Dontclick.it, an interesting interface design experiment by Alex Frank, included this amusing idea, the Mousewrap, to ‘train’ users not to click any more “through physical pain”. It did make me think: is the use of anti-sit spikes on window sills, ledges, and so on, or […]
Yearly archives of “2008”
links for 2008-07-29
Infrastructure and Modernity: Paul N Edwards [PDF] “…infrastructures simultaneously shape and are shaped by – in other words, co-construct – the condition of modernity… To be modern is to live within and by means of infrastructures, and therefore to inhabit, uneasily, the intersection of these […]
My PhD
Dan Lockton: Design with Intent: A design pattern toolkit for environmental & social behaviour change 2007-13, Brunel Design Research Centre, Brunel University, London Supervisors: Professor David Harrison, Brunel University and Professor Neville Stanton, University of Southampton. Download the thesis (PDF, 14MB) Abstract: This thesis describes […]
Pretty Cuil Privacy
New search engine Cuil has an interesting privacy policy (those links might not work right now due to the load). They’re apparently not going to track individual users’ searches at all, which, in comparison to Google’s behaviour, is quite a difference. As TechCrunch puts it: […]
links for 2008-07-04
RepRap – The Guardian “[Adrian Bowyer] doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in court trying to prevent people from doing with the machine the one thing it was designed to do. “You are brought to the point where you have to say […]
links for 2008-07-05
BBC NEWS | Business | Pringles ‘are not potato crisps’ “The manufacturer had insisted that their best-selling product was not similar to potato crisps, because of their…’regular shape’ which ‘is not found in nature’.” Auric Goldfingeresque phrasing! (tags: Goldfinger JamesBond Pringles Procter&Gamble tax)
Motel 6cc
The plastic* of this built-in Dove shower cream bottle I encountered in a Finnish hotel recently was significantly stiffer than the consumer retail version. The idea is that you press the side of the bottle where indicated to dispense some cream, but it didn’t deform […]
links for 2008-07-08
SABRE – Forums – The naffest traffic calming scheme in the country? The upside-down signs are inexcusable but the painted ‘chicanes’ are an interesting feature – much like ‘fake’ (paint-only) speed humps. (tags: spatial trafficcalming roads design driving painted chicanes signage)
Finestrino Bloccato
Italian railway operator Trenitalia has a simple way of locking the windows shut in some of its older carriages with (retro-fitted?) air-conditioning. This was on a train from Florence to Pisa; the sticker probably cost more than the screw. I like that. It also allows […]
So long, and thanks for all the rubbish
It cost nothing to put this (trilingual) thank-you message on this litter bin at Helsinki Airport. But does this kind of message – a very simple injunctive norm – have more effect on user behaviour than the absence of a message? To what extent does […]
links for 2008-07-15
Salon.com Technology | Ask the pilot “Are guards not answerable to those they’re supposedly protecting, and who are paying their salaries? How about a sign that cuts to the chase: “Don’t question us, just do as you’re told.”” (tags: airline airports control bureaucracy security ridiculous […]
Hard to handle
British Rail’s drop-the-window- then-stick-your-hand-outside- to-use-the-handle doors puzzled over by Don Norman in The Design of Everyday Things are still very much around, though often refurbished and repainted as with this delightful/vile pink First Great Western-liveried example. I’m assuming that this design was intended to introduce […]