Positive Technology Journal

Via Usability News 

Event Date: 10 October 2006 to 10 October 2006
Behaviour & Information Technology 25th Anniversary Conference

An essential one-day conference with pre-event workshop examining 25 years of usable technology design and current concerns and challenges for usability experts worldwide

10th October 2006, The Grange City Hotel, London

This conference will provide a unique insight into the state of the art of usability design and will review the progress that has been made over the past 25 years in designing usable technology. It will highlight lessons for designers of today’s technology including web sites, games, mobile phones, kiosks, iTV and hand-held devices.

For more information visit www.tandfevents.com/bit 

Via Usability News 

Event Date: 11 September 2006 to 11 September 2006
Patrick Jordan will describe a framework for describing people holistically called 'The Four Pleasures'.
Date: Monday 11th September
Time: 6.30 for 6.45
Venue: Microsoft Research, Cambridge
Cost: The event is FREE and you do not need to be a UK UPA member to attend
Registration: Please email cambridge.usability@gmail.com to reserve a place.

Location map and directions: www.research.microsoft.com/aboutmsr/visitmsr/cambridge

An overview:
Products and services should bring pleasure to those who use them and profit to those who create them. To do this effectively they must connect with the consumer in a compelling manner. Effective innovation means designing products that meet both our practical and emotional needs. It speaks to our personalities and values — our hopes, fears, dreams and aspirations. If we are to connect fully with consumers then we have to fully understand them. Having a deep and thorough understanding of people is the key to designing the products and services that people will want to buy and that they will find useful and enjoyable.

This presentation outlines a framework for understanding people holistically. It is called ‘The Four Pleasures’.

This framework has been applied to the design and marketing of many of the world’s most successful products and services across all market types and sectors. It is used by many of the world’s leading brands including: Microsoft, Starbucks, Ford, Nokia, Gillette and Proctor and Gamble.

The ‘four pleasures’ divides human experience and motivation into the following four areas.

Physio-Pleasure: This is to do with the body - pleasures derived from the senses. In the context of products physio-pleasure would cover, for example, tactile and olfactory properties as well as ergonomic issues.
Socio-Pleasure: This is the enjoyment derived from relationships with others. Products and services may help to enhance or facilitate particular social situations and may confer social or cultural status on the user.
Psycho-Pleasure: This type of pleasure refers to people’s cognitive and emotional reactions, including their reactions to the products and services that they use.
Ideo-Pleasure: This concerns people’s values. It is important that the values embodied in products and services are consistent with the values of those for whom they have been designed.

The presentation will be illustrated with many examples of products and services that have been designed using this framework. These have proved to be extremely successful commercially as well as a huge hit with users. By understanding people holistically and designing to meet their needs we can create products and services which will have a significant and positive affect on both individuals and society as a whole. They will be a joy to use and will bring success to those who manufacture and supply them.

Via Nastypixel

SmartRetina is a system that allows to capture the user’s hand gestures and recognize them as computer actions. 

 

This video shows how SmartRetina can be used as a navigating tool combined with Google earth, presenting a fast navigation from Greece to Rome.

[blogged by Nicolas on pasta and vinegar]

insectopia is a new kind of cell phone game where the real world spills into the game world. Players roam the cityscape searching for and catching a multitude of different insects. Each insects in the game world is generated by using the available bluetooth devices available in the player's vicinity. By catching insects and trading them with other players, players build their own collection bigger and better. The current status of the game is displayed on various highscore lists both in the phones and online. See also geoquiz, a location-based mobile game in which players create and answer questions related to their current geographic position (kept track of through the GSM network).

New Scientist has an interview with sociologist and MIT professor Sherry Turkle about how "always-on" communication devices - i.e. instant messaging, Wi-Fi and cellphones - are changing the way people relate to each other.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

For some people, things move from "I have a feeling, I want to call a friend" to "I want to feel something, I need to make a call". In either case, what is not being cultivated is the ability to be alone and to manage and contain one's emotions. When technology brings us to the point where we're used to sharing our thoughts and feelings instantaneously, it can lead to a new dependence, sometimes to the extent that we need others in order to feel our feelings in the first place.

Our new intimacies with our machines create a world where it makes sense to speak of a new state of the self. When someone says "I am on my cell", "online", "on instant messaging" or "on the web", these phrases suggest a new placement of the subject, a subject wired into social existence through technology, a tethered self. I think of tethering as the way we connect to always-on communication devices and to the people and things we reach through them.

 

Continue to read the full interview