CPA and Finding the Fish

The Ongoing Moment" - this fabulous book by geoff dyer has taught me a big big needed lesson on slowing down. in his essays, photographs that i probably wouldn't have looked at twice become microworlds of association and storytelling through his imagineering - all you need for your own imagineering is to just have the patience to 'stop by' and look and dive into what's there. achieving that mental state though is the hard bit.

slow food etc, we've been there, but the whole discussion can be taken to a whole new next level when we take it from a (physical) consumption to a (mental) perception context. how could we be in control speeding up and down our own visual perception / contemplation mechanisms? i'd like to train myself a bit better, i'd like to become more fluent in my visual thinking.

constant partial attention: driven by the desire to not miss anything, we feel compelled to always have 'half an eye' out there for something else. this isn't necessarily a bad thing, however some times the scanning and skimming mechanisms do take over, and it takes a conscious effort to change gears, to change direction, to find the way out of this semi-automatic surface scanning in order to dive into the 'depth' of a textual or a visual world.

what are interface mechanisms that can help explore (digital) content in both breadth and depth? current design explorations seem to hint at a better combination and integration of zooming and scrolling such as seen for example in microsoft's seadragon or other maps like browsing paradigms (ok, that was soo 2 years ago, but what's next?) ... however, these mechanisms are somewhat limited as they do not help making decisions at a very top level - people who access maps do usually know where they want to start, and the actual experience is about the seduction of 'falling down' into the richness of content that lies in the depth ahead somewhere.

so how to design for top-level blink of an eye decisions? presented with a 'streaming ton' of information, what are the signals and signposts in (digital) content itself that can help people make decisions which routes to take alongside an x, y and z-axis of an 'information engagement' space? (x,y,z-axis, ie 3d space, is probably not the right metaphor and working model here in the first place; i think that understanding information happens in one at the same time deep and shapeless space... but that's just me and how it feels to me).

what are the rules behind non-digital artefacts that successfully manage to 'turn my attention round' to them? rule nr1 (there is only 1 so far... but i am searching for more): they do give me enough info and resolution on both detail and distance level at a first glance. i start to move them 'around in my head' immediately, and i turn my attention towards them a tiny tick later (most people probably know that feeling when they have turned over a page too quickly and then having to flip it back because there's something that needs to be 'looked' at). this seamless/simultaneous resolution across detail and distance... it doesn't exist in digital at all.

detail design and preserving detail traces in a digital context: i came across this same photo (top of post - a whale being butchered) in the guardian's online- and offline editions. in the online edition, i barely noticed the photo (to be fair i think i had forgotten it before i'd even seen it if that is somehow possible). in the offline edition i couldn't take my eyes off it - the image was too well resolved, i could see the fine fur (do you call it fur??) of the whale, and i could see the men butchering it, standing ON THE WHALE'S BODY in puddles of whale blood, splashing around in their yellow wellies... i can think of no way of reusing the same content (here: the photo) to convey the same meaning in both offline and online - a simple 'enlarge photo' function preempts itself as we are looking to design for instant encounters.

we have accepted different editorial- and production needs for offline/online textual content long ago, but how to appropriate that insight for visual offline/online content?

ps i love the fact that the wikipedia entry on continuous partial attention starts off with a quote about finding the fish (ok, a whale is a mammal.... but still):

"[CPA] usually involves skimming the surface of the incoming data, picking out the relevant details, and moving on to the next stream. You're paying attention, but only partially. That lets you cast a wider net, but it also runs the risk of keeping you from really studying the fish."

Smile by Design

i have been mulling about the question what makes us laugh in design, where we accept obvious failings with a smile and where we just get frustrated.

i've learned quite a lot about our instinct to smile from 2d/character design. full-on posters of grinning disney figures always make us smile back, but how does this instinct work in a functional design context (and by functional i mean, electronically enhanced and interactive)? when have i last smiled back at a piece of grinning technology?

doesn't happen often with (perceived) multi function products. i don't say good morning to my nokia, and i don't accept it's oddities or failures with some form of character recognition and/or sympathy for the poor thing. (ok, if i had an iphone. but no, don't think so either).

could happen rather often with (perceived) single function products. i can imagine an alarm clock that i say good morning to as well as good night, and i would know exactly when to slap it and when to leave it alone in case of a malfunction. (no, i don't have a million tamagotchis at home, and i don't intend to get a tama-farm started soon).

the less perceived functionality, the more room for bonding, dialogue and character design in digital devices?

A few things I liked at the RCA summer show

The Toaster Project "For nine months I've been trying to make an electric toaster, myself, starting from scratch. Travelling to disused mines around Britain, digging up raw materials, processing and forming them into a hand crafted pastiche of a product sold in Argos for the throwaway price of £3.94."

The Cloud Project" [...] a dream to make clouds snow ice cream [...]"

Open_Sailing "This is not a utopian architecture model, we are actually building it."

Christmastrees

it seems i can't keep out of art colleges: in the entrance hall of the hfg karlsruhe, i found an exhibition of christmas trees by students.

Photoshop how's and wow's

How did this happen? Photoshop got rid of its eye icon about two years ago, and I still have trouble navigating the cs suite via tab or dock. Feathers? Flowers? Butterflies? hmmm. Led a design software brainstorming the other day; when trying to describe photoshop as a person, we ended up with the illustration of a mid-30s quite quiet man with a preference to wear suits. Despite being quiet, he wouldn't be shy, rather arrogant, constantly staring at you. I doubt the feather look will make this feel any lighter?

The mad dog, that's not Gromit but the Gimp (a not-too-easy-to-use GNU image manipulation program. But the dog makes up for it).

(through this very nice site I was able to find the photoshop 1.0 icon. thank you)

Working on the wow...

Stop talking you designies!

think - do - think - do. First together, then alone. Fine design process. Sometimes design becomes this endless string of talk - talk - talk - talk - talk instead. Why?
1) Cause you've got the wrong fucking person for step no1. Oh my god, I'm experienced in that. Being so frustrated that the collaborative first 'think' didn't happen, I took my time to jump to some 'do', on my own. Learnings: don't be nice, don't be reluctant to accept that there really isn't a match. Expect nothing, go on on your own.
2) Cause you're addicted to step no1. In that case: Shut UP! I am BORED!

oooh, is it that easy...

The Amazing Papercutter

Somewhere in the dark hallways of Metropolitan University stands this amazing papercutter, waiting for you to shake hands... This is the most tolerant safety catch I've ever seen.