Alexander Freitas of the Infinity Squared blog notes the difficulties with frustrating tear-strips on packaging, and, comparing an easier-to-open pack from one manufacturer with a difficult tearstrip from another, suggests (somewhat along the lines of ‘Forcing functions designed to increase product consumption‘), that the company’s […]
All posts filed under “Design with Intent”
More thoughts on the Eaton MEM BC3, CFLs and Power Factor
UPDATE: See this more recent post for information and photos of how to get a 2-pin bulb to fit in a BC3 fitting. BC3 reactions The post looking at the Eaton MEM BC3 system, a couple of months ago, has become something of a reference […]
Process friction
Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah kindly sent me a link to this article by Ben Hyde: I once had a web product that failed big-time. A major contributor to that failure was tedium of getting new users through the sign-up process. Each screen they had to step triggered […]
A bright idea?
UPDATE: See this more recent post for information and photos of how to get a 2-pin bulb to fit in a BC3 fitting. This may well be the example which involves the most different ‘architecture of control’ issues so far – by a long way. […]
Anti-user seating in Oxford
Top two photos: A bench on Cornmarket Street, Oxford; Lower two photos: A bus stop seat perch on Castle Street. While from a very narrow specification point-of-view ‘they do their job’, what utter contempt for users these two seating examples demonstrate! The benches on Cornmarket […]
Friday quote: Super-Cannes by J G Ballard
J G Ballard, Super-Cannes, chapter 29: Thousands of people live and work here without making a single decision about right and wrong. The moral order is engineered into their lives along with the speed limits and the security systems. Re-reading Ballard’s excellent Super-Cannes, since the […]
More educational architectures of control: museums
A ‘traditional’ museum display cabinet in the Kremlin museum, Moscow. I liked the owl. Two very interesting posts from last week looked at the use of control in museum design – Frankie Roberto discusses trying to get children (in particular) to learn interactively, and Josh […]
Packet switching
Both Dr Tom Stafford (co-author of the fantastic Mind Hacks book & blog) and Gregor Hochmuth (creator of FlickrStorm, an improved Flickr search system) have been in touch suggesting packaging/portion sizes as a significant everyday architecture of control, (or at least an aspect of design […]
Friday quote: Fashion & convention
L.J.K. Setright, the late motoring writer and commentator, self-taught mechanical engineer and all-round Renaissance Man, once wrote: Fashion is a terrible fetter; convention, since it lasts longer, is even worse. This was in an issue of Car, when it was still any good. Setright wrote […]
Objects in mirror are wider than they appear
This is an interesting story. Robert Kilroy-Silk (above) currently an independent MEP, has raised the issue in the European Parliament of intentionally distorting mirrors in clothes stores, specifically Marks & Spencer: Marks and Spencer has said it is mystified by a claim by MEP Robert […]
Useful terminat-ology
Image from Black Flag website. Sometimes there’s very useful terminology in one field, or culture, which allows clearer or more succinct explanation of concepts in another. In the UK we don’t have Roach Motels. There are doubtless similar products, but they don’t have such a […]
37signals: Control vs Communication
Johan Strandell kindly lets me know about a discussion of ‘Control vs Communication‘ at 37signals’ Signal vs Noise: Every once in a while we get an email from a customer asking about how permissions work with our products. They’re almost always asking how to prevent […]