How do people experience interactive installations, and what can designers learn from this?

It’s been ten years since I completed research around this question. Now I feel it is time to talk about it again. Why? Because we are already designing for new interface paradigms (sound, gesture, conversation) and interactions beyond the screen. Experience designers will be hired to design in mixed realities with multiple interfaces, in rooms, buildings or outdoors. Our aspirations may also shift, from today’s service experiences helping users complete a list of tasks to creating experiences that facilitate emotional break-throughs, mindfulness and creativity.

In my research, I investigated how people experienced interactive in an experimental space called Beta Space…

It’s a social imperative. And when done correctly, a source of tremendous added value.

Talking in a can connected by a string to another can.

What is Remote Work?

Remote or distributed work is any situation in which one or more employees aren’t sitting in physical proximity to other members of their team. This can take a lot of forms: organizations with Work From Home (WFH) policies, teams working on different floors or in distributed offices, and teams with members who work full-time from a cafe, co-working space, home office, or somewhere else. Even a team member who leaves the office to do field research is temporarily remote.

If your organization fits any of these descriptions, then congratulations…

The other week, I was speaking to someone about the recent Marina Abramović’ The Life: in Mixed Reality exhibition that was hosted at the Serpentine Gallery in London and curated and produced by Tin Drum (https://www.tindrum.io/).

This was to be groundbreaking immersive experience because the artist was working with Mixed Reality (XR) digital technology in the Magic Leap One headsets.

(Mixed reality (MR), sometimes referred to as hybrid reality, is the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualizations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time.) Wikipedia

I prefer to unbundle the…

Twenty years ago, I was working in Reading on a work placement at Yell.com. It was my first proper design job, sandwiched between some intense years at Brunel University.

Every day I would churn out another website, to a crappy brief written by a sales consultant who was used to selling paper ads. We regularly flipped between laughing and crying when the logo provided to us was badly photocopied and screwed up. Or when the ‘client’ asked for the webpage to be about 4cm x 6cm on his screen. I had no idea what screen he had.

But I learned…

“And he sexually abused me for seven years.”

Wade Robson talks directly to camera and flatly describes his sexual abuse by Michael Jackson.

Despite little that was new in Dan Reed’s ‘Leaving Neverland’ documentary, first aired at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and subsequently on television across the world, it was still a shocking piece of filmmaking. I suspect we weren’t alone when as a family we sat in silence for more than a moment as the programme ended. We’d been left speechless by the revelations and our collective failure to see what was right in front of us. And…

This last Christmas morning, I rediscovered the childlike freedom of whooping out loud when opening a gift, as I tore the paper off of my very own copy of ‘Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible’. Thumbing through (and yes, smelling!) the pages, I paused at the familiar 10 principles of good design.

With my hands on the cover, gently running my fingers over the pattern of the High-Build Spot-UV dots (aka small clear bumps), a thought ran through my mind which I wanted to explore.

The very book, all about the master of stripping away the non-essentials, with his…

I think I have one of those faces, an approachability that makes people feel “this guy looks harmless enough; let’s ask him.” I avoid giving directions (I get lost a lot), but I’m told I give good career advice. I get approached by a lot of young and aspiring designers struggling to navigate the early phases of their careers.

I’m a lucky guy. I’ve led experience design on very large products and services at several well-known technology companies. …

The commercial opens on the sweeping vista of the Arizona desert. The camera swoops up a tall rock formation to reveal a Native American standing proud. He unwraps the blanket around his neck and holds it aloft like wings.

He jumps.

He glides and swoops through the air darting through the rock formations flying like superman.

CUT TO:

Two boys sitting under a tree holding a portable screen, they are watching the shaman fly through the air.

BOY ONE:

That’s cool, but couldn’t it be an F-111?

The other boy starts pressing buttons with glee.

SUPER:

Kodak. The future of…