Tag Archives: Art

The End of the Desktop?

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Part 1 – The Enchantment

I was actually in the room at CHI 2001 when Bill Gates introduced the Tablet PC.  Taking notes on my Pocket PC, mobile and tablets, I was all over it.  I became an early adopter soon afterward, using my convertible notebook/tablet doing UX design consulting.  And let me tell you that in those days, jaws would drop in amazement when folks saw you draw on the screen.  Nothing impressed the natives more.  “Look, him draw on screen!  Him must be a god!” Alias sketch, Microsoft OneNote, and all those new app user interfaces that were going to change the way we interacted with computers,

Part 2 – The disappointment

except that it didn’t happen.  None of the MS Office apps ever budged to utilize pen input, nor did Adobe, or anyone else. Instead Microsoft abandoned us early tablet adopters like freedom fighters at the Bay of Pigs.

Then a few years later, Apple invented both the pocket PC and the tablet. And everyone swooned. And for good cause, this time it worked. Plus it had the Apple and third party support to make it really productive and price point lower, not higher, than a regular laptop.  Google joins in the fun steeling Microsoft’s role as the “other leading brand” to be compared with Apple, mimicking their every move, yet with an open hardware platform.

Part 2b – More Disappointment

Fast-forward again to 2012. Microsoft introduces Windows 8 and the Surface.  There has probably never been someone so late to their own party and awkwardly dressed for the occasion.  Microsoft launches an Apple-esque store in the mall with Kool-Aid drunken sales people mimicking the weirdoes at the Apple store.  So I stopped in to check out the Surface.  The name itself speaks of another great concept that couldn’t find a market and so left its name to be adopted by this iPad wannabe.

Somewhere in the windows 8 mix, I was hoping to find my old tablet PC reborn with a contemporary vigor.  No such luck. What I discover is a lesser knock off of tablets that are already too dumb for my professional taste. That may sound lofty, but this was my daily work tool for four years, constantly with me in airports, airplanes, hotels, coffee shops, and offices everywhere.

Part 2c – Even More Disappointment

Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users  http://www.useit.com/alertbox/windows-8.html

Disappointment.  The word that Jakob Nielson uses to describe the Windows 8 experience.  I am compelled to agree. Not that I am or have ever been a firm Jakob follower. I just hoped that we would see the high end supported with trickle down impact to the lesser demanding users.  Instead what I see at every turn is the computing environment reduced to a contest between Dumb and Dumber.

Looking at Nielsen’s article, it is confirmed.  Power users have been thrown under the Windows 8 bus. Nielsen’s description of the modern style induced usability problems in Windows 8 sound all too familiar. It seems that Microsoft has confused minimalist with primitive. Can you say pre-Win 95?  No, wait, more like pre-Win 3.1!   It’s like Microsoft has unlearned all the lessons of the past twenty years. I wouldn’t mind except that I depend on their products to do actual work, not just goofing off.

Makes me think of the “Apple Wheel” as reported by the Onion

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/05/macbook-wheel-revealed-by-the-onion-news-network/

It feels like Microsoft is sacrificing the power user desktop which is still dominates to become a tag along in the tablet space. It seems, there may be a clear opening for a high performance user experience Operating system environment.  Silicon Graphics Irix, where are you?

Part 3 – The Enlightenment

On the other hand, if Microsoft believes that the desktop is vanishing from the earth no matter what, then it might seem prudent to use their window of time to convert that desktop lead while it exists into a tablet contender. It still leaves many of power windows users in a hard way and opens the door for a new aggregator to jump in and direct the larger virtual platform.

Pondering this a bit more, this may indicate a milestone in the abandonment of the desktop by Microsoft as something that they see that cannot be held onto. The computing environment that was once the virtual desktop metaphor invented at Xerox PARC is now being replaced by a ubiquitous heterogeneous environment that exists both in real space and in the cloud.  An aggregation of real and virtual devices is needed to perform the same role that the proprietary desktop once played.  I see that mobile devices may have their own avatars in this virtual space.

Who will define this space? Who will own it? How about me and you?

I am pretty sure this is the theme of my next techy art piece. “MyFavoritemachine, In the Cloud” or maybe “Escape from Desktop’.

- roger

copyright 2012 r.e.belveal

Lean UX & Chihuly’s Glass Team

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Lately I have been pleased to have found Lean UX to be very successful, meaning an hour spent at the white board with some gifted programmers is worth a week wire framing and documenting. Instead of a clear handoff of a fully documented design, we are joined at the hip. I direct in real time while they code. Like artist Dale Chihuly does a quick sketch, then directs his glass craftsmen in the execution, we create UI in real time. We can’t work in this mode all the time, But when we do, it kicks ass

To see the Chihuly example, go to  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRJXZcSslao&feature=related. At 1:30 Chihuly explains how he conveys his designs and directs his team of glass blowers. See my photos of Chihuly’s art on my blog at http://belveal.net/?p=1496

The following photos show how he creates initial images in colorful sketches then directs the team in the execution.  This is the essence of Lean UX, the UX designer creates designs in a low fidelity media, such as hand drawings on paper or a white board, simple and very changeable to explore concepts quickly, then directs the programmers who are able to execute fluidly in html5 and CSS or othe similar code.  It works!

 

 

 

MPH @ Gravity Centre

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MyPhoneHenge is now up on display at GravityCentre Dallas.  In case you are unnaware, GravityCenter is an incubator for tech startups.  Great ideas and smart innovative people!  Thats my kind of place!

And what a super venue and audience for really big geek art!  Here’s a diagram to explain why.  lol

 

 

Experience Design Icon

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XD Steel Icon

This is a gift to my group at my day job.  Experience Design “XD” is the name we are known by in a culture that gets it.  Usability is the target, yes, but it is the target’s edge. In 2012 the center is an awesome experience.  That is our mantra.

A little side note about XD in place of UX

The term “User Experience” happened when we realized that creating a User Interface (UI) is not the goal, but the means. The user experience is the goal.  In that title, “User experience, or UX, needing to explicitly include the word “user” is actually baggage leftover from the days when an “interface” without that distinction of user interface was assumed to be something connecting different parts of a system.

Ironically, interface was a purely technical term that borrowed the word “face” from the human context and metaphorically applied it to mechanical or virtual elements.  The coining of the term “User interface” was actually borrowing the term back to describe a human element as one side of the connection. That usage grew so much that the word interface alone has now come to more often mean the user interface.

The word ‘experience’ has no such baggage. There is no history of any part of the system besides the user having an “experience”. So making such a distinction is unnecessary.  So, since we know that we most definitely are not referring to a part of the system having an experience, do we really need to even say “user” anymore?  And if there is someone else, another person or group of people, that is impacted by what we do besides the “user”, well okay.  It’s still an experience isn’t it? And that is what we are designing isn’t it?

So then, just “experience”.  Yes, it sounds a little Hendrix-esque. And that’s okay too.

- roger

- Music in the short video is by Zuriel Merek

Acetylene into creativity

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Here’s a welding quiz: When the Acetylene is gone from the tank, what is left that is important to remember when you go to replace it? (Answer is at the end of this article)

Seeing that the needle on the Acetylene tank gage was leaning low to the left, I figured I’d better get up to see my friends at Ferguson Gas and Welding supply here in Frisco.  It’s a family owned business right in the old part of town.  It’s nice to take a break from suburbia and big chain stores and have some home town style service by real people. I won’t say its Floyds barber shop, but it does remind me of the professional shops  in my home town in Oregon  I used to go with my Dad when I was a kid.  Guys who do what they do for a living, not just a temporary job.

On this Saturday, I got to meet Nick Ferguson who was running the store.   A little conversation and we quickly discovered we have in common the sense of excitement in response to the smell of burnt metal.  It means something cool is being created, something powerful, something awesome.  Sitting on the corner of the workbench of my dad’s welding shop in Oregon when I was a toddler, I got to see useful and magical exciting things take shape from pieces of steel welded together.   That makes welders some of MyFavoritemachines.

These days the exciting things happen in a digital world that didn’t exist in those days.  Still, I haven’t lost my love for metal, flames, and sparks.  To me it is so very similar in fact that it is no wonder that I blend expressions of both in my art.  It’s all creative, useful, innovatiove, and exciting.

So take some inspiration in this, and if you ever do need welding supplies, stop by to see the guys at Ferguson Gas.  Maybe just to just look around the shop at all the cool welding stuff.  This is real stuff, no virtual downloads, no cloud, no 404 messages.  I’m talking real hard hardware.  You can call them apps if you want to, but the software, the programming, the intelligence, is you.

I left Nick with a memento of appreciation, a MyPhoneStone, second from the left in this photo. If you stop in the Lewisville location, you might get to see it in person.

Its got a real adjustable wrench embeded in it so he could almost use it for tightening or loosening regulators. Righty tighty lefty loosy, except of course…(read quiz below)

-          roger

INDUSTRIAL GASES & WELDING PRODUCTS

Welding quiz Question: When the Acetylene is gone from the tank, what is left that is important to remember when replacing it?

Answer:  The threads on the regulator are left.  When you disconnect the regulator from the tank, remember that the threads are left-handed.  This is for safety sake to help keep from connecting the tanks incorrectly. Forget this and you’ll be tightening instead of loosening.

Roughly More Minimalism

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It occurred to me that MyPhoneStone that has a plug for an IPhone didn’t necessarily need a surface to lean against. So, I went for a little more low profile look. What d’ya think?

Like the others, it still has the deliberately rough aesthetic. That probably won’t change for a while, though someday you might be surprised that I do have a taste for extreme minimalism too. Just not yet, Not now. I am still pretty much in the anti-slick rebellion and there is so much to say and do with it.

What you are likely to see is a migration from the utterly rough to an intense industrial motif that is only slightly rough just by way of materials and manufacturing methods.  That’s not the same as the very rough, some say “crude”, finish that I have been doing, but it is still a strong contrast to the slick glass and brushed titanium electronic motif.

At some point you may see me launch an actual product, I mean using mass production methods and all.  Then you should expect me to aim for a minimalist and highly functional design, one that aesthetically offers some contemplative novelty.  It won’t be a rebeelion against the slick, but perhaps may still poke fun at the seriousness of the electronic aesthetic.  I will aim for a rich design, yet the celebration of endless deliberate and random variation of the unique works of art that is these pieces, will of course be impossible unless, ……  Hmmm. that gives me an idea…..

If you are still reading this, I am impressed.

-       roger

My Flaming Post

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I spent the evening bending wire and pouring little bits of concrete, but I’ve determined that photos of messy goopy cement is not nearly so interesting as seeing me play with a white hot flame.  So I’m posting this photo instead that Mary took of me a few days ago.

For non-welders out there, this is an oxy-acetylene torch.  It’s very old school, but works great!  Its very hot and makes metal flow in little tiny rivers that I can direct this way and that to shape into art.

Tuesday I’ll go back to being Clarke Kent, making user experiences for tax preperation. Or is this Clark Kent?  Oh, maybe they’re both Clark Kent?  Do I slip into a phone booth to change into another Clark kent wearing differnt clothes?  Whatever.

-roger

Gardens & Glass

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I have long been an admirer of glass artist Dale Chihuly. A fellow University of Washington School of Art alumni, he is one of the great contemporary artists of our time. So, when Mary and I heard there was an installation in the Dallas Arboretum, it was not a matter of if, but when we would take a saunter through the grounds. It had to be after my own art obligations to the BIG(D)ESIGN 2012 Conference had been delivered and I had a chance to recover from the intense art creating time of the past few months.  So finally the day came when MyPhoneHenge was history and I was ready to go take in the spectacular mix of art and garden scenery.

The glass work, composed by a team of glass artists with Chihuly directing like a fine tuned machine, has become well-known for its organic forms and exuberant patterns as well as the vivid colors and light properties. The almost floral nature of the images has made the blending of these objects into a garden environment one of those mixes that makes you say, “Yes. Of course”.

Chihuly’s work can be seen in permanent exhibits in many public settings and the past few years has been seen in outdoor settings such as this one. The overcast day was perfect for getting some great photos of these pieces in the garden landscape. Here are some of my photos to enjoy here on my site.

Photographing art is also art. Photography to me is always about going in search of compelling compositions that show us some wonderful view of the subject that we might have otherwise missed. In this expedition, some of the images are of the glass alone while others are more about the unique view at the moment as the art interacts with light, shadow, and reflections, and other elements in the garden.

Some of these take on a painting-like motif, which I find particularly interesting since that’s how Dale Chihuly defines them in the first place, using quick spontaneous two-dimensional art to direct his staff in their creation.

As you can see, some of the most spectacular art in the gardens wil remain after the glass is gone.

- roger

Geek Iconic MyPhoneStone

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So is this MyPhoneStone on steroids? Ouch, sore subject these days.  Coincidentally, the first of these pieces go to a bicyclist friend of mine from Texas.  No, not who you’re thinking of.  This Guy is also a motorcyclist and techy UX design geek,  AND one of my Kickstarter supporters.  Remember Kickstarter?  Yes, I am still diligently fulfilling my promises and most of them are met. And here’s one more.  And this one is cool!

I like it when I get excited about something I’ve created.  Trust me; it doesn’t always happen on the first try.  Much sweat and bruises and burns and ideas tried and tweaked and tried again until it gets to the cool.  I’ve got an abrasion from the wire brush wheel to prove it!

Making things that have function almost makes this into work.  But rest assured, though these are functional, they are ART first.  And that is what makes this fun.  Art + geeky tech stuff has to be fun!  Isn’t that one of the laws of thermodynamics?

Practical minded thrifty people – If you just want a thing to set your phone on, I’m sure Radio Shack has something just right for you. And be sure to show your card for your free battery.  Hmmm, do they still do that?  BestBuy has a whole freaking aisle or two of plastic gizmos and stands for your smartphone.  And you can borrow my Reward Zone card!  This is not that.

What this is? Remember when you went to see the Eiffel Tower or the empire State Building, or Statue of Liberty, or some other big thing?  Anyway, remember as you were leaving, you forked over a twenty for some plastic or tinny molded mini-me of the thing to commemorate your visit?   This is more like that.  To those who attended BIG(D)ESIGN either of the past two years and saw MyPhoneHenge or MyFavoriteMachine up close in person, owning a MyPhoneStone is like the mini-Eiffel tower experience except for one very important difference.  We are pretty certain that cute little tower you brought home from France was not actually made by Mr. Eiffel himself. Get it?

Every one of these MyPhoneStones is unique art, signed by the artist, numbered, and photo-documented.  No two are identical (How boring would that be?) The supply is limited to until I get too caught up doing other kinds of art to spend time on these.  And know that I have LOTS of other even more fantastic ideas in mind!  So here’s a tip – don’t count on there being an endless supply of original MyPhoneStones.

In case you still don’t quite get it (I’m sure you do, I just want an excuse to talk more about it) the motif blends the tall monolithic image of the large scale art with the icons that were contain in each one. Remember those icons made from real world objects that were intended to make fun of the metaphorical iconography of virtual devices? Its “physical virtual, low tech rendering of high tech subject matter, ironic, iconic art“.  I know, it seems I am having way too much fun with this!

Imagine making your own little arrangement of MyPhoneHenge using real phones!  They also work great for the classic iPod and totally killer for showing off your business cards!   And please please whatever you do, have fun!

- roger