The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston Since publishing the article about applying emotions to interaction design I’ve been fascinated by this subject, tackling questions like: How do you design animations that trigger positive emotions? What does it take to create a transition that feels vivid and is fun to use? Today [...]

ZEN (ZEISS Efficient Navigation) macht die phantastischen Möglichkeiten modernster Mikroskopietechnik für Kunden in Biomedizin und Materialkunde auf einfache Art zugänglich. Das Spektrum der Anwendung reicht von der Mikroskopsteuerung über die Bildaufnahme und Optimierung bis zu Analyse und Reporting. Gemeinsam mit Carl Zeiss Microscopy arbeiteten wir an der umfassenden Neukonzeption und Gestaltung der Software.

Der erste Eindruck sowie die ersten Tage und Wochen prägen unsere Beziehung zu digitalen Anwendungen nachhaltig. Ein guter Grund für die Deutsche Telekom Laboratories (T-Labs) diese Startup-Phase und kreative Methoden für den Umgang damit in einem Forschungsprojekt zu analysieren. Unter Leitung der T-Labs unterstützt Intuity T-Mobile dabei, die Start-Up-Phase beim Kennenlernen neuer Produkte und Services reibungslos und anregend zu gestalten.

Photo by dodge challenger1 Very quickly mobile computers (a.k.a Phones, Tablets, Communicators, …) have become our central hub to interact with the rest of the world. I’d like to talk a bit about something I’ve observed over the last months while using and crafting mobile interfaces. Because there is one particular aspect of an interface [...]

Finally I found the time to update my little lab project called “notabene”.  So this version (0.2) actually is a fully functional prototype. But let’s move on and face the facts: Things we’ve added All your stuff is now stored in a database notabene utilizes the new HTML5 database capabilities of Mobile Safari to store [...]

Last week it finally arrived at the office: Our long awaited iPad. No question that we took the chance to play with this cute device … The goal: Learn about rapid prototyping on the iPad with HTML5 Our goal was to explore the possibilities of the new device, especially its browser as Objective-C is really [...]

Photo by bovinity I’ve been crashing my MacBook with a software update this week. Horrible stuff! But hey, that’s life. Well, actually it’s not! I’ve thought about this for some time now but this ‘accident’ literally has been the last stroke that broke the camel’s back. This article is not meant to be a conclusion [...]

Due to lots of interesting stuff to do and heavy multitasking I haven’t had the time recently to sit down and write. But thankx to an application called OmmWriter I managed to escape the evil world of multitasking and to write this little article here exactly about this topic. These are my thoughts on multitaksing, [...]

Graphic taken from the awesome Book Generative Gestaltung Having recently talked about the importance of the first impression during a product experience, I’d like to share another insight on shaping experiences. A while ago I stumbled accross the work of Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and nobel-prize winner focusing on judgement and positive phsychology. It was [...]

Music: “When waves trying to catch marvel” by Antony Raijekov (Powered by Jamendo) These are fascinating times. We’re currently facing new challenges and projects that require a new kind of skillset for interaction designers. The tools we use to design experiences are getting more and more diverse and powerful at the same time. Actually our [...]

Watching the keynote presentation of the last Google I/O conference two things sticked in my mind: The sentence “Never underestimate the web” and the fact that geolocation features are already available in modern browers. LocalBuzz is an Intuity lab project inspired by these two thoughts. It’s focused on mashing up geolocation features and the twitter [...]

Photo by Matt Day (Licensed under Creative Commons) On behalf of Deutsche Telekom Laboratories we had the chance to work on a fascinating research project that lead to a paper titled “Love at First Encounter – Start-up of new Applications” [1] which has recently been presented at HCI 2009. It has also been published in [...]

Watch it in HD The goal: Learn how to make things talk In our ongoing process of analyzing and playing with the Internet of Things we had a deeper look at emerging technologies and trends in this context. In our office In our playground for the new ecology of things we wanted to experience what [...]

As Markus mentioned in a previous post we’re currently having a deeper look at the Internet of Things (enter your favorire buzzword here) phenomenon. Meanwhile we prefer using the term new ecology of things (shaped by the Media Design Program @ Art Center College of Design) when talking about this subject. Because ecology is not [...]

fontplore is an interactive applicaton for searching and digging into an online font database that has been created by Christian Hertlein and Markus Paeschke at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. It’s based upon the maeve installation and the Open-Source reacTIVision fiducial framework. What I really like about the project are the tangible objects that [...]

Photo by Guili-O Recently I stumbled across some thoughts and inspirations around the subjects of copyright, free culture and the future of media. I would like to share them because I think all of these are important subjects and that a lot more discussion is needed here. Chris Anderson: ‘Free – The future of a [...]

iPhone RFID: object-based media from timo on Vimeo. “This is a prototype of an iPhone media player that uses physical objects to control media playback. It is based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) that triggers various iPhone interactions when in the range of a wireless tag embedded inside a physical object.” via Touch Project (nearfield.org)

Photo by roambi.com “We declare all your important information free from the constraints of tables and cells. Use RoamBi to transform your existing data from a variety of sources into state-of-the-art, interactive visualizations for the iPhone.” – RoamBi.com Check out and play with the interactive demo on start page. It’s fun! What’s so great about [...]

3650 from Ubik on Vimeo. (via adv-rdrb, ventilate)

We’re moving towards a computing world that is more and more focused on mobile devices. Technologies like the iPhone, Android, Palm Web OS and Kindle have caused this transformation. I wanted to share some of my recent thoughts about creating and designing applications in this “new” mobile environment. In my opinion these gadgets have caused [...]

No, this is not an instruction for a new virtual group therapy. It’s a call to interface designers to be a bit more brave when it comes to including emotions in applications. People are driven by emotions. So it’s OK a must to include them in interfaces that speak and interact with human beings. Best [...]

Image by poken Poken is another online service lets you collect and share contacts. But there’s a difference to your usual online community: Poken is connected to the real world. Exchange through gestures You can buy your individual poken which is a small buddy that carries your contact information for you. Through a gesture you [...]

For all the the iPhone users that want to get back to the good old days when using mobile phones was a pain in the !$#?$. With the help of Zweiphone stickers can downgrade today! (via weeklydrop)

The guys that created Bumtop, a new 3D-Desktop metaphor, that finally brings some fun and innovation to the world of Operating Systems, recently created a big hype with an early stage prototype video on youtube. Now it’s time for the team to get down to business. Version 1.0 of Bumptop is now available for Windows. [...]

Apple has sneak previewed the next version of the iPhone OS yesterday. Besides the “huge innovation” of finally bringing Copy and Paste (btw “Shake to undo” is great) to the Phone, Apple has introduced some improvements that will enable third party developers to bring new innovation to the device. So what’s new and shiny in [...]

Over at core77 there’s an interesting Greener Gadgets Competition going on. You’ll find some innovative ideas there for example a power meter that twitters, monster stickers that glow on gadgets in standby, greener station lights, … Just have a look.

Seems like Amazon did their homework and finally realized that design matters. The new Kindle got a product design update. The new design – very applesque A lot of design details seem to be influenced by products designed in California. By the way, the new design is much thinner than the old one, even thinner [...]

Last.fm is releasing a personal radio client for the android platform. The app is well designed according to last.fm’s corporate design. Besides the video shows a first glimpse of what will be possible on android making use of the “Apps without borders” concept. In other words applications on platforms like the iPhone or Android are [...]

Photo by NCinDC ” Very likely, in the near future, I won’t “own” any music, or books, or movies. Instead I will have immediate access to all music, all books, all movies using an always-on service, via a subscription fee or tax.” “As cars become more ‘electronic’ or digital, they will tend to be swapped [...]

The Google timeline view “Viewzi brings all your favorite stuff together in one place in a new and highly visual way” I recently stumbled across this search service and I think it’s worth a deeper look. Browsing through its interface is a constant source of inspiration. Let’s have a look at what makes the service [...]

Image by plindberg “We are becoming people of the screen. The fluid and fleeting symbols on a screen pull us away from the classical notions of monumental authors and authority. On the screen, the subjective again trumps the objective. The past is a rush of data streams cut and rearranged into a new mashup, while [...]

Image by Research In Motion I recently had the chance to get my fingers on the new BlackBerry Storm. Which is kind of the RIM answer on the iPhone. By the way that’s one of the most underestimated features of the Apple Phone: It’s finally pushing user interface innovation in the mobile market. Hey it’s [...]

Image by Shepard Fairey When comunicating with clients and people Apple is always big a reference that one gets to mention when it comes to consistent design and storytelling. It seems a bit like people are getting tired to hear about that. Well now you’ve got another reference in your toolbox: Obama. According to adage.com [...]

Last friday it was lab time again. This time David Baur visited us to give us a presentation about his diploma thesis he did at the FH Gmünd in collaboration with Lena Billmeier. The project is called vision energy and is intended to “raise the public awareness of energy consumtion”. The presentation was great fun [...]

Photo by RcktManIL Daimler is starting an interesting car sharing project in Ulm, Germany. “Carmaker Daimler is set to start testing a new kind of car sharing service in the city of Ulm that the company says it hopes to export to the U.S. Daimler is calling the new service car2go, and it represents not [...]

Check out thestoryofstuff.com created by free range studios to see a great example of interactive storytelling. What I like about the intro is the focus on the main storyline. It’s always visible and clickable in the background. Sometimes it’s even integrated into the subchapters told at the front and sometimes it just gives you the [...]

Last friday it was lab time again. This time our dear fellow Daniel Utz visited our office to have a little chat about his new font FF Netto. It was a fun talk as he gave us a quick and interesting insight into the process of designing this crisp font and its accompanying icons. Be [...]

Photo by noPARK NoPark returns “no parking zones” … to low growth mosses and grasses … These microparks continue to provide emergency parking space for fire trucks and exasperated Fresh-direct delivery persons. But the other 99.9% of the time they now do something more … For all the same rationales that apply to green roofs, [...]

Photo by bittbox Just found out that Paul Coelho seems to be a blogger. On his blog he’s havin’ a conversation about the subject that he’s chosen to speak at the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair: Will books survive? I think he’s raising some interesting points that might scare a lot of people there. [...]

Image by Electric Pulp Alltop is an “online magazine rack” of popular topics. Tell us what you’re interested in, and we’ll bring you stories from the best websites and blogs on the topic.All the topics, all the time. Ok this tagline sounds kinda familiar. What’s the difference here to the stuff we’ve got right now? [...]