Adaptive Path Blog

A few weeks ago, we wrote some ideas for Starbucks’ delivery of service. Starbucks is now putting forth ideas of their own.

15 free social media eBooks and white papers.

“Touch is a research project that investigates Near Field Communication (NFC), a technology that enables connections between mobile phones and physical things.”

Origins of the iChat user interface…. originally drawn in ClarisWorks! (Oh lord, I remember ClarisWorks. I loved ClarisWorks. Amazing capability, and it fit on a floppy.)

A couple of interesting mobile UI videos. Tilt your N95 to pan around an image. Slide a stylus across soft keys for faster typing.

Innovation in Experiential Services. A bit academic for some, but meaty, with good mini-case studies.

Big congrats to Adam on his new gig!

Hmm. Telepathic chat. Hmm.

Mark Vanderbeeken of the inestimable Putting People First blog conducted a lively and engaging interview with Bruce Sterling about his experience in Turin and programming the SHARE festival. (Does Sterling’s involvement in SHARE mean he’s abandoned SXSW Interactive?)

We’ve signed up as an iPhone developer (it’s free!) to get access to the latest iPhone Human Interface Guidelines. Interesting stuff.

Read about the development of the Wii Balance Board.

Learn about Twitter in Plain English. Cut-outs are fun!

TOUCH THE BUNNY.

Our Glorious Mobile Future, as told to the BBC by folks at Nokia. (Hey, Raphael!)

The folks at The New York Times actually appreciate the avatar on Alaska Airlines’ site. Ms. Boo 2.0?

The politics wonks in our office are fiddling with CNN’s Delegate Counter.

View all the presentations from Customer Service is the New Marketing Summit.

Coming soon to a presentation slide near you.

How would you reenergize Starbucks? (I bet it wouldn’t take you much to come up with better ideas than what’s in this piece.)

We want to visit Design and the Elastic Mind.

Real insight into product development with Building the Perfect Laptop.

Neurosky.

We’re thinking of attending Adam and Sara’s Sustainable Design Seminar.

Design principles for medical devices in the home.

Compare the best in user experience practices.

Emerging technology for 2008.

Listen to the Mozilla team talk mobile.

Apple’s gesture patents.

Geek graffiti.

Some of us are going to TransitCamp.

Mobile UI Wiki.

David Pogue smacks down obviously bad product design.

Creating a firm culture that supports innovative design

We loved watching the interaction toys of all the election coverage this past week.

The most awesome industrial design you’ll see this week.

CMU’s podcast of Dick Buchanan’s closing keynote speech at Emergence.

Interactions Magazine is now online. Read up.

All the links you can handle regarding Google’s Social Graph API.

Shaun Inman shows the role geometry played in the Mint logo.

Easy podcast recording remotely using a few cheap tools.

Blink Interactive shares their informal design library. Neat stuff.

If Tufte redesigned the iPhone. And, a response.

Some controversial thoughts on debunking the Tipping Point.

As our primary goal with Charmr was to generate enthusiasm for human-centered thinking and thus inspire broader change throughout the medical device and design industry, we’ve been glad to see the project getting some press.

Most recently, Charmr appeared in the NY Times online (1/14/08):

New York Times: Function Dysfunction

In her discussion of dysfunctional and unsustainable product design trends, Allison Arieff cites Charmr as an example of designers’ growing sense of conscience. Her article provoked over a hundred comments suggesting other products due for a rethink — rich fodder for innovation.

http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/function-dysfunction/

“Consumers are also getting into the act, pushing companies to tackle the products, improvements and functions that we truly need as opposed to those they think we’ll desire…. The sort of design innovation that [Amy] Tenderich is after is about much more than aesthetics or styling; it is really about improving quality of life. No one needs much convincing that this is a huge potential growth area for the health and medical care industries. Certainly Adaptive Path didn’t. The San Francisco-based design consultancy contacted Tenderich and agreed to accept her challenge; their prototype, called the Charmr (below), is not in production but may help guide future design improvements (and it fits on a keychain!).”

Business Week: Designing for Diabetics

The concept also appeared in the web version of a BusinessWeek article on Designing for Diabetics (09/21/07).

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/sep2007/id20070921_545251_page_3.htm

Google encourages people to contribute knowledge to Knol

YouTube adds visual search

Curb your energy vampires next year

Looking for a great holiday gift?

Trajan is the movie font

Adam Greenfield socializes his anti-social network

Odd iPod Accessories

Data Visualization of Gangsta Rap

Lastly, something to think about as your prepare for the next year:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
— Mark Twain

Like many in our field, we’re intrigued by what Google’s up to with Android. Interview with the folks behind Android. Though, some are frustrated because, really, there is no gPhone.

Speaking of phones, PARC is trying to make a truly smart phone.

Multi-touch with the Wii-mote.

Multitouch with $2 worth of dye.

Speaking of multi-touch, in case you missed it when it first came around, a proof-of-concept for copy and paste on the iPhone.

The 50 Greatest Game Innovations, according to BusinessWeek.

Nokia’s haptic touchscreen.

Ethics in service design.

Dan Saffer brought to Adaptive Path an exercise for designing the interface for an elevator that accesses 1000 floors. So, naturally, we’re intrigued by this collection of interesting elevators from around the world.

A client asked us for some advice on how to get the most out of working with Adaptive Path (or any design firm, for that matter). We polled the staff, and put our responses into an essay.

Enjoy!

It’s been awhile since we published Signposts. Here are links we’re sending around the office:

Michael Wesch, the KSU anthropology professor most famous for his The Machine is Us/ing Us video, released two new videos: Information R/evolation and A Vision Of Students Today.

Clay Shirky on arrogance and humility as qualities of design.

Folks here are excited about She’s Geeky.

Near to the hearts of the Charmr team: Human factors and medical devices.

O’Reilly on the Long Tail of Facebook Apps. Oops, actually, it’s not really a long tail.

The interactive video for Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible.

The Institute of Design’s Electronic Learning Record project intrigues us.

Smackdown: Design vs Design Thinking. (Stop The Madness!)

The answers to Christina’s question, “What do you consider the greatest challenges in designing for social media/software/networks?” are quite provocative.

Bioengineering: Apply Directly To The Forehead!

Our friends at Punchcut have designed a poster on social networking insights.

Metrics for healthy communities.

Musings on Facebook from an (articulate) 8th grader.