Saturday, March 09, 2013

Tuto mobile workstation helps analysts study sea turtles

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A new mobile workstation called Tuto by 2y1dea is an ideal sea turtle care machine for people who work in the sea or are engaged in taking care of sea animals. By Designbuzz

Building adaptive capacity

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As social, economic and ecological conditions continue to worsen and with the increasing sophistication and connectivity of information technology and social media, design for sustainability is now moving towards a new qualitatively different area of exploration: designing to build adaptive capacity. By Michael Sammet

Design Thinking: A useful myth

A powerful myth has arisen upon the land, a myth that permeates business, academia, and government. It is pervasive and persuasive. But although it is relatively harmless, it is false. The myth? By Don Norman

How low can you cellphone limbo?

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AKA how simple can you design a mobile phone? Pretty darn simple. Designer Andrew Kim had a qualm with the HTC group, that being the fact that there’s no real perfectly simple way to differentiate between lots of “lower-end” phones and “premium models”, especially in the HTC line. By Yanko Design

What Your Web Design Says About You (Infographic)


Font and color choices in a website say certain things about the owner of the site. By Dona Collins

Softshell Velomobile

SoftShell Velomobile

Gone are the days of the usual 4-seater vehicles. Almost every car manufacturer looks towards making a model which would be another run off the mil. By Design Buzz

"Float" App Adds Easy-Reading Interfaces To Your Social Media Feeds

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It's like Readability meets Twitter, but with a couple extra touches that make the reading experience smoother than ever. By John Pavlus

YouTube Redesigns Channel Pages: The Biggest Opportunities for Improvement



When are we NOT in the mood to go view a viral video? Whenever we get the urge, we typically head over to YouTube to see the best videos surfacing up all around the Internet. By ZurBlog

Don Norman: The three ways that good design makes you happy

What is HCI?

iPhone's Home button

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Apple notoriously applies for tons of patents, very few of which will make it into actual products. This one is interesting from a UI perspective. By Core77

Friday, March 08, 2013

MINI Folding Bike Lime

MINI Folding Bike Lime

MINI's new folding bike brings a splash of color to the streets and showcases a fascinating and versatile new way to get around. The eye-catching lime punch-coloured bike guarantees confidently stylish visibility on the roads and is perfectly suited for commuters.

Ergonomic Table For Your Laptop

It’s an age-old agenda, to have the perfect setup that allows you to work on the computer endlessly and yet maintain the correct posture. By Yanko Design

Unicorn



Of the recent concepts using Windows Phone OS, I think the Alcatel Concept Unicorn Phone has my vote for being designed differently. By Yanko Design

Why Ebay Redesigned To Look More Like Pinterest



Why does the new eBay look a lot like Pinterest? Envy? Maybe. By Fast Company

5 Lessons In UI Design, From A Breakthrough Museum



Museums today compete for attention in a wildly difficult environment: If you’re a youngster, why stare at a Greek urn when you could blow one up in a video game? By Fast Company

Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Why It’s Important to Sketch Before You Wireframe



Have you ever had an idea for a website or application? It’s easy to come up with the idea, but the hard part is understanding how that idea will take shape in user interface form. This is where sketching is useful. By UX Movement

The Difference Between Information Architecture and UX Design

The Fundamentals of Experience Design

“What’s the difference between Information Architecture and User Experience?” The line always seems to blur between the two, even though there’s clearly a difference. By UX Booth

A Look Inside Mobile Design Patterns

Tours

Design patterns for mobile are emerging as the platform matures. By UX Booth

Designing for Mobile



The first thing we need to understand about mobile design is that it’s different – and not just with regards to size. By UX Booth

A Loose Heuristic for Mobile Design

Hampton Catlin's list of design principles for the mobile web is based on his experience designing Wikipedia Mobile. By UX Booth

Design for Readability



Compared to their print counterparts, the web versions of many magazines give readers a decidedly poor reading experience. Most websites follow a lackluster design model. Will digital publications ever be able to compete with the reading experience that printed ones have bought readers to expect? By UX Booth

Designing for Behavioral Change in Health




Designing applications to encourage a certain kind of behavior (especially with regards to health) is a rapidly emerging subfield of interaction design. Best practices are constantly evolving. By UX Booth

Conducting Usability Research for Mobile

Cyd Harrell talks about conducting user research on mobile devices. By User Interface Engineering

Is Google Glass Limiting or Liberating?

We've moved beyond devices. Our smartphones, our tablets have become extensions of ourselves. And the most perfect example of this is Google's upcoming glasses Certainly, it's the most organic, electronic extension. Yet it might be the most limiting. By ZurBlog

3 Ways Apple Actually Innovates

5 Rules for Designing Like Apple



Read the article here

4 Benefits of Unmoderated User Testing

Product designers are rushing to adapt to our increasingly mobile world. With advancements in tools that allow us to record behavior and collect data quickly, they are turning to unmoderated user testing so they can test without facilitator bias. By ZurBlog

Don't App Block Your Users

Stop me if this has happened to you. You're standing in a long checkout line, bored to tears. So you pull out your smartphone to what's going on in the world. But when you open your browser to your favorite news source, you've hit a block. An app block, to be precise. By ZurBlog

The Complexity of Simplicity

What does "simple" actually mean? People can always tell when something is simple, uncomplicated, elegant, not overworked, or a number of other near-synonyms, but can rarely articulate why something is simple. By UX Magazine

Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Tactile mobile phone for the blind



Unlike typical cell phones which rely on claw grip or finger tip action, 'touching' utilizes palms for an ergonomic user experience. By Design Boom

Dreamer two-in-one pen and stylus by udo studio



See more here

Volvo v40 helps save lives with deployable pedestrian airbags



After originally debuting at the 2012 geneva motor show, swedish auto manufacturer volvo has released the 'V40', which is equipped with a handful of high-tech safety features, including the world's first pedestrian airbag system. sensors located in the front bumper can detect contact between a person, causing a pyrotechnic charge to blow the front hood in an upward position, deflecting the user away from the windshield into a cushioned airbag. active at speeds between 20-50km/h, the system reacts in hundredths of a second. By Design Boom

Microsoft’s Vision Of The Future Is Trapped In A Box



Read article here

Replace Your iPhone Interface With A Dieter Rams Classic



Read the article here.

Why The Human Body Will Be The Next Computer Interface



By now you’ve probably heard a lot about wearables, living services, the Internet of Things, and smart materials. By Fast Company

Fuseproject Remakes The Game Of Golf



Cyclists have Strava. Skiers have EpicMix. Even casual athletes have devices like Fuelband. Golf, on the other hand, is different. Read the article here

8 Brilliant Concepts For The Future Of Wearable Tech



Wearables are taking over. Whether it’s the Jawbone Up or an Apple iWatch, gadgets that live on our bodies will give rise to a level of data about ourselves and our environments that we’ve never had before. By Fast Company

V-tent solar-panel parking system

One of the main reasons why electric vehicles have failed to take off as the primary means of personal transport is that the infrastructure to keep these vehicles charged hasn’t really been developed at the same level as the ones for fuel run vehicles. By Designbuzz

The Magical iWatch with Naturalistic gestures

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Apple has a long history of creating new products in open with wide publicity,but its iWatch is being created in a fortified closet where about 100 workers are working on it. By Designbuzz

Realizing the UCD Method Exploration Tool


This tool is an online platform where user-centered design professionals can explore and compare UCD methods, developed by Tristan Weevers within the Design for Usability research project. Read the article here

The Port Vieux Pavilion: A Mirrored Canopy Constructed on a French Wharf

The Port Vieux Pavilion: A Mirrored Canopy Constructed on a French Wharf mirrors France architecture

Recently unveiled in Marseille, France this giant mirrored canopy called the Port Vieux Pavilion was designed by architecture firm Foster + Partners. By Colossal

Monday, March 04, 2013

Audio interview with Clement Mok


Clement Mok is an award winning designer, digital pioneer, software publisher, app developer, author and design patent holder. By The Design Observer

Friday, March 01, 2013

This Amazing Bionic Hand Can Actually Feel Someone’s Touch



About 50% of amputees don’t use their prosthesis because of relatively basic issues of design--comfort, aesthetic, and controllability. By Fast Company

Fresh From TED: A Mind-Blowing App That Could Remake Mobile Retail

Fresh From TED: A Mind-Blowing App That Could Remake Mobile Retail

What You Click Is What You Wear, which Lee developed alongside Daewung Kim, is a means to try on clothing virtually. It’s not intended to be a shopping platform, but rather a working prototype of what’s possible “when information lives in our space.” By Fast Company

How Grocery Store Design Is Wrecking The Planet

How Grocery Store Design Is Wrecking The Planet

At the supermarket, every soccer mom is a queen. Because even the most mundane of Super Walmart contains edibles from around the globe, some fresh, some manufactured through millions of hours of food science. There’s a whole global food economy doing our bidding. By Fast Company

Keepod, The Desktop That Fits In Your Wallet, Takes On Israel

Credit cards, key cards, identification cards, but what about computer cards? Wouldn’t it be great if you could carry all your computer information with you on a card that fits nicely into you wallet? And wouldn’t it be even greater if on top of computer information, this card could store all your digital information? By No Camels

The 12 Trends That Will Rule Products In 2013

Think 2013 will spell the end of good old analog and human interaction? Eh, not so fast.  By Fast Company

Monday, February 25, 2013

17 of the Most Mysterious Corporate Labs



Everyone from giant defense contractors to retailers like Walmart and Nordstrom are putting their brightest minds in dedicated labs to attempt to jump ahead of the competition. Here's where they do it. By Yahoo

Puma's biomimetic mobium runner

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Sneaker innovation (or the Footwear Novelty Gimmick Contest, depending on your point of view) continues. Hot on the heels of Reebok's crazy ATV-style shoe and Adidas' Boost foam comes Puma's Mobium Runner, a sneaker that "expands and contracts with your foot." By Core77

Light Saber Can For The Sight Impaired!



The Eye Stick reinvents the traditional cane! It removes the inconveniences caused by a traditional cane for the blind and replaces it with scientifically enhanced saber-like device. Its designed not to be very long and uses rays and ultrasonic sensors to determine distance measurement, and thus help the sight impaired to navigate their surroundings safely. By Yanko Design

DeskSpace Phone



The DeckSpace Phone is more of a prototyping experiment focused on designing a phone with a new user experience. By Yanko Design

IDEO's Paul Bennett

Thursday, February 21, 2013

How your smartphone will get smarter


We all have our fantasies, we just don't always make them public. But for these tech-savvy designers, sharing their wildest dreams and making them a reality is what it's all about. So, here are 12 of the weirdest and most wonderful phone concepts from the last few years. <!-- -->
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Some might be made, most probably won't, but we can all indulge in a a flight of fancy from time to time. For American designer Michael Laut, the Radia concept phone is all about simplicity: Sleek, circular, transparent, touch-sensitive and small enough to slide in his top pocket.














Today's smartphones are much more than phones -- they are powerful, networked multimedia computers, and over the next 10 years they'll get far more advanced. As a result, mobility is transforming many day-to-day processes -- including how we sell, communicate, collaborate, train, and educate. By CNN

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Using Mind Maps for UX Design: Part 2 – Research Maps

How to use mind maps to create “sketch maps” that organize ideas in a tree-based structure where sketches are used as the way to illustrate those concepts. Mind maps have many other applications for UX designers. This article will focus on how to use mind maps for user research. By Inspire UX

 See Part 1 here

How Design of Mobile Apps Can Promote Healthier Behavior

To help cut health-care costs and enable consumers to live longer, healthier lives, companies can entice people to health technologies if they woo them into sharing and celebrating, a design consultant says. By The WSJ

Can This Design Student Build An Open-Source Alternative To GPS?



Maps are power. Those who draw them control the public’s access to the world at a fundamental level--for example, in the 1500s, maps of the New World were worth their weight in gold. These days, we rely on the Global Positioning System, developed by the Department of Defense during the Cold War. Though it’s publicly accesible, GPS is still a closed system, meaning the government can shut it down or edit it as they see fit. By Fast Company

Sunrise app

Sunrise App: It’s A New Dawn For Google Calendar

A new iPhone app reskins GCal and invites your Facebook friends to the party. By Fast Company

5 Design Challenges That Could Derail Apple’s iWatch

The Nike+ Sportwatch, powered by a TomTom GPS. The relative simplicity of that integration belies the difficulty of creating an iWatch.

Frog’s Chief Creative Officer Mark Rolston and Disney Research visionary Ivan Poupyrev share their thoughts on Apple’s blitz for your wrist--namely, that a company most recently focused on "thinner, faster, and lighter" will need to remember a more important point: practicality. By Fast Company

Why You Shouldn’t Call Yourself A Social Good Designer

Frog’s Robert Fabricant discusses the work his firm is doing to design new solutions to improve health outcomes in the developing world, but why he never calls it "giving back." By Fast Company

Monday, February 18, 2013

A deeply thought-out plan for EV charging stations



To see more electric vehicles on our roads, we'll need to build more stations for charging them. WXY's new report shows us how to get started. By Fast Company

Bridge design

The whiteboard at Path where all the magic happens.

A new program by the designer fund will pair great designers with great startups.  By Fast Company

Fleksy

An Incredible Keyboard App That Lets You Type Without Looking At Your Screen

Ioannis Verdelis and Kostas Eleftheriou, the two Greek computer scientists behind Fleksy, didn’t just set out to make a better touch-screen keyboard. By Fast Company

4 Lessons from the web’s most ruthlessly addictive site



With its four-foot-long home pages and hundreds of sidebar images, the Mail online breaks every rule of web design. By Fast Company

Bosch automated driving and assisted transportation systems

bosch automated driving and assisted transportation systems
As self-driving cars continue to progress in new technological developments, new safety measures are being introduced to reduce accidents and pedestrian casualties. By Designboom

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Looking beyond user-centered design

UX design is the discipline: what we do. Precise definition is elusive, but most attempts focus on experience as an explicit design objective. By A List Apart

Infographic: the intricate anatomy of ux design



This mega graphic attempts to tackle the relationship between ux and all other aspects of design. By Fast Company

User experience in startups

Making a fresh start with a new organization is always an exciting time, isn’t it? Especially when that organization is a startup. By UX Matters

Storyboarding in the Software Design Process



Using storyboards in software design can be difficult because of some common challenges and drawbacks to the tools we have. The good news is that there’s a new, free tool that tries to address many of these issues. By UX Magazine

Smittybilt G.E.A.R.

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For those who live in areas where burglary isn't a problem, a car can be a handy place to store things. By Core77

Can BlackBerry rebrand through its products?

BlackBerry UK homepage with new visual language

When BlackBerry reminded everyone that it still existed this week with the launch of two new smartphones, commentators were falling over each other to announce that the company had ‘bet the house’ on the new products, which marked ‘one last throw of the dice’. By Design Week

Apple’s Troubling Quest to Trademark Store Design

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Giving heat to the ongoing debate about the intellectual property rights in the architecture and design world, Apple has recently obtained a new registered trademark certificate from the U.S Patent & Trademark authority in order to cover its architecture, which can be called as the biggest aesthetic asset of Apple. By Design Buzz

Monday, February 11, 2013

Design Thinking at IDEO

Understanding Customer Journey Mapping

Expresso maker, designed for your microwave



Brewing world-class coffee is fairly inexpensive. All you need is a grinder and a kettle and some sort of combination of a funnel and filter. Good espresso ups the ante by about tenfold. By Fast Company

The inside story of Ubuntu's gesture-centric smartphone



No home button. No lock screen. The open-source smartphone is all about gestural interfaces--but does it go too far? By Fast Company

Mailbox

Ideo and Apple alums reinvent mobile email. By Fast Company

The world's 50 most innovative comapnies 2013



Fast Company's annual guide to the of innovation in our economy. By Fast Company

Friday, February 01, 2013

Eco-Airliner



The Ecologic Aircraft by designer Daphnis Fournier aims to be the first fully electric passenger plane, utilizing an inflatable structure above the main cabin that contains flexible photovoltaic panels to collect solar energy while flying above the clouds. By Yanko Design