sippey.com

interactive paper books

And two makes a trend! Last month Berg London (yep, them again) published SVK, a comic from Warren Ellis and Matt Brooker. A critical piece of the story line is printed with invisible ink that you can only read with the "SVK object," a UV light source that's packaged with the book. I had a chance to see it in person when I was in London and it's very, very cool. The technique is integrated into the plot in a way that rewards the reader for investing the effort in reading in a new way.

On Friday, via Brainpickings comes news of a fall children's title from McSweeney's that features heat-sensitive invisible ink. The preview video is fun, and gives you a sense of what it's like to rub the pages to reveal what's underneath...

More like this please. And there's a lesson in here for designers that are crafting screen-based interactivity on top of classically narrative content: make sure the distraction and the effort that's required for readers to push, click, highlight, scrub, type, shake, tilt, etc. is worth it. If you're going to entice the reader out of their state of reading "flow," then make sure what you want them to do adds to their experience of your content.

the opposite of camouflage

Go read Matt Webb's post on the Berg blog that recounts a recent talk he gave on the Robot-Readable World. As Matt points out, QR codes feel crude and obvious, and over time we'll find ways to embed information that is not only designed for devices, but is built to entice them to use it...

Timo and Jack call this “Antiflage” – a made-up word for something we’re just starting to play with.

It is the opposite of camouflage – the markings and shapes that attract and beguile robot eyes that see differently to us – just as Dawkins describes the strategies that flowers and plants have built up over evolutionary time to attract and beguile bees, hummingbirds – and exist in a layer of reality complimentary to that which we humans sense and are beguiled by.

And I guess that’s the recurring theme here – that these layers might not be hidden from us just by dint of their encoding, but by the fact that we don’t have the senses to detect them without technological-enhancement.

See also The New Robot Domesticity at BLDGBLOG. The bit I keyed off of: "Homeowners will even help their robots learn through computational games—like Fröbel blocks for machines."

danah boyd on real names, identity, facebook and google

There is no universal context, no matter how many times geeks want to tell you that you can be one person to everyone at every point. But just because people are doing what it takes to be appropriate in different contexts, to protect their safety, and to make certain that they are not judged out of context, doesn’t mean that everyone is a huckster. Rather, people are responsibly and reasonably responding to the structural conditions of these new media.

via www.zephoria.org

Emphasis mine. danah's entire post is worth reading (as always), but I'm always amazed at how this key point is lost in design decisions about social media: context matters. And that's not just about the identity you use when you're in a particular context, but how the things you do in that context get shared across the network. Facebook's working to flatten identity, which is troublesome not only for vulnerable people (as danah points out), but for varied personal expression across the web.

mobile: the bored in line network

Jonah Peretti once told Gothamist that “the Internet is powered by bored office workers who sit at their desks forwarding emails, surfing the web, reading and writing blogs, and IMing funny links to their friends.” He called this the Bored at Work Network, or BWN.

The mobile corollary to the Bored at Work Network is the Bored in Line Network, or BLN. Mobile is powered by bored smartphone owners standing in line, updating their Facebook statuses, reading Twitter, thumbing through Instagram, playing a turn on Words with Friends, checking in on Foursquare or flinging an Angry Bird.

Web experiences have optimized for the BWN: related story links, skyscraper ad units and share buttons designed to divert attention and spread virally to other bored people. Mobile experiences are quickly optimizing for the BLN: bite-sized moments of media consumption, content sharing or game play designed to last as long as it takes for the person ahead of you to pay for their groceries.

So?

• Being on the home screen matters. When you’re bored in line, do you reach for an app or for your phone’s web browser?
• If you’re translating your web experience to mobile, think about if and how it works for the BLN. Would you read your site while bored in line? (Relatedly, responsive web design is necessary but not sufficient tool for the mobile web.)
• Remember that with the BLN, you’re not competing against your competition. You’re competing against Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and the dopamine rush of flinging an angry bird at those obnoxious green pigs.

Hat tip to Todd Lappin of Telstar Logistics for the lunch conversation (God, I love lunch) that motivated this post.

thinking outside the wrist

At Frog's blog, David Sherwin is sharing challenges from his book Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills. I like this first one, a little challenge to rethink the most popular piece of wearable tech...the watch.

For one week, keep a diary about time. Every day, as you interact with your watch, phone, computer, or clock, write down how you feel when you check the time. When the week is up, use the data that you gathered to design a “watch” prototype that redefines how people keep track of time—both in their day-to-day life, and in their pursuit of fashion. You can only take two hours to design the prototype.

I have no time to do this.

you can't reason about products

The Journal's interview with Joshua Schachter is interesting, not for the attention grabbing headline and lede, but for the connection he makes between his feelings about angel investment and product development.

“You can’t reason about products - great products are emotional,” he says. “You build products and react and see how it goes. I think we’ll try to build a bunch of things. We’re still discussing what to do. We have to get to the first couple of prototypes, and those are almost always poor. It’s nice when you build something even if it’s not the right thing – it’s useful for the next project, and they come out faster and faster.”

I'm disappointed that Tasty Labs is no longer pursuing their "marketplace for used satellites" idea, and are on to the more mundane mission of "putting the useful back into social software." I'm gonna go poke Joshua on Facebook.

magaziner; letter to jane

Via @craigmod comes The Magaziner, "where magazines and digital meet and have a fun time together." And via The Magaziner comes Letter to Jane, this interesting looking iPad delivered indie magazine.

More like this, pls.

bonnier + berg's magazine tablet concept

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

There's a ton to dive in to here, but the core difference I'll point out between this concept and the Sports Illustrated one is Bonnier & BERG chose to focus on the user instead of the content. This wasn't about the exclusive photos and real-time sports scores...this was about how a tablet could deliver a great experience for the user.

As for the social pieces: even though this demo was similarly light on demonstrating what the opportunities are for a rich, connected reader like this, I'd trust that this user-centered approach would lead to the right mix of ingredients.

why what matters now just won't

I love Seth Godin as much as the next guy, but I'll just come out and say it -- there's a 99% chance that I won't read What Matters Now. It has nothing to do with the content -- there are people in there that I enjoy and respect. Instead, it has everything to do with the form.

What Matters Now is distributed as an "ebook," which is a fancy way of saying "a PDF." This particular PDF is 82 pages long (one page per contributor), where some pages are designed as slides with illustrations, and some pages contain a micro-essay laid out in a two-column format. The only convenient PDF reading device happens to be a PC, and the likelihood of me shutting out the world and spending a couple of sessions with my laptop to read this ebook are slim to none (especially when there's so much compelling YouTube content out there). And offline consumption isn't really an option: I'm not really sure I want to chew up 82 pages worth of paper and printer ink on it, and I've learned that Amazon's PDF conversion service for the Kindle will puke all over the two-column layout.

This should have been a website. Each essay with its own permalink. With interlinking between pieces. With hyperlinking out to the rest of the web. With search. And a table of contents. And commenting, favoriting and simple social sharing tools. And it could have been a beautiful thing to experience -- on the web. Instead, it's a file that I won't experience, sitting in my Downloads folder.

facebook following

Now that Facebook is pushing the defaults to public (here's Mark Zuckerberg's wall, for instance) how long until they adopt an asymmetric follow model for individual profiles?

(Today the asymmetric follow is why fan pages exist, but if they were to dramatically simplify their offering they'd (a) collapse fan pages and profiles, (b) adopt asymmetric following, (c) put controls in place that enabled you to share content (e.g. pics of the kids) with limited sets of identified users, and (d) upsell brands (celebs, companies) on additional tools for their profile.)

convenience as interface

Khoi Vinh on the tradeoff of convenience v. highdef / hires: "You could re-interpret the idea of convenience as a format’s interface — if it’s easy to use, if it provides affordances commensurate to the needs of real users in actual use cases, then it will win over higher resolution. Actually, it’s the content that really matters."

what was missing from the sports illustrated tablet concept

So on a second watch of the Sports Illustrated tablet concept reel, I was struck by something fundamental: while the content looked great and a magazine interlaced with full-motion content is definitely fun to look at and page through, they completely missed on what could make a device like a tablet so great: a connection. Specifically, a connection to other sports fans.

To be fair, there were two small nods towards community: the ability to share stories you read with your Facebook friends (yawn), and the ability to guess what happens in a sporting event you're watching on TV before it happens. But they struck out* on any real integration of social into what's otherwise a compelling media experience.

• Look at all those photos and videos of last week's sporting events. How about aggregating fan photos/videos from Flickr or YouTube or Vimeo alongide the professionally produced content?
• Look at those quickstats on players. How about pulling in a live stream of tweets about that player, and a buzz index of who is being talked about (a la TweetZone)?
• How about a presence indicator of who else is reading this article right now, with an opportunity to connect with / chat with / connect to those sports fans?
• Or, shoot, how about just some comments on the article pages?

I know it's completely unfair to bash a promotional concept video for missing features. But as I watched this video the phrase that popped into my head was "multimedia CD-ROM," because for the most part that's what's demo'd here -- in a new format, with a new delivery mechanism.

The tablet form factor could be a revolutionary medium for delivering compelling media experiences. But if publishers like Sports Illustrated view this as just another channel for delivering one-way content, they're going to get knocked out* by the folks who figure out how to combine the best of both worlds -- high-quality editorial content and a compelling social experience.

* Obligatory sports metaphors.

what would tinker bell do?

Steve Jobs is having an impact on Disney's retail overhaul. From the NY Times:

Mr. Jobs provided access to proprietary information about the development and operation of Apple’s highly successful stores, and Disney executives visited Apple’s research operation in Cupertino, Calif. Mr. Jobs, who declined to comment, also insisted that Disney build a prototype store to work out kinks, a costly endeavor that most retailers skip.

The company followed his advice, working for the last year on a full-scale, fully stocked store inside an unmarked warehouse in Glendale, Calif. The prototype was crucial to shaping an overall philosophy, Mr. Fielding said, noting that he discovered the shops needed more “Pixar-esque winks and nods.” To that end, one sales area is now labeled “WWTD: What Would Tinker Bell Do?”

Just so happens that we read a version of Peter Pan before bedtime in our house tonight, and I had forgotten what an odd character Tinker Bell is. Wikipedia...

Though sometimes ill-tempered and vindictive (getting the Lost Boys to shoot arrows at Wendy), at other times she is helpful and kind to Peter. The extremes in her personality are explained in-story by the fact that a fairy's size prevents her from holding more than one feeling at a time, so when she is angry she has no counterbalancing compassion.

So really. What would Tinker Bell do in a retail environment?

the arch

I grew up just outside St. Louis, and even though I haven't been back in years I love what they've done with the Busch Stadium grass for the All Star game.

The combo of Busch Stadium and the Arch reminds me of the great series of photographs that Joel Meyerowitz made of St. Louis. Here's one of them that lived in our house (as a poster reproduction) for years...

Here's Meyerowitz on the Arch...

Every city has a celebrated monument that sets it apart; a tower or cathedral, a square or park. St. Louis has the Arch. I found it deeply moving, profound. There were days when, standing beneath the Arch, I felt I knew the power of the pyramids. It was restorative, contemplative. It was more than a technological marvel or a symbol. It was pure form, the beauty of mathematics, a drawing on the heavens, perfect pitch. It was constant and it was never the same. Light and color made their way over its surface. I have seen the Arch change from a white you could not look at to black in broad daylight. I have seen it disappear, reflect like a mirror, and turn pink, sometimes all in one day. I remember mountains doing that. Standing beside it, one sees human scale diminish as when a figure stands at the ocean's edge. It contains the space that cathedrals aspire to. You feel it most when you submit to it.

And the Arch View Cafeteria? I think it was part of the Title Guaranty building, which was razed in 1983. Here's a streetview of the location today.

a tropicana followup

A quick followup on February's post re. the Tropicana repackaging debacle. A few weeks ago my eight year old daughter and I were in the local grocery store and when she passed the o.j. section there were some cartons of Tropicana with the new packaging -- the ones that I thought had been recalled...the ones with the screwtop that looks and feels like an orange.

"Oh my God, Dad!" she shouted. "Check this out! The top! Of this orange juice! It's like an orange! That's so cool!"

I just wanted to squeeze her tight.

peter arnell's remarks on the launch of tropicana packaging

Offered without additional comment is a transcript of the Ad Age video of Peter Arnell from Omnicom's Arnell Group introducing the (now pulled) Tropicana packaging back in January.

We started on a journey approximately five months ago to try to give a new refreshed, a new energy to Tropicana. We thought it would be very very important to bring this brand, to evolve it to a more current or modern state. Emotionally it was very very difficult, and it still remains difficult for everyone to grasp the importance of that change because it's so dramatic.

Historically we always showed the outside of the orange. What was fascinating was that we had never shown the product called the juice. There was a strong drive to bring big messaging on to the carton where the biggest single billboarding was.

Having said that we wanted to take the orange and put it somewhere. We engineered this interesting little squeeze cap here (which you guys can come up and see after) so that the notion of squeezing the orange was implied ergonomically every day when you actually went to the actual carton. The skin of the orange is replicated on the cap, and tooled in to the cap. The idea, of course, is to have a consistency between the purity of the juice (which is coming directly from the orange), the cap (which you squeeze every day), and, of course, the carton.

The reason why that's all important is because, of course, "squeeze" also maintains a certain level of power when it comes to this notion emotionally about what "squeeze" means -- like "my squeeze" or "gimme a squeeze" or the notion of a hug, or the ideas behind the power of love and the idea of transferring that love, or converting the attitude between mom and the kids, right?

daytum

I'm digging Daytum, the site from Ryan Case and Nicholas Felton "for collecting and communicating your daily data." The UI is a bit inscrutable at first -- you have to want to use it -- but once you understand it you want to experiment. The data capture mechanism -- and the underlying data model -- is flexible enough to support multiple viz's of the same data set, which should be fun...as long as I can figure out something more interesting to track than number of cups of coffee imbibed and number of hours slept. (Feature request -- ability to layer one data set on top of another...)

dataviz heaven

Quickest way to distract yourself from the nervousness of watching election results is to just marvel in all the data visualization bits that all the news sites are breaking out.

My favorite right now is the Times' big board. Their map is nice, too, but I'm enjoying the state categorization and the ability to switch between different news organizations to see where their predictions stand...

mini cooper to begin field testing an electric car

I'm sure this has been covered to death on the autoblogs, but I learned about it via Mini USA's email list: they're looking for 500 drivers in Southern California, New York and New Jersey to participate in a field trial of the MINI E, "a 100% electric, zero-emission premium vehicle ready for every-day driver use."

• Lithium-ion batteries
• Two-seater only; what's normally the backseat in a Mini is now full of batteries
• Zero to 60 in about 8.5 seconds; top speed electronically limited to about 95mph
• Range of about 150 miles
• Full recharge draws 28 kilowatt hours, which equates to 5.4 miles / kwh
• If you pay $0.15 / kwh, that equates to about about $0.03 per mile, which is about one-third the cost per mile of Mini Cooper.[1]

Of course, next to the Pious there couldn't be a more latte-sippin' blue state car than an electric Mini, and this one's only a pilot program, but I'm hopeful we'll see car makers push more hybrid and electric options...

[1] Spreadsheet here, based on an eyeballed average 30mpg for Coopers on Fuelly buying gas at $3.00 per gallon, which is about where the national average is right now.

dear lulu

File under "blogging this to remember it now" since Tim O'Reilly's already spread the meme far and wide via Radar. Fourteen design students with Frank Philippin and James Goggin produced Dear Lulu, a digital book designed to test the capabilities of on-demand digital printers.

My plan for the workshop is to investigate the visible and tangible parameters of graphic design — type specimens, halftone screens and, in particular, colour tests and calibration charts — and make a book of our own self-produced tests which we will send to print on Friday afternoon using the online print-on-demand system Lulu. The book project will therefore act as a colour/type/pattern test of the very system with which it is produced.

Worth exploring since Trina's considering some book projects for the artists she works with...

Update:

OK, maybe not. John comments that "I tested printing my infodesign book there and Lulu's quality was just terrible. I can't imagine using them for an art book." And via Google Reader, Bryan Boyer shared this comment on the Waxy link...

In case you can't read that (hi, googlebot!) here's what he said:

Nice idea, but apparently Lulu uses a network of print shops across the country to fulfill their printing needs, so I'd be hesitant to put much faith in the reproductions being consistent across all their equipment.

Blog-o-insert-your-shape-here to the rescue.