Sometimes the best interfaces are the simplest: take this touch screen interface for the NTT ICC (Tokyo) entitled Micro Presence by Kenji Kohiyama, masahiko Morita, Tatsuya Saito and Shuheu Wemler from Keio University. Having photographed insects at super-high resolution, the best way to engage visitors was to show the insects real size and allow anyone […]
Category Archives: universal design
odorous oeuvre
Soap Opera is a conceptual product by sovrappensiero meant to act as a painting for the blind. A picture frame made of perfumed soap is touched with hands moistened by a sponge under the upturned corner of the frame. While offering different colors to the sighted viewer, they provide a far richer experience to the […]
Also posted in art, materials, perception, tangible
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interfaces for museumgoers
While on vacation in France recently, I had the fortune to visit a few of the world’s leading museums, both in terms of the art displayed and the incredible quality of the exhibit design itself. Museums serve different roles for different people – as tourist destinations, research institution, and entertainment complexes. The spatial complexity of […]
Also posted in art, augmented reality, exhibit design, tangible
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design for durability
The OLPC has driven important innovations in open software, hardware, universal design and environmental sustainability in order to be cheap and durable enough for widespread use in developing countries. At this week’s unveiling of new designs for second-generation laptops, I spotted this interesting exhibit on the design touches that make the OLPC stand out in […]
Also posted in children, conviviality, customization, environment, fabrication, free & open, futurecraft, open objects, product design, supply chain, upcycling
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open threads 3
Burdastyle is an open-source sewing resource where members upload patterns and visitors can consult instructional references (below) or download pdf patterns (above). By providing instructions for how to sew at the same time as open source ‘code’ for what to sew the site is a real open source free fashion resource. As with free software, […]
Also posted in blogogracy, customization, fabrication, fashion, free & open, futurecraft, materials, open objects, product design, soft/glowing
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touch map 2
Another beautiful bronze map in Braille – this time in my favorite city (Firenze), in the middle of Piazza Repubblica, a large cast map of the city center with tactile labels on monuments and ridges on the river to indicate the direction of the current. More on Flickr.
Also posted in 3d, architecture, perception, tangible, visualization
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open wide
As Mako Hill argued in his presentation at CHI 2008, the best software is made by users and not by designers. The best examples are targeted applications made for niche applications, such as odontolinux, a free and open dental office management software based on Debian. Together with Open Dental (pictured), another open-source (but not free) […]
Also posted in free & open, open objects
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one accessory per child
The brilliant Mike Lee invented a viewfinder for the OLPC‘s built-in digital camera (a perfect example of futurecraft) and has already made rapid prototypes – check them out below:
Also posted in blogogracy, children, conviviality, open objects, product design
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