One of the reasons I traded in my P1i for the N95 was that the interface left me unsatisfied. Even a simple action like answering a call became quite a dull task, I didn’t feel rewarded in any way by the whole experience. There’s a certain sense of satisfaction associated with pressing a button to do something - even moreso when the button itself is ’satisfying’ to press.

With the iPhone setting standards in terms of interface design and user interaction (for phones, anyway), it seems quite sad to me that we appear to be nearing an era where phone buttons probably won’t exist. Buttons obviously have major restrictions - in that they’re only made to produce an on/off effect or in some examples a pressure sensitive effect. For me, touching a flat screen - even if it launches an amazing sequence of digital trickery and movement - is a very, very dull experience. You may be interacting with the media inside the phone, but you’re interacting with it on a very non-personal level, and the screen doesn’t give you anything back in return.

So is there any scope for having a next generation phone ‘interact’ with you, like the click back of a button when it’s pressed? It’s something I’d like to put to some people, to see if it’s just me with these crazy thoughts. Maybe the next step from a fully interactive, multi touch screen is a screen that somehow makes your content ‘touchable’, like braille. Imagine if a set of buttons raised from the screen when you wanted to make a call, and fell back when you’d finished dialling.

I haven’t posted anything on here for a while, so here goes with what I’m up to at the moment.I’m currently working on some web concepts for Ireland based Creative consultancy Greenhouse. More on that as the project progresses during the next few weeks, but it’s looking to be quite exciting, and could possibly involved some ‘3D’ icons (something I never thought I’d take an interest in… but thanks to Jack and James I now have a fascination for).

I’m also in talks with a company in the US about doing some work on an interface for a mobile application, which I am very, very excited about. My wandering thoughts on this blog were picked up a few weeks ago, it’s really nice that this is being read and people are understanding what I’m trying to get across.

I also did a bit of work for the Westway Arts project, doing some illustrator templates for some decorated utility boxes that should be appearing in West London in the next few weeks.

Finally… I am doing some graphics and promotional stuff for pinkdoodle.com, a kind of ‘creative persons’ eBay, started by a graduate from CSM last year. More on that as and when it happens.

I’ve thought this ever since I looked into QR Codes for my Everyone you’ve ever known poster during my third year of CSM. The benefits of QR Codes are obvious - it’s like an automated form of note taking and means people don’t have to scramble to make notes of websites / products / gigs - whatever.

But - I believe there is quite a large limitation. At present, and I would imagine on launch in the UK, QR Codes launch a browser window on your mobile device. The program to scan the codes is relatively simple - like a hyperlink on a web page. Considering the current state of network providers in the UK, chances are most normal people don’t have a data account, and if they do, the bandwidth is relatively small. You don’t always want to check out a product or site there and then.

I might tie this work into my interface work started a while back (when my current projects have eased off). QR Codes are no doubt going to add a form of interaction to printed media (a kind of ‘primitive RFID’), but they are at present highly restrictive and dare I say it, quite simple. Barcodes in their traditional form have been around for years, it’s not a new technology by any means. Rather than the simple ‘barcode on a poster’ format, is there any scope for things to be taken a step forward, while not advancing the physical technology needed to make and read the codes?

I’ve been slacking a bit in terms of getting content up on here, due to being quite busy.  While I’m on here though, I seem to have noticed a lot of QR Codes knocking around on adverts and billboards (some looking remarkably similar to my ‘Everyone you’ve ever known’ poster - but that’s another issue entirely). I spotted this one on the poster for the new Nokia N81, I guess people are starting to realise what they’re about.

19112007068.jpg 

Got a few things coming up so decided to do myself some new business cards. 60 variations of various pictures I’ve taken - either of work, general stuff, or just plain interesting stuff.

Oh how I wish I’d have known about this a year ago. Some really nice ideas here, and some not so nice ones.

http://www.gadgetcentre.com/news/article/mps/UAN/614/v/1/sp/

This is going to be my first real investigation on my blog. I came across this link while browsing Flickr today at work.

Mike Rohde has ‘hacked’ a Moleskine plain note pad to become an organiser, to replace his usual PDA. Interesting concept in itself, but it leads to a more complicated argument - in the world of syncing PDAs, mobiles, iPods and the like to a fully functional iCal / similar piece of software that allows multi-calendars, email and visual notifications and the like, why would anyone want to turn back time and create the ‘ultimate’ manual diary?

I, like many others, use iCal regularly, even daily. It provides me with an easy to use and functional way of managing myself (which I couldn’t do without), and also allows me to sync with my Nokia so I know what I’m meant to be doing ‘on-the-go’. For quite an un-organised person, iCal makes me quite organised. But, why would someone want to go back to paper after the rise of accessibility of programs such as iCal in the last few years?

I have loads of old sketchbooks sitting around, both in London and at my parents’ house. These are full of doodles, scribbles, note taking, things to do, and a lot of other stuff. I rarely look back at sketchbooks once I’ve made notes, in fact hardly ever. Most of the pages in my books are probably never re-visited. But the reason I have so many old sketchbooks is simply this - there is nothing more satisfying than starting writing in a new, crisp sketch book or diary. Whether it’s going to make me more organised or not, writing in the book makes me think that I’m putting some order into my life, that every mark I make on the page is done for a reason and that each mark will be beneficial to me as an organised person.

What iCal is lacking, is the ability to scribble, to sketch, to create completely unique references that work for each specific individual and not making them work with a formula common to everyone with a Mac. In this sense iCal is relatively uniform and unflexible, it allows no personalisation. I still have two sketchbooks in my bag even though I run everything I need to do through iCal, because I like writing stuff. I still write things I need to do in my sketchbooks rather than noting them down on stickies or another digital form - a) because it’s more accessible, and b), because of the satisfaction factor.

This leads to a possible investigation looking at organisation software and personalisation. If someone could strike a balance between ease of use and synchronisation, and personalisation, you could have a winning piece of software on your hands. I’m not talking just using a graphics tablet to allow scribbling - I mean full scale personalisation in terms of keys, legends, colours, tables, graphs - whatever.

I may look in to this further when I have a spare few days, it is a very interesting topic though.

Music tracks on vinyls that when recorded to tapes and played back through a Spectrum, become games. Might just be an excuse to buy a Spectrum off eBay and give it a go! Reminds me a bit of ‘Data Diaries’, running the memory dump of a computer through Quicktime to force a visual output.

http://www.kempa.com/blog/archives/000053.html

This man has turned 2 etch-a-sketch units into a set of digital decks, controlling individual sound tracks.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petehindle/sets/1585642/

Something I looked at while researching my ‘artofsound’ project. The organic resolution to seeing the object change in reaction to the sound is really really nice, as opposed to running it through a series of computer programs to see an output.

Very nice.

http://www.sky-writing.com/

A printer that actually creates things in 3D, from a computer program. Sounds absolutely amazing, I’d love to see it actually working though. Picture from popsci.com.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/technology/19ad302897772110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

Official site here: fabathome.org

Considering everything is looking to be moving towards complete digital (e-paper, OLED etc), the idea of enforcing technology on something that is both ‘old’ and entirely analogue is very interesting. A company wants to put RFID chips into staples to allow easy recovery of lost documents. Source: Popular Science magazine

Tagging a building with a giant projector and a laser pointer, allowing artists to draw on objects previously unreachable.

http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=76#video

A constantly updating resource that creates graphic elements from emotions posted on blogs all around the world.

http://wefeelfine.org