of the best conference I attended so far. The IXDA community is just amazing, I don’t know how to describe it better. The people are super nice, approchable, and open-minded. So many truly care about the development of the association and the profession.
I was told that all the presentations will be posted online soon. Carl Alviani from Core77 was here to cover the event. Two posts (first, second) are already online. I guess we will see more of his texts popping up soon.
Some old UIDers were at the conference: Mike Kruzeniski (Microsoft) and German Leon Osorio (Vodafone). It was very nice to catch up with them in Vancouver. Mike K was caught on video saying a very interesting idea about IxD, something like “Interaction Design is Industrial Design for the next 100 years”. I like that!
Object tracking made easy. Trackmate is an open source initiative to create an inexpensive, do-it-yourself tangible tracking system. The Trackmate Tracker allows any computer to recognize tagged objects and their corresponding position, rotation, and color information when placed on a surface. Trackmate sends all object data via LusidOSC (a protocol layer for unique spatial input devices), allowing any LusidOSC-based application to work with the system.
To start experimenting download the tracker, LucidOSC for Processing, print some tags and build a reader.(there are more ways than just this one, look at the homepage)
