User Designer

Very neat – A Periodic Table of Visualisation Methods from Visual-Literacy.org. Hover your mouse over any of the entries and up pops the related visualisation. Excellent, the 2nd Irish Human Computer Interaction Conference is going to be on on the 19th and 20th of September in University College Cork, Ireland. Submission date is June 13th, [...]

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Sensisphere is a multitouch hemispherical display that lets you drag, move, push and pull digitial things with your hands. Pop over to YouTube and see it in action. Scientists have created an entire synthetic genome. Another important step towards making biological nanobot “machines”, which would be extremely useful as smart malleable materials. Very very blog [...]

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Alan Kay, all round Human Computer Interaction (and much more) thinker, talks at TED about how good programming can sharpen our picture. His unique software lets children learn by doing, but also learn by computing and creating lessons themselves. Learn about traffic waves. You’ll never be bored sitting in traffic again. (found at Population of [...]

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More sketching Phun. Another very pretty sketching “game” like those I mentioned in Sketch & Draw = Create & Design Interactive “Things” and Link Bucket: Crayon Physics, Optical Illusions, Design Is & Rocky Origins. (thanks Ross) Design lovely – 16 of the Most Extreme & Modern Beds You’ll Ever See. Especially relevant to User Designer [...]

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Visit WhiteVoid for a unique website navigation structure. Kind of a fusion between 3D and Zoomable User Interfaces. We can simulate you. Out Of The Blue is an engaging article about whether a supercomputer can be used to simulate a biologically accurate brain. Sounds like they’re getting real results. Nanoscale pretty. We can model you [...]

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Florian Kräutli has designed and created malleable magnetic curtains that retain their shape. Clunky elegance. Embodied Cognition “is a growing research program in cognitive science that emphasizes the formative role the environment plays in the development of cognitive processes.” Learn more about this increasingly important area from this website. (via MindHacks) Gimme gimme one of [...]

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Don’t stress a driver by showing them too much visual information, but how do you know when a driver is getting stressed? Use EEGs to measure brain activity and have the visual displays automatically adapting. Yep, more Augmented Cognition with Brain-Computer Interfaces. Here’s the New Scientist article about the research. Are you a hacker (maker) [...]

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I’m curled up with a bug and head cold so today I’m posting a Link Bucket instead of the normal long Tuesday post. Enjoy. Looks Tasty – see the world with your tongue. For the last few years I’ve been keeping my eye on the emerging transdisciplinary field of Augmented Cognition. On the AugCog website [...]

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VirtuSphere lets you physically run and walk in any direction to move around virtual 3D worlds! Watch this video of it in action. Eric Drexler’s forward thinking book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology is free online. The updated version Engines of Creation 2.0 is also available for free, but to download it [...]

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Lovely overview about The History Of Visual Communication. A bunch of interviews with User Experience pioneers. Can you touch it? Workshop on designing multi-touch interaction techniques for displays (thanks Aaron). Invent a new interaction technique for the likes of Microsoft’s Surface and the DiamondTouch. Can you sing it? World’s First HCI Rap Chill out and [...]

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Tune your ears (listen) to Donald Norman, deep thinker about the implications of cognitive psychology for usability / HCI / design, getting interviewed by Peter Merholz. (found at putting people first) Flybot – read about Harvard University’s microrobotic fly. Visit Prof. Robert Wood’s Harvard Microrobotics Lab website. (thanks to Baz for the suggestion) 5 Alternative [...]

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Would you like one of these futuristic disappearing car doors? Here’s an online video of it in action. At Ellyssa Kroski’s InfoTangle read about the leading forms of information design and navigation structures for the web. Non-technical and clearly written – perfect. Here’s lookin at you, human. Golan Levin and co’s art piece Opto-isolator is [...]

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Want a seat that’ll be there when you need it? Watch this neat design concept video of an interactive seat which follows you around! (via core77) Have a look at Yahoo’s Design Innovation Team project website for some interesting visualisations and interactive concepts. we make money not art writes about creating art with living materials. [...]

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Dear Santa can I have a Dattoo (by frog design) and a Timeflex (from solovyovdesign). More at Top 10 technology wonders that don’t exist yet A clever kinda crowdsourcing business idea: Low Cost Usability Testing Scientists have discovered a second light-sensing system in the human eye that tells your body whether its day or night. [...]

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Can you tell how much cuter one design, product or toy is than another design, product or toy? How do you know its cuter? Is it how it works? How it feels? How it moves? How it looks? Interesting workshop on Designing Cute Interactive Media at the upcoming Design of Interactive Systems 2008. Test how [...]

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