She filled it with “anthropological advice” about how to approach the world like a fieldwork project.
"I hope you can achieve a balance of online and offline encounters with the people, spaces and practices around you. I hope you can be fully engaged with local issues and the ways in which global ones are manifested around you. And I hope you experience moments of profound dislocation and discomfort – when things aren’t familiar – because I firmly believe it is in those moments that we learn the most about ourselves and what we truly value."
http://www.experientia.com/blog/genevieve-bells-anthropological-advice-at-berkeley-commencement/
Some food for thought:
LIBRARY TO GO: Amazon's Kindle E-Reader
AMAZON.COM
More and more people are gazing at electronic-book readers—lightweight slates about the size of a thin paperback that can store up to 200 downloaded books. Although prior generations fizzled, Sony’s Reader, introduced in 2006, and Amazon’s Kindle, which debuted last year, are both selling well. The key difference is the screen.
Interactive: View the insides of the Kindle E-Reader
Researchers had wrestled with e-book readers for decades, but most sported power-thirsty, backlit LCD screens that glared in low light or were drowned out by bright sunlight. The breakthrough this time is a screen made with “electronic paper” from E Ink Corporation in Cambridge, Mass. Sony, Amazon and other makers worldwide are using the material.
E-paper displays are reflective: ambient light bounces off them, so they look and read like ordinary paper. The screens are very energy efficient, too. “The only power used is when you turn a page,” says Isaac Yang, manager of software product development at Sony in San Jose, Calif. No current is needed to sustain the characters on a page once it has been called up. Yang says about 7,500 pages can be turned on a single battery charge. Downloading books consumes additional power.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=library-to-go&sc=rssRecently, in my daily data farming, I ran across several sources mentioning the notion of “product ecology”. It generally refers to how (interaction) design broaden its focus from systems targeted on one person to more socially or culturally situated products. Among the sources about this, Jodi Forlizzi’s work struck me as very relevant.
In this article in the International Journal of Design, she focuses on the interesting notion of “product ecology” and how it can be employed as a theoretical design framework:
“In the Product Ecology, the product is the central unit of analysis. (…) The functional, aesthetic, symbolic, emotional and social dimensions of a product, combined with other units of analysis, or factors, in the ecology, help to describe how people make social relationships with products. These include the product; the surrounding products and other systems of products; the people who use it, and their attitudes, disposition, roles, and relationships; the physical structure, norms and routines of the place the product is used; and the social and cultural contexts of the people who use the product and possibly even the people who make the product. “
(image taken from Forlizzi’s paper)
But how does that help designers? Forlizzi highlights few key ideas about the assumptions of the Product Ecology framework[I recommend reading the whole paper here]:
So, to some extent, the “product ecology” can be employed to study variety of products/services. An interesting example of such use can be found in this article (from CSCW 2006) about how robotic products become social products. The paper basically shows how different people within a houselhold formed different social relationships with Roomba vacuum (and not with the more classic vacuum). The classic vacuum, in this ethnographic study, affected significant change in the families, while the stick vacuum did not: people cleaned more often, more members of the family participated and there were more prone to make social attribution to the roomba. The author then draws some design implications concerning the importance of social attribution: “when simple social attributes are part of the design of robotic products and systems, people may adopt them more readily and find them less stigmatizing“.“First, each product has its own ecology, resulting in subjective and individual experience in using the same product.
(…)
Second, the factors in the Product Ecology are dynamic, and interconnected in several ways.
(…)
Third, changes in product use cause changes in other factors of the Product Ecology.(…) When a product no longer plays a key role, it is marked by events such as people changing roles, or going in and out of the ecology;
(…)
Fourth, the Product Ecology can be delimited by a group of people in close proximity, or a group that is spread out over a great distance.
(…)
Factors in the Product Ecology can be examined in isolation or in combination at the level of a single product, to understand what particular product features will inspire social use, or at the system level, to understand how a particular product will have an impact on a system of products retained for similar functional, aesthetic, symbolic, social and emotional factors. Similarly, behavior of individuals or groups using products can be studied.“
http://liftlab.com/think/nova/2008/05/26/product-ecology-as-a-design-framework/
Why blog this?
Particularly interested in the concepts discussed in the Product Ecology design framework. May have help in understanding the direction and assistance needed to aid in the application for the information ecology as set out by Nardi.
Interesting and useful piece on the uptake now of the Amazon Kindle and how there is still
uncertainty over e-books and readers and if they will ever become truly ubiquitous.
Finally
- Why blogging is good for you
