"

Humans are not interested in computers or the internet.

Humans are interested in information.
Computers are just a means to getting information, just like TV was before internet came along, or like radio and print before that.

Humans just want information, so they can develop knowledge…and over time gain wisdom.

The physical design of things that allow us to access information should be focussed on enabling this direct interaction between the human and the information. Design should ideally get out of the way or enable the interactions to take place in the most elegantly simplistic way as possible. The physical form of the object plays a very important role here because it has to connect the perception of the object in eyes of the human to its actual function.

Yes, Industrial design of these objects is no longer about the style or the function of the device. In the era of rapid change in technology and convergence of function allowed by digitalness of content, Design of information objects is really about designing the perception of what the object does and conveying it as clearly as possible.

People who are fluent in stories and rituals of everyday life, can absorb nuances of human behavior, in addition to experimenting with new technologies will be best suited to designing such objects.

"

— Srikanth Jalasutram , with inspiration from Pranav Mistry, Hugh Dubberly, David Bingham, Richard Buchanan, Klaus Krippendorf, Jef Raskin, Fabio Sergio, Nathan Shedroff, Jonathan Ive, Michelle de Luchchi, Kevin byrd, Stefan Sagmeister, Stefan kjartansson,Farbod Kokabi, Kenya hara and Naoto Fukasawa..among many others

9:56 am  •  5 March 2010

Ha!

Data, Information, knowledge and Wisdom..what is the relationship? How can we design systems and machines which will enable us to be wiser ? (via) Nathan Shedroff

i’ve been munching on this thought for so looooooong! but very very coincidentally,Nathan Shedroff wrote a paper on it in 1994!

this is proof that the world is full of smart people who are thinking the same thoughts as you are..

9:30 am  •  5 March 2010

"If you want to run a country ,politics is essential. It is not that it is of no use. But the politician also must be aware of what culture is because any nation’s identity is through (its) culture, not how much economic or political power it has. They get wiped out in the history. All big civilisations get wiped out. What has remained is culture - Through artifacts found, you see how age old people used to live and what was the manner. Through that you study the culture of people living in those times, not through what the Constitution was. Constitution is just a piece of paper."

—

I am a citizen of the world, says MF Husain

Hussain was one of the first artists to emerge from Independent India, whose works had a global appeal. He just relinquished his indian citizenship when he accepted the citizenship offered by Qatar.

8:53 am  •  4 March 2010

a very relevant presentation centered around the human-centeredness of emerging technologies.

idlaurenn:

Can designers affect user behavior enough to create lasting change in the healthcare industry? How can we use biomedical feedback to improve technology? (via DesignMind)

8:32 am  •  2 March 2010

"We use people to find content. We use content to find people.
Success in the former requires we know what other people know and who other people know.
Success in the latter demands good search, navigation and content management systems.
We might also think of the documents themselves as “human surrogates,” representing the knowledge and interests of authors.
And of course, we humans also serve as surrogates for one another."

—

Social Network Analysis by Peter Morville

this is a really nice articulation of some of the thoughts that I have been having..

6:54 am  •  2 March 2010

Imagine sweating every single detail like this. That’s what it’s like to develop great iPhone apps.

11:55 pm  •  1 March 2010

From an interview with Charlie Miller, winner of the Pwn2Own contest two years running:

Q: In your opinion, which is the safer combination OS + browser to use?

That’s a good question. Chrome or…

11:55 pm  •  1 March 2010

They Stopped Digging

Good for Microsoft for starting over with a truly new UI and new developer APIs. There’s an old saying that when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Microsoft found…

7:57 pm  •  1 March 2010

Clifford Stoll, writing for Newsweek, did not foresee a bright future for the Web in 1995:

Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy books and…

3:46 pm  •  1 March 2010

The Mac Sale is again running a great bundle, $500 worth of applications for $49.99. The Mac Sale is a collaboration of The Escapers and MacZOT along with other Mac luminaries. This time the bundle…

3:46 pm  •  1 March 2010