The Interaction Design Programme

Up-and-Coming: OPEN Lectures

alie — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 09:13:46 +0000

There are many exciting talks coming up over the remainder of the year. Please refer to the events listing on the CIID website.

OPEN Lecture: Mette Ramsgard Thomsen

alie — Mon, 10 May 2010 16:00:21 +0000

Mette Ramsgard Thomsen is an architect working with interactive technologies. Her research centres on the design of spaces that are defined by physical as well as digital dimensions. Through a focus on intelligent programming and ideas of emergence she explores how computational logics can lead to new spatial concepts.

Mette is Head of CITA - an innovative research environment exploring the emergent intersections between architecture and digital technologies. Identifying core research questions into how space and technology can be probed, CITA seeks to investigate how the current forming of a digital culture impacts on architectural thinking and practice.

Biography

where: The Auditorium, Stranboulevarden 47, Østerbro 2100
when: 5-6pm. Monday, May 5th, 2010

If you can’t find the room, please call Alie 20905005

OPEN Lecture: Nicholas Wakeham

alie — Wed, 05 May 2010 16:00:16 +0000

The Art of Doing - A reflective investigation regarding group dynamics and how to get the project done.

Nicholas Wakeham (b.1975) is a creative producer, screenwriter and filmmaker. He has worked within the creative field for 13 years on both a national and international level. In his lecture The Art of Doing, Nicholas Wakeham shares his thoughts and ideas concerning project management, creating a team, group dynamics and how to work effectively but at the same time seeing the true process.

Educated at Malmö University, Stockholm Filmschool and Broby Grafiska. Nicholas Wakeham is currently a creative producer at www.varelsen.com i Malmö, Sweden.

where: (Room TBC), Stranboulevarden 47, Østerbro 2100
when: 5-6pm. Weds May 5th, 2010

If you can’t find the room, please call Alie 20905005

OPEN Lecture: John Holager

alie — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:00:43 +0000

Service Design Prototyping

live|work is a unique multi-disciplinary team of designers, technologists, social anthropologists, marketeers, management consultants, operations professionals and entrepreneurs who bring an experienced, pragmatic, rigorous and passionate approach to the development of new breakthrough service propositions for clients.

Senior Service Designer, John Holager will present some of his current thinking on the discipline and this lecture will be more of a colloborative discussion rather than a monologue.

Biography

where: The Auditorium, Stranboulevarden 47, Østerbro 2100
when: 5-6pm. Weds March 17th, 2010

If you can’t find the room, please call Alie 20905005

The Discreet Window

alie — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:22:35 +0000

The Discreet Window is a blind that provides visual feedback for a home-office environment about the users’ work activity. As an ambient display, The Discreet Window is a membrane that communicates the work intensity to both the home-office space and the outside. The more the user works, the less light is coming inside the room. Thus, the less visual contact there is between both sides of the window.

The user operates the blind using the small spheres attached to the control cord as a switch. By matching the colored sphere on the left side with the ones on the right side, the user swaps between the four modes: open, half-open, closed and graph. Selection of the graph mode displays information gathered from the computer about the time spent on work-related activity.

The home-office environment requires discipline to keep consistency in performance. Therefore, there is a need of self-monitoring since the individual is his own reference point in this working space.

Most of the current tools of self-monitoring provide intrusive alerts, bringing the risk of disturbing the optimal work pattern of the individual. Instead, the same information has more attractiveness and influence to the user when presented to him on demand as a summary over time.

The concept aims to offer a self-improvement tool which provides an overview of working routines in a non-intrusive manner.

Playing on words, The Discreet Window displays discreet data in a discrete manner, referring to the nature of the data and the subtlety in the way that is displayed. Moreover, the name gives a wink to Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Rear Window, “La Ventana Indiscreta” in Spanish, which then literally translates as The Indiscreet Window.

The Discreet Window was designed by Gizem Boyacioglu & Ishac Bertran; two students from Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID).

Posted by Duckflash on: http://vectroave.com

Sidetrack on Central Station

alie — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:00:25 +0000

The ‘Sidetrack’ table peripherally records you as you work in the home, tracing a pattern as you move from space to space. Markers plot this pattern as the table spins, oscillating in time with your movement between rooms. Sensors are placed in the areas you want to observe, for example the desk, or the kitchen. By placing tags on the table, you purposefully work towards set tasks, with the patterns reflecting the journey towards these objectives. In this way, giving value to the intangible effort and pockets of time you devote whilst working from home.

The ‘Sidetrack’ concept arose from the research around professionals, who completely engaged in their work, found it difficult to separate home life from work. In most cases, they were often stationary in front of their desk with little interaction with other areas around the home. They did not generally avoid their work, so the notion of being ’sidetracked’ was a healthy way to alternate their somewhat static day.

The table mechanics were built with the motors from an old printer and turntable combined with custom components to sustain the operation of the arm. The movement of the arm itself is defined by the presence sensors placed around the home, recording where you are, whilst you work. Each day is then recorded on a paper disc for you to reflect and decipher your working pattern, creating a tangible culmination of your working day.

A Tangible User Interface project from Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. In collaboration with Martina Pagura, Jacek Barcikowski + Jennifer Kay. Photos by Jacek Barcikowski

Original post here: http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/a>

The ‘Ironic Radio’ is an Example on How to ‘Cut on Cost’ of Electronic Items

alie — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:07:03 +0000

We have been using cool gadgets very often and it would not be wrong to say that we are, in more than one way, dependent on these new gadgets. Be it a computer, laptop, mobile phone, PS3, xbox 360, music system or household items like washing machine, television or refrigerators. You need a proof… just have a look at your expenditure budget and mark the heavy outflows. I bet most of them, if not all are consumer electronic items. The expenditure on such keeps rising with time and worse, you need to upgrade them sooner than their potential life due to changes in technology. While we cannot advise on how to save on the purchase but there is some hope seen in how to dispose, or rather put the otherwise discarded items to better use. For example, the iron radio is a perfect example to use a outdated iron for another use, that is a Radio, saving on the latter’s material costs.

Known as the ‘ironic radio’, it is the outcome of one of the projects undertaken at the Interaction Design Programme where the guys turned a disposed IRON into a RADIO. Not a matter of irony but praise since the guys saved on the extra material that would have been utilized for the radio by re-using discarded iron’s parts. One more step towards going green, Right!

The parts and components of the iron now serve you the functions of a radio. The iron’s base (obviously, not hot at all now) is used for selecting the desired station. Plus the knob and dial let you adjust the volume and switch between AM/FM.

To convert an iron into a radio, the guys disintegrated the useful parts of the iron and sandwiched the Arduino circuits inside the re-assembled parts, along with a speaker, sensors and LEDs under the metal plate. Plus more scientific stuff is done to make it workable in the form of wiring, etc.

I agree that it is not that appealing or maybe practical, since not everybody is equipped with technical skills required for it, but one can always hire the talent available locally, to get the job done. Remember it is just an IDEA which makes things happen. One cannot rule out on this!

Posted by Kapil on http://www.walyou.com/

Scriba Writing App Brings Back the ‘Lost Personal Touch’ in Writing

alie — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:11:42 +0000

Writing letter is an art, we were often told in the childhood and among other things, care, precision and planning are some of the characteristics quintessential for coming up with a good piece of letter. No doubt it is still an art, but things have changed considerably. One can correlate it directly to the use of and dependence on Personal Computers and all of sudden, you don’t need the to worry about those essentials of good writing anymore. You can use the Backspace/Delete key to handle an error, thus forget about planning and precision, although if you observe them, time is reduced and quality is improved. But there is something more we had in mind when I said considerably… now you may not be writing a letter anymore, if you go for downloaded stuff and prefer just editing your initials and credentials… to create a letter/CV on the Go. That’s what we do, No? At least, me.

Quite agreeably, amidst all such convenience and ease of using PC for writing letters, Bio-data, CV, etc we lost the very ‘personal touch’ from the them. For example the piece of writing of mine that you are reading right now, would have had an altogether different experience for you had this was written by me in my handwriting. Ok, enough lamenting about it, lets see what we got and why we’re going through all this. Hence, for my friends, who missed the peculiarities of handwriting, there is hope in an application called as Scriba created by Ishac Bertran, Laura Boffi and Pedro Nakazato, which aims at restoring the lost personal touch of human handwriting to whatever is keyed into it.

Scriba is simply an application that will bring back the the nuances of handwriting back, in some rather predefined formats. It captures as you hit the keyboard and will present the text in handwriting formats predefined into it – and maybe an add-on may come which will allow you to define your handwriting style in the Scriba, very much possible, I say.

Various customizations are also involved, call them ‘feature’ candies. Like it will analyze the light and sound quality/quantum to have a understanding your environment, for whether it is good or unfriendly – only from writing point of view – in case of latter, your writing will get irregular and bend accordingly on the screen. Plus it may not correct the errors occurred while writing to retain what we called ‘personal touch’ – hope for options to customize some of the features.

So next time you write a love letter or such stuff to your close one, try impressing with Scriba – we presume your writing is capable of such, safely. Plus an old adage, one can judge the person through his writing.. looks like it is gonna get popular again, thanks to Scriba.

Posted by Kapil on http://www.walyou.com/blog/2010/03/13/scriba-writing-app/

Interaction Springtime on denmark.dk

alie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:15:55 +0000

In a very short time Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design has succeeded in creating a vibrant and inspiring environment and raised the bar for design education and research in Denmark. Their international faculty, their unique combination of education, research and consulting and the institute’s outreach have made CIID an essential part of the Danish design environment.

One of their really great offerings to the design environment outside the institute is their open lecture programme. Each year CIID invite prominent people from their extensive international network to come to Copenhagen and teach at their courses – and give open lectures while they are here anyway. The list of previous and upcoming speakers is long (you will find my name on it twice…) and they just added the next coming three lectures this spring: Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen, Nicholas Wakeham and John Holager. While I only know Mette from the distance through her work at CITA, I have had the pleasure of working with both Nicholas and John previously.

A couple of years ago my company Move worked with Live|Work on a service design project for the pension company PFA. John is working as a senior service designer with Live|Work and during the project we did a joined workshop at their offices in Oslo. On a warm sunny day in June we had a great time discussing and producing experience prototypes for PFA’s clients to test and give feedback on the new service. John is still with Live|Work and on March 17 he will present some of his current thinking on the discipline of service design.

Posted by Jesper Pagh - read his full article here: http://blogs.denmark.dk/

Tech-Enabled Dogs Can Bring Video Messages to Disaster

alie — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:13:40 +0000

Type It In
The informal messaging system mockup was created by the Interaction Design Programme, a collaborative initiative between the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID) and The Danish Design School (DKDS). It features a touchpad to allow people to type directly on a tech-enabled dog coat.

Talk to It
The uniform stores the time and place of each entry while prerecorded video messages can be set to start automatically when the dog reaches its geolocated destination, such as a refugee camp.

Go Forth, Little Doggie
These pooches would serve as furry couriers and provide invaluable assistance after disaster strikes — what’s your take on this concept item?

Posted on: http://www.petsugar.com