Posts Tagged: personalization

, , , , , , , , — No Comments
13
Aug 10

Curated computing and the truly personal

Cory Doctorow writes about curated computing.

“The launch of the iPad and the general success of mobile device app stores has created a buzzword frenzy for “curated” computing – computing experiences where software and wallpaper and attendant foofaraw for your device are hand-picked for your pleasure. In theory, this creates an aesthetically uniform, and above all safe and easy, computing environment, as the curators see to it that only the very prettiest, easiest-to-use and most virus-free apps show up in the store…The beauty of noncoercive curation is that there are so many reasons we value things, it’s really impossible to imagine that any one place will serve as a one-stop shop for our needs.”

Link: Curated computing is no substitute for the personal and handmade (guardian.co.uk, via)

, , , , , , , — No Comments
10
Jan 08

Samsung on the future of mobile UI

“Adaptability of the interface, to allow for a personalisation of the experience. Here he shows the example of Samsung’s uGo interface for mobile phones (developed jointly with Adobe), an adaptive user interface that automatically responds to the user’s environments. The main screen displays a landmark picture that changes based on where you are and what time of day it is, with added graphics and animation alerting you of your mobile phone status (battery charge, missed calls, etc.). For example, the battery charge is displayed by an air balloon in the photo that high up in the sky when the battery is full, but increasingly closer to the ground when the battery starts running out.”

Link: Samsung on the future of electronic devices (experientia.com)

, , , , , , — No Comments
26
Oct 07

Context aware applications

“Our study found that users’ sense of control decreases when autonomy of the service increases, as suggested by previous research. We believed that personalization would be preferred and would be more accepted than both passive and active context-awareness, however, the results of our study do not support this. Instead we find that people prefer context-aware applications over personalization oriented ones.”

Link: Is Context-Aware Computing Taking Control Away from the User? Three Levels of Interactivity Examined (itu.dk, pdf, via)

, , , , , , , , , , , , , — No Comments
25
Dec 06

Designing games for the long tail

Yiibu has made available a wonderful little presentation about the design of mobile games.

“Design for play, quiet contemplation, exploration, discovery, suspense, laughter, friendship, joy…(remember boredom, stress, fatigue, personalization, control, play—everyone’s personal time is different)”

Link: Creating ‘Casual’ Games, Content and Applications for the (Mobile) Long Tail (yiibu.com, PDF, via)

, , , , , , , , , , — 1 Comment
27
Nov 06

Design for fiddling

Paul Golding asks whether mobile phones are designed to support people desire to fiddle with them. This is an excellent question, and in most situations phones only provide poor support for this kind of use.

“However, on close inspection (i.e peeking) at what some people do with their phones, the fiddling is a kind of mindless playing around – poking, changing, reverting back, going up and down menus, swapping settings back and forth, and so on – plain fiddling about. We like to tell kids not to fiddle with things – the remote control, the car controls, the radio, the computer. We often then go and do it ourselves…I wonder, have we fully embraced this fiddling-thingy within mobile design, or are we treating it as an exception?”

Link: Mobile fiddling… (wirelesswonders.blogspot.com)

, , , , , — No Comments
10
Jul 06

Personalisation as manufacturing

Schulze & Webb look at personalisation as a manufacturing process through a moldable metal phone.

“The ease of this manufacture means that we get to discuss the local factory angle of personalisation. That is, could purchasing a mobile phone be more like a performance of manufacture? Could it be more like a vending experience? To this end, Metal Phone comes with a machine that melts and reforms a phone around the internals of a standard Nokia handset (the 5140i).”

Link: Metal phone (schulzeandwebb.com)

, , , , , , , , , , , , , — No Comments
9
Jun 06

Ambient sound awareness

Google’s developed a system for listening to your television and serving up relevant content. What if my mobile devices had the capability to listen in on what was happening around me?

“A team from Google Research has developed a prototype system that uses a home computer’s internal microphone to listen to the ambient audio in a room, determine what is being watched on TV and offer web-based supplemental information, services and shopping contextual to each program being watched. It’s strange, but it sounds like it works and people might really like it. There’s no indication yet whether or when this could be available as a service.”

Link: Google Research prototypes ambient audio contextual content (techcrunch.com)

, , , , , , , , , , , , — No Comments
8
Jun 06

Experience design at Nokia

An interesting interview with the Head of Brand Visual and Sensorial Experiences (nice one!) at Nokia.

“Even today my work is still very much involved in understanding and recognising trends and the way people or societies are changing. One of the important things is to realise the difference between ‘long-term’ societal trends and ‘short-term’ lifestyle trends, but also to understand that some short-term trends have the potential to cross into the mainstream of society, where they become much more influential.”

Link: New levels of Experience Design (pingmag.jp)

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — No Comments
6
Jun 06

The next generation mobile UI

“Many of these issues are about solving the complexity problem: enabling lots of different features for lots of different users in lots of different cultures. Will tomorrow’s intuitive interfaces use RFID to allow us to interact with our environment in a more tangible manner, in a way similar to how people in cities like London or Helsinki already use touch-cards to pay for public transport? Probably. Will they have speech-to-text and text-to-speech functionality to enable varied, fast, and context-sensitive input and output? Probably. Will they use motion sensors to allow us to input data in new ways, using movement rather than key presses? Possibly. Will they have different modes, allowing users to prioritise different things depending on context (work / entertainment / personal / social / static / mobile)? Maybe. Will they require a clear understanding of user needs and behaviour in order to be successful? Definitely.”

Link: Mobile user interfaces – its time for a new paradigm (the3gportal.com)

, , , — No Comments
25
Apr 06

Physical personalisation of phones

Delightful little presentation about how people make devices their own.

“What motivates people to customise their phones? Where are they customised? Why? And how can this influence the design of future devices?...It’s an example of quick-and-dirty research project (an afternoon collecting data by reviewing 6477 phone covers in a recycling plant) with a limited but interesting enough scope (document any physical customisation), that eventually led to researching a number of more meaty topics. It’s also an example of something that would never make it to an academic conference, but has proved relevant in day to day work. There’s a lesson there somewhere.”

Link: Physical Personalisation (janchipchase.com)