A small summary of my Twitter messages from June - August 2011:
Some time ago I ported the great Harmony drawing app by Mr. Doob to Max/Msp. This Max/Msp Version I used for my media installation "Sound drawings". During the development and testing with the musicians I was not so happy with my workflow. Furthermore I felt that the Max/Msp environment causes some certain useless obstacles for me. Especially for the visual part of my work. Now I have time to check how useful Flash can be as a renderer. The first step was to port the drawing functions to ActionScript. Here is the result:
A small summary of my Twitter messages from March - June 2011:
During the lectures Fashionable Technology I and II from Sabine Seymour, Andrea Suter and me improved the common usage of an umbrella. In the end we developed a concept of a self em-powered device for people’s well being. Our umbrella using the approaches of light therapy and autonomous power resources.
moodumbrella
moodumbrella detail
moodumbrella in use
We created a prototype for interviews and user testings and we made a survey in Linz during a rainy day. The Austrain people were very sceptical and did not want to be asked about their happiness on rainy days. However, we were able to get some very useful feedback. The video below will show you examples of the feedback mentioned.
In the end we wrote paper about the details of light therapy and discussing mobile energy resources for smart devices.
A small summary of my Twitter messages from January - March 2011:
Fangen wir mit den harten Fakten an. Das Buch ist ziemlich großformatig und hat ein schönes stabiles Hardcover. Selten so ein gutes haptisches Erlebnis mit einem Fachbuch empfunden. Auch die verschiedenen Druck- und Papiermethoden in diesem Buch sind sehr gut ausgewählt. Die Projektsammlung ist im hochqualitativen Druck eingebunden, dagegen ist der normale Inhalt des Buches mit einem einfachen Farbdruck eingebunden. Die inhaltliche Struktur des Buches, das Buchdesign, selbst, sowie die zum Buch dazugehörige Website sind perfekt und sehr gut benutzbar umgesetzt. Ein durchaus 100% gelungenes Design und Konzept. Diese Qualität schlägt sich mit einer Preisspanne von 60-75 Euro ziemlich ins Budget nieder. Doch ist jeden Euro wert! Meine Begründungen folgen in einem Kapitel-basiertem Feedback und einem Schlussfazit:
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The last few weeks I did some research on the trendy topic generative art and design. I was very enthusiastically for reading the Form + Code book from Casey Reas, Chandler McWilliams, and the agency LUST.
The content of this book is very well structured. The first chapters introduces programming and the special characteristics of computers in design and art very well. I really appreciate it, that they chose the more concept introduction, then a technical focus. For this reason the reader gets a very good picture why the computer and programming could be helpful for creating new experiences. The transition from the introduction into the toolbox of creative coding is perfectly done. They explained the concepts of Repeat, Transform, Parameterize, Visualize, Simulate pretty good. Especially, the chosen examples of artworks for the various toolboxes are very appropriate. Therefore this book is a very useful resource for research in a scientific environment. The positive argument is also the little weakness of this book. In a theoretical terms everything is fine. The reader gets a very good introduction in this new topic. In practical terms the reader is very often alone with the code examples. Only two or four pages are too less for inexperienced programmers and designers. They are not going to understand and even learn so much from these code examples. The book delivers so much good content, but on the practical site if failed for me. For German-speaking and French-speaking people it is not worse, because the book Generative Gestaltung (review comes soon) is the perfect complement for this book. The book Generative Gestaltung has got some minor weakness on theoretical aspects, but the practical part and the learning from code is perfectly done!
However, this book belongs to every book collection of visual programmers, new media artists and designers. It is definitely the money worth! I enjoyed the reading very much.
Reminder for Flashers:
This books reminds me strongly on the creative coding beginnings, like it was with Flash 4, 5 and 6. Flashers, please don't forget your roots! Have also a look on the the old Flash Math Creativity Books (edition 2). Further good code examples are available on Liquid Journey. Joshua Davis and Branden Hall created a very good Flash library for generative design. Check out their Hype Framework!
Last semester I joined the Journal Club lecture at our University. I continued my research in gesture based interaction for screen-based environments. This little paper research was based on the question how the screen size influences the gesture design. In the end I created a short presentation about important conferences for gesture design, and summarized the results of 4 papers. Thanks to Martin Kaltenbrunner for his useful advices!
Furthermore, I found a bunch of very interesting papers for designing gestures in screen-based environments. I want to share these papers with you. You are welcome to add comments about the papers or recommend other nice projects! (use the tooltip for only reading the titles of the papers)
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For several months I worked on technical paper about designing gestures for screen-based environments. Finally, it is finished and you can read it. Here is the abstract:
This paper analyses gesture design for pointing devices in screen-based environments. By exploring design patterns the analysis investigated the gesture design of five different end-user products: Desktop operating systems, mobile operating systems, 3rd Party software, small software products, and common hardware products. The beginning of the paper defines what a gesture is, and the various kinds of gestures. Afterwards the analysis merges the gesture design results with the basic commands for pointing devices. This approach points out which gestures are often used, and in which context they are used. The results give interaction designers and software engineers a guide for implementing gestures in their own products. Furthermore, the paper proposes solutions for gesture documentation, and a conceptual framework for complicated gestures. The last section takes an industrial design perspective on pointing devices as an input channel. It discusses the evolution of interface design from a hardware driven to a software driven approach.
Please note:
Unfortunately, I got sick on a long-term disease. Therefore it took me so long for writing this paper and that is also the reason why the data of the analysis is from January of 2010. However, in my opinion the results of my analysis are still valid. For more up-to-date data, please check the Touch Gesture Reference from LukeW.
Acknowledgement:
I am very happy about the support from my teachers, friends, and fellow students. Big thanks to Mahir M. Yavuz and Mathias Stäbler for the content feedback. Vesela Mihaylova for a great Adobe Illustrator and graphic design support. Tim Devine for transforming over 30 pages of my bad english in a readable form, and marking some unclear points of my paper. Dudes, thank you so much!
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The book Designing Interaction from Bill Moggridge was already published in 2006. Even it is quite old for a technology book the content is still valid. The first six chapters give a perfect history background of human-computer interaction. The evolution of input devices and the computer itself is very good explained. Also the original comments from the designers and engineers are very interesting to read. In the end the reader gets a very good introduction how and why the computer evolved as it is today. Even the described history is a strongly based on the authors view. The chapters Adopting Technology and Multisensory and Multimedia gives a nice introduction into tangible interaction. It also helps beginners to understand how to leave the desktop metaphor. The whole book describes very easily how product designer, industrial designer, psychologist and engineers working together for developing the new devices. The texts about their development and thinking processes gives a very good insight. The last chapters about The Internet, Futures and Alternatives Nows, and People and Prototypes are nice to read, but with some comments I can't agree. For this reason, the aspects of Emotional Design and Prototyping are little bit weak in my opinion. However, reading the first six chapters is very useful for human-computer interaction beginners. It makes their knowledge around the history of Interaction Design more stable. The last chapters are nice to read, but not very obligatory. Unfortunately, the multimedia CD of the book I never really checked. So I can't say if it is good or not. For professional interaction designer is almost nothing new in this book, so I can't recommend it for them.