http://blog.multiblah.com/ en kevin@multiblah.com Copyright 2010 2010-05-20T21:19:22+00:00 http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/bye_bye_pixels/ http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/bye_bye_pixels/#When:21:19:22Z The design world is about to hit a disruptive shift in technology. Digital displays have always been pretty low resolution. These days average monitor hovers around 120PPI. (Pixels Per Inch is the number of pixels on your screen in an inch) The average printed magazine is about 300DPI (Dots Per Inch is the printed equivalent to PPI). This is all about to change. The Motorola Droid has a pixel density of 250PPI and the new iPhone is rumoured to have a resolution of 326PPI. What all of this means, is that for the first time, screens are going to be of a higher quality than the printed page. For designers, this will be a seismic shift. There’s been a very traditional print to screen workflow for the last few years, where high resolution printed material comes first and then to screen design. This will be a radical shift that will have a huge impact, particularly for graphic designers working in the print medium, as they will start to be involved later in the design process than before. For screen based designers, this will mean that we may not need to think of designs at the pixel level any more. For everyone else, this means that reading on screen, particularly on mobile devices, is going to feel better and more natural than ever before, and digital displays will finally compete with the printed page. 2010-05-20T21:19:22+00:00 http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/the_difference_between_music_and_books/ http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/the_difference_between_music_and_books/#When:18:33:36Z There’s a lot of buzz about eBook readers these days. From Sony’s offerings, Amazon’s Kindle and B&N’s new Nook, it seems almost inevitable that they will be the future of books. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, says that the Kindle will be the ’ipod for books‘, and so it seems a great majority of the technology press do to. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and thought I’d try examine it in a bit more depth. I’m an Interaction Designer. Robert Fabricant of Frog Design says that for Interaction Designes, “behaviour is our medium”, we’re trained to look at the behaviours people exhibit and the motivations behind them. I thought it would be interesting to do a critical analysis of the Kindle (and eBook readers as a whole), to see how they differ from the iPod and how people’s behavious of books differs from their usage of music. From there, we can attempt to evaluate the potential for eBook readers and find out if they truly are the iPod for books. The Experience Let’s take a look at the experience of listening to music. Particularly how you listen to music on the go. People listen to music while travelling and commuting. From buses, trains and planes, it’s one of the most common scenarios people use their iPods and MP3 players. Now, let’s compare the experience of listening to an iPod, to that of a portable CD player. While the iPod offers a different interface to accessing your music and getting it to play, once you’ve starting playing an album, the end experience is the same. You sit back, relax and enjoy the music. The experience of reading an eBook however, is different. Through the entire time you’re reading the book you’re having a considerably different experience. The text is different, the page turning is different, the natural affordances are different. You buy a book differently, but you’re also reading a book differently. Heck, the Kindle has a keyboard on it for god’s sake. In short: Listening to a record/cd :  Listening to digital music = different interfaces, same listening experience Reading an analog book :  Reading a eBook = different interface and different reading experience. The Behaviour There’s another fundamental difference in how much we consume music and books that seemed to be ignored by eBook promoters. Let’s just ask a simple question. How many times have you read your favourite book? How many times have you listened to your favourite album? Even being generous, you’re talking about 10 times, for the book, but it could easily into three figures for an album. People consumer vastly more music that books. eBooks readers and mp3 players are expensive, costing a few hundred euro. It’s not a small investment for someone to make. With an mp3 player, the offering is for you to have your entire music collection with you at all times. That’s an amazing thing to offer someone and something many people will pay for. It’s a proven model. What’s an eBook reader’s offering? To have your entire library with you at any time? It’s not hard to see a problem there. Most people take a few days or weeks to read a book, whereas you could listen to 10s or 100s of albums over the same duration. Additionally, people don’t re-read books much compared to music. Finally, a book has a very low value, only about €10, so reading it on a beach, throwing it in a bag, leaving it around are all very natural. Worrying that you’ll get sand into an expensive Kindle is an added hassle with very little benefit. The Payoff What’s the payoff with eBook readers? With an iPod, it’s having your entire music collection with you at all times, and you can consume media on the go as if you were beside your entire music collection. With the kindle, sure you get the space saving, but since you don’t have any desire to carry 100s of books with you I’m not sure why it’s useful except for a niche of people. With the iPod, you can also import your entire music collection, and if you so wish, you can still buy CDs and import them, having both digital and physical versions. With the Kindle, you’re paying for the privilege of only being able to buy digital books and you’re starting from scratch. The Kindle US price is $269 for the basic model. If you bought a normal book at an average price of $12, then you could one a month for almost 2 years before even covering the basic cost of the Kindle device itself. That’s a terrible payoff. The future for eReaders So, I do think there is a future for eReaders, but as they stand now they’re really just a novelty gadget and niche market. They’re not hitting enough of people’s core reading needs in order to jump to the mass market like MP3 players or digital cameras. People simply don’t consume books in the same way. That’s an underlying assumption that is not being questioned. eReaders are a around because people are trying to copy the technical aspects of the iPod and ignoring people’s real behaviours. You can’t think of a product just as a device, but how it’s a platform for content that fits into people’s lives. It’s not about books, it’s about reading So, there’s no point ending and article without a prediction. What do I think the future for eReaders is? I think the future is not about books, it’s actually about reading. This is going to prove a difficult issue for both the Kindle and the Nook, because Amazon and Barnes & Noble are in the book business, not the reading business. Let’s ask a simple question: What media do we consume with the same hunger as music? The answer: newspapers, magazines and blogs. An iPod for books is missing the point, we simply don’t read enough books. But these days, we’re reading more than ever. TV viewing is going down for the first time in hostory as people spend more time reading online. The future is in newspapers, magazines, and also blogs. Reading them on a laptop screen is tolerable, but it’s not ideal. It doesn’t compare well with starting a sunday morning with breakfast and a newspaper. It’s not really the same if you’re read the news on your laptop, it’s ugly, it’s not ergonomic, and it’s anti-social. We do it because it’s such a great distribution channel. Some eReaders have made some token efforts in this regard, but the experience is very poor. If eReaders are to really take off they need to shift the focus completely away from books as a primary source of content and look at things like newspapers and magazines and offer a really great experience of it. My litmus test My litmus test, for the mass success of a device like this is the Sunday morning. If you can sit at a table on a Sunday morning with a juice or a coffee, relaxing reading the news while your kids run around you, then you’ll have a platform for reading digital content. If you can then pass that device to your partner or children for them to read their content, then you’ll see an iPod for reading, and that will have some real potential. What are your thoughts? 2010-01-27T18:33:36+00:00 http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/ui_concepts_for_nokia/ http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/ui_concepts_for_nokia/#When:12:53:29Z Recently myself & Tobias did a project with Nokia here at CIID. It was an intensive two week course aimed at generating new ideas & concepts for future phones. It was exciting to have a lot of constraints to work with such as using real hardware and thinking about technical logistics. We did some ad-hoc user research, concept generation and developed some prototypes using flash lite. We then tested these concepts and tweaked them before creating some concept videos. More info about the project & process can be found on my new interaction design portfolio, the 3 concept videos are below: 2009-07-20T12:53:29+00:00 http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/ciidreboot/ http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/ciidreboot/#When:16:34:06Z Thanks to Miss Alie Rose, all the CIID crew headed to the Reboot conference two weeks ago. It was a great experience. We talked to a lot of people and basically gave them free consulting, advice, brainstorming and ideas for projects they were working on. Eilidh’s got a great write up of the event on her blog. One of the highlights for me was the opening talk by Matt Webb from design firm Schulze and Webb. It was a nice inspiring talk about design and motivation, and fitted in great with the theme of Action for the conference. ” What could you do in 100 hours? 2009-07-09T16:34:06+00:00 http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/defining_the_behaviour/ http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/defining_the_behaviour/#When:20:20:26Z I’ve been playing around with umbrellas, trying to generate concepts for the last few weeks, apart from a brief 2 week break with a project with Nokia. All this while I’ve been a little bit disoriented. I’ve started with an object an trying to use that as inspiration for me. It’s such a strange process, it’s alien to me and my brain doesn’t like it one bit. Luckily, I’ve a great supervisor, Isabel Froes, and some great classmates and in the last few days I’ve been talking through ideas of people, particularly Nunzia and Adam, and they’ve helped be define some of the behaviours I would like to expose in my project. First of all, I would like my project to be some kind of installation, possibly in a trade fair or museum context. There I would like to encourage people to be playful in a way they are not normally Create passive communication between people that might not talk to each other in a normal context Make people move their body, jump and dance around Surprise and amaze people It’s a lot to hope to achieve, but if I can capture some of those thing it will be a start. I have taken a lot of inspiration from the work of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, particularly his Body Movies project which used shadows to create an amazing experience for passers by. Here’s a video below. (it takes awhile to get going) 2009-06-18T20:20:26+00:00 http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/documentary_on_data_visualization/ http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/documentary_on_data_visualization/#When:10:29:00Z Great video with Manual Lima, the creator of visualcomplexity.com on Data Visualization as an emerging field: Video 2009-06-14T10:29:00+00:00 http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/eurovision_2008_results_data_visualizaiton/ http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/eurovision_2008_results_data_visualizaiton/#When:17:43:09Z Just in time for this years Eurovision in Moscow, here’s Flash visualization of last years Eurovision results, done for part of our Data Visualization class at CIID. http://www.multiblah.com/exps/flash/eurovision_voting/EurovisionMap.html 2009-05-16T17:43:09+00:00 http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/thesis_time/ http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/thesis_time/#When:14:13:21Z We’ve recently started our thesis, and were asked to write a mission statement to talk about our goals for the summer. I’ve decided to try something of a more artistic approach than normal, starting with a single object, an umbrella and getting inspired by that. I’d like to use the umbrella as a material, like paint, or clay and to see how I can learn about it’s properties, manipulate it and see what happens when I iterate and play and explore. Photo by protectorrr from flickr What do you want your thesis to be in your life? I would like to use the thesis to learn a lot of new things and really push myself outside my comfort zone and encourage me to think in new ways. In 5 years time I want to look back on my thesis and still be proud of it. In the future I would like to be able to use my thesis as proof that I can build large scale installations and events in order to gain future opportunities in that area. What interests you? Which domain? I have a wide range of interests, and this caused me some difficultly in choosing a domain, but for the thesis, I have decided to focus on the area of Interactive Installations & Art. I feel that this is an area that is only starting to be explored and there is much more potential yet to be uncovered. I think that interactivity is often still used as a novelty, and I would like to learn more about the area and help define a language that can help me discuss and critique interactive experiences. Finally, I want to actually build some kind of interactive experience. I think new technology opens the potential to create innovative experiences, not just products & services, and I would like to use these new tools to truly amaze people. Which skills you want to rely on? I plan to rely on my visual design skills to aid presentation and design of my final concept as well as inform the aesthetic choices I will make in crafting the experience. I plan on using my experience in Flash and interactive programming to help prototype things on screen before implementing them technically in order to explore more ideas. I also plan to rely on my analytical and research skills to help deeply understand the area and try define it in a more critical way. Which skills you want to challenge? One of the goals I set myself coming to the course was to improve my knowledge of electronics. I aim to learn much more about this field during my thesis and also learn more about mechanics and traditional engineering techniques.  One of the questions we were challenged with when starting to think about the thesis was “What can you only do at CIID?” For me this direction is the answer to that. I can use the faculty and facilities to learn new skills. I can also take this as a unique opportunity to dedicate myself to a non-commercial project over an extended period of time. 2009-05-07T14:13:21+00:00 http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/kevin_norton_stole_my_design/ http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/kevin_norton_stole_my_design/#When:11:50:07Z The first image is a screenshot of my own business site kevin.ie, the second is the portfolio of Kevin Norton, a possibly Irish ‘designer’ based in London. See the difference? No neither can I. Kevin Norton has illegally stolen my the complete visual design, as well as many designs from my portfolio, which he has passed off as his own. This is a complete copyright violation of my work and my clients and is completely illegal. I was alerted to this on the 23rd February, and sent him a notice to remove the content immediately. He temporarily took the site down, but it is now back up, so I am forced to take more serious action. below is a copy of the notice sent to Mr Norton. If anyone could advise me how to find out his hosting company that would be appreciated, so I can take this matter further. Mr. Kevin Norton, This is to advise you that you are using copyrighted and protected material on your website. Your site (http://www.kevinnorton.info) is a direct copy of my own business site (http://www.kevin.ie) including, but not limited to, the XHTML, CSS, Visual Design & Layout and the contents therein. This is original content and I am the author and copyright holder of all code, design & content on this site. Use of copyright protected material without permission is illegal under Irish & EU copyright laws. Remove this violation immediately or I will deal with this matter in a less discreet fashion. I expect a response within 5 days to this issue. Thank you for your immediate action on this matter. Kevin Cannon Update: 4/5/17:00 Found out some more information on this guy. According to his LinkedIn profile, and some investigatory work by the people on Creative Ireland, turns out this guy recently got a contract job at London based, company in march of this year. I wonder he got the job as a result of any of my work being in his profile. Some of the people on CI suggested I should inform the company, I’m not sure if that’s ethical or not. Update: 4/5/23:00 Found that Kevin Norton has a Deviant Art profile, where he proudly shows the header I designed and explains that the image was done with with autodesk maya and Mel Script. Not true, it was done in Processing by me and copied and pasted by him, with ugly typography to boot! Also, looks like he copied my design at least in April 08, he’s been posing as me for quite awhile. Update: 5/5/11:00 The site is now offline. I sent a copyright violation notice to his hosting company, GoDaddy, and also Jon from Kidic, a Dublin-based band I did a a design for, sent a notice Kevin Norton, himself yesterday asking him to remove the screenshot of their site from his page. I’m still waiting to hear back from GoDaddy and Deviant Art. Update: 5/5/11:00 Although I didn’t contact them myself, the company Kevin had listed as currently working for contacted me and stated he’s no longer working for them. I’ve removed the reference to that company from the post now. 2009-05-04T11:50:07+00:00 http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/infosthetics_article/ http://blog.multiblah.com/index.php/site/infosthetics_article/#When:17:00:14Z infosthetics.com, the excellent blog about graphs, charts and other beautiful info graphics, just published an article myself and Marcin wrote about the Data Visualization course we had last year at CIID. Check it out, you can even see yours truly in the first image. 2009-05-03T17:00:14+00:00