DRS 2010 conference in Montreal
Last week I attended the DRS 2010 conference in Montreal, my hometown. It was quite special for me as the conference was hosted at the School of Industrial Design (University of Montreal), the place I did my BA 5 years ago. Coming back and revisiting the school as a conference participant was a bit weird initially, a bit like bumping into old friends from high-school. On the other hand, it was really nice to meet people I’ve lost contact over the years, plus new people I had only met online through various web projects. In the end, not much has changed at the School of Industrial Design, for the better or worse, it all depends how you see it.
I’m posting a few slides of our presentation. I’ll try to publish the whole thing online very soon. I’ll also try to add my notes about the presentations that struck me most. I find this writing exercise valuable for me, as a way to reflect on what I’ve seen and heard.
It was unfortunate that my co-author Fabricio Dore from IDEO was not able to join the conference. I presented our paper Sketching in Hardware and Building Interaction Design: Tools, Toolkits and an Attitude for Interaction Designers (PDF) on Friday, the last day of the conference. It was in the largest auditorium and the room felt a bit empty. After the session, a few people came and talked to me about it, so I guess there was people listening in the back. I think people liked it overall. I tried to have a visually stimulating presentation, with lots of images and some videos. I find that so many Design Research presentations are very boring, mostly because of the way the content is presented: bullet points, long quotes, poor graphic design, no rhythm, written text that the presenter systematically reads, etc. I guess it depends on your audience, but for me I see a presentation as an opportunity to get people interested in the stuff I’m doing. Not so much as an opportunity to gain respect, status and recognition with my peers. When presenters keep dropping names and refer constantly to other authors that you don’t know, well it gets very difficult to stay alert and interested. Maybe there is a name for it. I could tentatively call it Intellectual Selection. It is like purposely excluding a big chuck of your audience because you consider them not worthy or below of your own intellectual level. Anyway, I don’t like this and I personally try to make my talks or presentations open and accessible to the largest possible group of people. Attendees commit 15-20 minutes of their time and attention to me, so I should give something back, so at the lowest level I try to provide visually stimulating content if I cannot engage intellectually with them.
A few colleagues from Umeå Institute of Design took part in the conference too: our new rector Anna Valtonen, Daniela Rothkegel who recently started her PhD at the school, and Erik Stolterman who is now officially part of Design Research group at UID. I felt UID was well represented. A fair share of people knew about Umeå amazingly. I don’t know if it’s because of me acting as a natural bridge between University of Montreal and UID, or something else.
DRS 2010 website: http://www.drs2010.umontreal.ca
Last day at Microsoft Research Cambridge
Today is my last day at Microsoft Research Cambridge (MSRC) in the UK. I started 12 weeks ago in early April and it’s already over. Time really flies. It almost seems like just a few days ago that I arrived, met all the great people of the Computer-Mediated Living (CML) group, and got the induction and found my way in the hardware lab.
I presented my internship work yesterday with 5 demos/setups. It was more demanding than I expected to have everything working adequately, using multiple laptops and powering all the devices properly. I had some issue with the software on one demo, so in the end, only 4 out of the 5 were working properly. I had good comment and critique, mostly about my methodology and how this work related to past research. I’m barely starting to make sense, frame the context and the structure of my work, so I’m not yet conformable to explain it clearly to a specialized audience. This is one thing I have to work hard during the coming months.
Today I’m doing a photo/video shoot of all my devices so I have good documentation down the road. It’s a bit rushed, but I know I’ll appreciate having this material later on. It is the last time my co-workers have to cope and endure my noisy contraptions. Sorry guys, it’s the last time I promise! I’m attaching a few images that are intentionally not too revealing. I haven’t had the IP clearance for it. I’ll be back in Cambridge in September to discuss the matter in details.
I’m really grateful to everyone at Microsoft Research who made it possible for me to join and work in the Socio-Digital Systems group for 3 months. I didn’t know what to really expect coming to Cambridge and Microsoft, but it sure has been a challenging and stimulating 3 month period for me on so many levels. Thanks again and I hope to see many of you again at different conferences or events around the globe.
Prototype Symposium notes
Prototype : Craft in the Future Tense
June 10-11 2010, Dundee, Scotland
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/djcad/prototyping/ | PDF booklet
Day 1
Constance Adams, Synthesis International
Constance pushes the boundaries of architecture in habitable environments for space travel. Her talk introduced prototyping for spaceflight and the stringent requirements for venturing in outer space for 600+ days (manned mission to Mars). The 3/5 or “Disney scale” can work for fluid-aerodynamics, but she usually opts for full-scale modeling since material properties and human factors don’t scale really well. She introduced the many challenges of extreme environment and zero gravity living: most plastics are deadly in closed-loop environment, no convection to cool components, dull and noisy environment, etc.
Our abilities to solve problems vary greatly between socio-cultural contexts and backgrounds. When confronted with the task of writing in microgravity, the Americans developed the Space Pen while the Russians used pencils. The current international space station combines the work of 15 nations, and despite divergent perspectives and interests, it has to work properly in the end.
During her talk, Constance discussed various notions like open-source and DIY manufacturing (everyone needs spare parts), Métis (low-tech and craft supplementing high-tech, make do with available resources), Scrimshaw (interplanetary space travel has a lot of “down time”, activity to kill time and keep sane).
She concluded with various insights about how to bring a sense of time, place and wellness into habitable space environments. By collaborating internationally to make homo sapiens astronauticus a reality, we necessarily have to understand better and reconsider our human relationship with tools and form-making beyond pure technical innovations.
Leonardo Bonnani, MIT Media Lab
Leo just finished his PhD at MIT and has been teaching a class called Future Craft for a few years now. He talked about how Tools and Artefacts are linked together. He identified 5 trends he sees coming in the domain:
Open (Open Design, personalized fabrication), Niche (market of one) , Specific (solve a particular problem, specificity of devices/interfaces), Virtuosic (gestural interfaces take time to master), Sustainable (local production, knowledge about sourcing).
He characterized today’s crafting and prototyping activities as the Cathedral & the Bazaar (adapted from Malone, Laubacher, Dellarocas’ Collective Intelligence Genome). The reality is probably never as strictly polarized, but I found the comparison interesting. Many questions and comments touched on the issue; one asking if Bazaar-like work can really reach Cathedral-like proportions/qualities, and another suggesting that all Cathedral type of organization have Bazaar-like activities internally.
Finally Leo introduced sourcemap.org, a webservice exposing supply chains data to support sharing and sustainable awareness.
Hazel White, University of Dundee
Hazel introduced Dunne’s notion of “Genotypes” and how it provides a new way of working for the craftperson. She also brings Design Fiction (Julian Bleecker) and asks if we ought to have Craft Fiction now: to explain, to imagine, to materialize ideas, to speculate about a different kind of world.
She then followed with a recent craft project realized in the Shetland Islands. She got acquainted with local craft knitting knowledge, and out of this built a small interactive kist (wooden chest) reuniting elderly locals with their remote family members.
Michael Schrage, MIT
M. Schrage (author of Serious Play) is interested in Behavioral Economics. He started by defining that there are two types/approaches to prototypes: “Show & Tell” vs “Show & Ask”. These are stereotypes but they are present and valuable in today’s world. He then tried to define Craft: Craft as/is “skillful making” of what…?
Michael defined three themes for Prototypes:
-A Prototype is a Hypothesis (scientific method)
-A Prototype is a Marketplace (exchange values, platform for productive collaboration, generation of knowledge/value)
-A Prototype is a Playground (serious play, relaxation of rules, play vs serious vs real)
I found his talk terribly interesting, especially the notion of Marketplace. My notes are skim unfortunately. He ended his presentation mentioning that our challenge is to nurture and craft those “Playful Prototyping Marketplaces”. Note to self; check his slides and possibly his book for numerous definitions of play and its relation to innovation + knowledge building.
Catharine Rossi, RCA
How prototypes relates to furniture design in the 80’s with Memphis pieces. These were one-off, hand-crafted prototypes made to bring new radical esthetic ideas to the world.
Elizabeth Sanders, Maketools
Her presentation was very similar to the one I attended in Seoul (Korea) in October 2009. Elizabeth’s work relates heavily to UCD and PD methods. Her table depicting old and new practices was interesting (sorry not picture). It shows the complexity and multi-disciplinary nature of new design activities.
Her Participatory Prototyping Cycle contains three interconnected nodes: Make, Enact and Tell. Elizabeth associates various verbs and actions to these three facets (see image).
Chicks on Speed
A presentation of the CoS collective, their work and practice in contemporary art. The group recently created a high-heel shoe that can be played like a guitar. It has the necessary electronics, and is solid enough to be worn. It proved quite challenging for CoS to bring qualified collaborators into this project due to personal ego and heavy technical requirements.
Day 2
Frederic Schwartz, University College London
His talk was titled “Prototopia: Craft, Type and Utopia in Historical Perspective”. He examined the meeting point of Prototype and Utopia, dissected the model of prototyper, and revisited the “mechanical selection” from Le Corbusier. He talked that prototyping is an interesting form of bricolage, as it is a combination of production and consumption.
Simon Starling, Conceptual Artist
Simon presented a selection of projects and his perspective on prototypes and craft. For him, prototyping is more a mindset and an omnipresent sensitivity to understand and use the present situation.
He presented a first project where he took two aluminum objects, a bike and a chair, and rebuilt each of them using the other’s raw material. He then showed D1Z1, a high-end stop motion CG film about a first-generation analog computer. The old and new blends seamlessly and beautifully.
The last project he presented was a film + installation for Wilhelm Noack oHG, metal fabricators in Berlin who made some of the finest metalwork of the 20th century (Bauhaus and numerous International Modernism pieces).
Stuart Brown, University of Dundee
Mr. Brown is a biomedical engineer. His presentation was insightful and though provoking. He described his current practice and labeled it Prototyping for High Value and Time Poor users. He works with a world-renowned surgeon, and this situation brings unique considerations for the design process of new tools and systems. As always, everyone has overt and covert objectives in their work. He questioned the role of computation in his current practice, and highlighted that is still very difficult to model human characteristics on a computer with any useful complexity.
Mr. Brown then proposed a new form of activities, called abstract prototyping. He argues that is not really new, but tries to motivate and define its values and usefulness. His client (the world-class surgeon) has good abstract skills, so maybe it would be appropriate to use more abstract prototypes.
He finished his talk highlighting that medical projects can afford high-end prototyping techniques, but also that they need to consider all stakeholders (famous surgeon, cleaner, buyer). As an engineer, his practice is clearly specifications driven, but he noted that they should not make you blind.
Pieter Jan Stappers, TU Delft University
Pieter’s presentation placed prototypes as central vein of knowledge. Development. He first introduces many definitions of prototypes (see image). He ran a little experiment with the audience (based on Wason’s experiment) to show that we are pretty bad at Abstract Thinking. He then reviewed the how natural sciences and industry + design disciplines are using prototypes to advance knowledge and projects. The uses of prototype are different and equally valuable. He commented the society tends to ignore the creative and bazaar-like activities underlying classic scientific pursuits.
He explained how design-inclusive research uses prototypes to generate knowledge. He showed a few projects, around the visual environment of designers. He critiqued the fact that now most designers only have a small screen as ambient visual environment. He explained how his team has been developing VR solutions to this problem. Personally I’m not so sure of the reliance of VR to augment ambient visual stimulus. Analog stuff works incredibly well and is infinitely reconfigurable.
Pieter’s final contribution consisted of five tips or aspects to support the importance of prototypes:
-prototypes confront theories
-prototypes confront people
-prototyping communicate outside the core team
-it changes the world
-it can test a theory
Rosan Chow, Deutsche Telekom
She presented her Rip & Mix method to design process. Rosan exposed her thought process and various design methodologies supporting her work.
One aspect I found interesting was how her method and view of prototypes aim at supporting case-transfer. How one can transpose knowledge between projects, situations, disciplines: local, regional and long-distance transfers.
Norman Klein, California Institute of the Arts
Normand’s talk consisted of mind-blowing visuals from the past. They depicted how people viewed the future and the various aspirations. He summarized the current state of prototyping as “cross-embedding media”. He said that the future of media is “the local, the haptic, the hand-made”.
I’m not so sure how to describe the rest of his presentation other than inviting you to browse the gallery at http://www.imaginary20thcentury.com.
Book Review: Design Expertise
Title: Design Expertise
Author(s): Bryan Lawson, Kees Dorst
ISBN: 1856176703
Read: May 2010
Summary
Design Expertise aims at demystifying how regular people and students develop their design skills and thinking abilities to become proficient and professional designers. Lawson and Dorst build on theories, interviews and examples from educational experience in Architecture and Industrial Design (ID) respectively to understand what is design, and how one achieves a professional competency in it.
The book, a mixture of style between a textbook and a research article, is easy to read and elegantly offers numerous quotes, images and diagrams to support the text. Although many examples and case studies relate to Architecture, they remain informative and can be easily understood/translated to an ID perspective.
The authors first try to dissect design, its characteristics and attributes. They introduce various established models describing groups of activities, levels and types of thinking associated with it. They then try to define the expertness or expertise in design. They start with a provocative question “Is thinking a skill?” and lead the reader through the process of skill acquisition. At this point, they introduce the generic model of expertise from Dreyfus: Novice, Advanced Beginner, Competent, Expert, Master and Visionary. They explain in details the various levels and support them with real world examples.
The next part of the book tries to establish the differences between design and general problem solving. Is design a separate intelligence? Some interesting comparisons are made with medicine and laws, in particular regarding the lack of formal design precedent in the design discipline. This directly leads to how designers develop design constructs and schemata (sophisticated combination of simpler ideas) to organize their world and their work.
The last third of the book has a strong focus on education. How should we go about educating designers? What is the current status of design education or curriculum? The authors describe it as moving through layers of expertise. They refer to various work like Kolb’s learning cycle and the LEAF project with its real world (a)synchronous IPA (Intentions, Practice and Aspirations) model.
Personally, I really enjoyed reading this book. I discovered various models and ideas I never encountered before. It will definitely contribute to my PhD project, trying to support design expertise in haptics for designers.
One of the main highlights for me was that the book discussed and dissected activities/experiences I personally had during my own design education. I was fascinated to link the notions from the book to my own impressions of going through school projects in Design School. I also appreciated the new perspectives it brought for teaching, tutoring and design curriculum in general.
/Camille
2010-05-16
BrailleBand/BrailleDuino
BrailleBand/BrailleDuino is a project presentin a concept of a Braille reader, using micro-actuators and a shape-memory band or “a rather special sheet that emboss on the fly braille characters”. The blog post details how the first prototype was developed using Arduino and LEDs to build the encoder functionalities. The prototype is interesting, but I’m more intrigued by the details of the mechanism as found on the following picture.
The Scent of Design
SEEDMAGAZINE recently published an article on designing for olfaction, in relation to the Headspace symposium. Five designers, design students and two professional perfumers were commissioned to explore smell a new design medium. The results are very interesting from my perspective, especially how the designers relate a form system to a smell system. One group also used just nouns and adjectives to describe their work and variations in smell.
The article + slideshow can be found at http://seedmagazine.com/slideshow/the_scent_of_design/
Some videos from the Headspace event:
Paper accepted at DRS 2010 Montréal
After some delays in the reviewing process, I finally received notice that my paper titled Sketching in Hardware and Building Interaction Design: tools, toolkits and an attitude for Interaction Designers was accepted at the DRS 2010 conference. The conference will be held in my hometown (Montréal, Canada) at the School of Industrial Design where I completed my BA. I say my paper but I actually I wrote it with my friend and colleauge Frabricio Dore from IDEO. I hope he will be able to attend the event and visit Montréal at the same. The conference runs from July 7th to the 9th.
Research Internship at Microsoft Research Cambridge
Today was my first day in Cambridge in the UK. I`m starting a 3-month long Research Internship with the good folks at Microsoft Research. I’m specifically working in the Computer-Mediated Living group, under the supervision of Richard Banks. I feel very excited and privileged to join their research group and work with the very talended researchers and designers here.
I’ll be in Cambridge much of time until the end of June. If you are in the area (Cambridge/London), let me know and I would love to have a drink or a go for a bike ride.
Tinkering at Tinker.it in London
I am now in London, spending two weeks working with the nice folks at Tinker.it. The main goal of my time in London is to work on their educational toolkit called TinkerKit and see how it can be further developed.
It is really exciting to develop such a kit because it has so many possibilities and variables. It contains both old technology (cheap and proven) and the latest stuff from semi-conductors vendors. A toolkit has to be useful and helpful to people: that is easier said than done. What is useful? The big answer is: it depends! You need to balance flexibility and simplicity. What is useful for a first-time user can be very different for an advanced user. An advanced user might enjoy very basic features if pressed by time or under certain condition/mindset. So it is never black or white. It’s all grey!
Here are some high level characteristics or qualities I found interesting to consider while thinking about the ideal toolkit:
-openness and level of visibility/accessibility (simplification of complex processes but no secrets of what is going on under the hood)
-hackability (possible to use with third-party parts, for unintended uses)
-added value when time is tight (ability to get going quickly and get results fast, within minutes)
-versatility or 5 ways of doing the same thing (don’t expect that users will only use the device as intended)
-human friendly (technology that speaks for itself, ‘transpires’ its status or ways of working)
I’ll let you know as this project evolves.
HCI2009 notes
HCI 2009 | Cambridge
Sept 1-4 2009, Cambridge, UK
http://www.hci2009.org
HCI 2009, Cambridge
SEPTEMBER 1 2009
Physicality 2009 International Workshop
I was very much looking to this event and I enjoyed it a lot. My position paper was titled Sketching and prototyping haptic interfaces: design challenges and insights. The people taking part in the workshop had very interesting projects to show and/or a nice approach to physicality in its broad sense.
The full proceedings of the workshop are available here.
Erik Geelhoed from HP-labs presented interesting work on Halo, a video-conference system that aims to reproduce real-life settings and context for conversation. “It’s all in the details” Mr Geelhoed said. The latency was generally not a big issue (ok up to 2000ms for video). read more…