decipherExploring the map and the territory; seeing the forest and the trees; research, strategy and design.Macs are really Spatial- August 28, 2007 I've long assumed that the Macintosh conceptual design model is spatial while Windows is conceived by its designers as a tool. Well thanks to Peter, here's evidence I'm right. This may seem like a small thing, but I believe it goes a long way to explaining why Mac users are so, um, zealous in their allegiance. The way it feels to be "in" the Mac "world" is personal in a way that Windows just isn't. Peter's posting of the original Mac manual also reminded me of how the first Macs felt like...http://www.decipher.org/archive/2007/08/macs_are_really.html Model of Context for Mobile Interaction- August 22, 2007 A while back I was thinking about the overlapping layers of context within which mobile interactions take place (more on the word "mobile" in another post). I quickly sketched out a visual model to help me (and other designers working on situated experiences) keep these various layers in mind. Here's the resulting paper (200k pdf), which my collaborator, Jared, will be presenting later this year at Mobile HCI in Singapore. And, here's the abstract: Designers of mobile applications have long..http://www.decipher.org/archive/2007/08/model_of_contex.html Matt Webb: Products are People Too- August 9, 2007 Matt's closing keynote at reboot, Products Are People Too is easily my favorite idea bomb of the past 5 years. See also: Clifford Nass and, more disturbingly, this McLuhan quote: ...man in the normal use of technology...is perpetually modified by it and in turn finds ever new ways of modifying his technology. Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. The machine world reciprocates man's...http://www.decipher.org/archive/2007/08/matt_webb_produ.html The Myth of the Fold- August 9, 2007 This will surely come in handy: Blasting the Myth of the Fold.http://www.decipher.org/archive/2007/08/the_myth_of_the.html |