KashKlash is a lively platform where you can debate future scenarios for economic and cultural exchange. Beyond today’s financial turmoil, what new systems might appear? Global/local, tangible/intangible, digital/physical? On the KashKlash site, you can explore potential worlds where traditional financial transactions have disappeared, blended, or mutated into unexpected forms. Understand the near future, and help shape it!

Imagine yourself deprived of all of today’s conventional financial resources. Maybe you’re a refugee or stateless — or maybe it’s the systems themselves that have gone astray. Yet you still have your laptop, the Internet, and a broadband mobile connection. What would you do to create a new informal economy that would help you get by? What would you live on? E-barter? Rationing? Gadgets? Google juice? Cellphone minutes? Imagine a whole world approaching that condition. Which of today’s major power-players would win and lose, thrive or fail? What strange new roles would tomorrow’s technology fill?

Besides Bruce Sterling, the initial collaborators are Régine Debatty (of we-make-money-not-art), Nicolas Nova (LIFT) and Joshua Klein (author and hacker), who have been collaborating on initiating the discussion.

KashKlash is now opening up to you. You can join and follow the debate of our experts or contribute yourself by leaving a comment on the different matters or fill out our KashKlash questionnaire.

This public domain project is conceived and led by Heather Moore of Vodafone’s Global User Experience Team and run by Experientia, an international forward-looking user experience design company based in Turin, Italy.

Check the project description for more info.

Our latest initiative is Diana, a machine designed to satisfy existing and future needs of the beauty industry, based on an analysis of current trends, which was a winning entry at the Canavese Connexion a project to promote design by regenerating the Piedmont Canavese industrial area.

Experientia partner Jan-Cristoph Zoels worked as Design Director on Diana, with TECNO SYSTEM S.p.A, and the design team of Enrico Bergese (senior designer), Lorenzo Modarelli (junior designer, Industrial design), and past Experientia intern Ana Rink, (junior designer, Interaction Design).

The prototypes will be exhibited in Ivrea and Turin.

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“Self-disclosure has been redefined online. In Web 2.0, it’s led to blogs and Tweets, Facebook and instant messenger, each developed to help users share the inane minutiae of their lives with others.

But another kind of site has evolved — a type meant not to broadcast your life to others but to chart it for yourself, on password-protected sites accessible only to the user. A life examined to the point that Socrates himself might say, “Guys, that’s enough.” [...]

The Internet brims with sites that track just about every task that you perform on a given day (eating, sleeping, exercising) as well as the things your body does without direction (pumping blood, producing glucose, gaining weight).

Some of the seemingly goofier sites have practical purposes: RescueTime was meant to increase time-management skills among business types, MyMonthlyCycles was developed for women trying to conceive, and Basecamp helps colleagues complete joint projects remotely. But dedicated trackers can repurpose these sites for their own self-study — or use them as inspiration for their own, more intricate tools.”

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Promo text:

If you want to get started in new era of interaction design, this is the reference you need. Packed with informative illustrations and photos, Designing Gestural Interfaces provides you with essential information about kinesiology, sensors, ergonomics, physical computing, touchscreen technology, and new interface patterns — information you need to augment your existing skills in ‘traditional’ websites, software, or product development. This book will help you enter this new world of possibilities.

If you want to get ahead in this new era of interaction design, this is the reference you need. Nintendo’s Wii and Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch have made gestural interfaces popular, but until now there’s been no complete source of information about the technology.

Packed with informative illustrations and photos, this book helps you:

• Get an overview of technologies surrounding touchscreens and interactive environments
• Learn the process of designing gestural interfaces, from documentation to prototyping to communicating to the audience what the product does
• Examine current patterns and trends in touchscreen and gestural design
• Learn about the techniques used by practicing designers and developers today
• See how other designers have solved interface challenges in the past
• Look at future trends in this rapidly evolving field

Only six years ago, the gestural interfaces introduced in the film Minority Report were science fiction. Now, because of technological, social, and market forces, we see similar interfaces deployed everywhere. Designing Gestural Interfaces will help you enter this new world of possibilities.

Download Chapter 1

(via DdUX)

From the press release:
“Nokia Life Tools helps overcome information constraints and provides farmers and students with timely and relevant information. These services use an icon-based, graphically rich user interface that comes complete with tables and which can even display information simultaneously in two languages. Behind this rich interface, SMS is used to deliver the critical information to ensure that this service works wherever a mobile phone does, without the hassles of additional settings or the need for GPRS coverage. Nokia plans to launch the service in the first half of 2009 with the Nokia 2323 classic and the Nokia 2330 classic as the lead devices in India, and expand it across select countries in Asia and Africa later in 2009.”

Ken Banks, creator of FrontlineSMS, granted it a long article on PC World (copied on his blog) is enthusiastic:

“What’s particularly interesting from a technical standpoint is Nokia’s snub of GPRS in favor of SMS. With data connectivity still patchy at the best of times, and confusion surrounding configuration and price plans, text messaging once again demonstrates its ability to remain relevant.

So, what next? Nokia develops a mobile payment platform and embeds the client into all of its emerging market handsets? Imagine: A single company controlling the entire mobile technology value chain would make interesting viewing. It could well be the answer to the age old fragmentation problems suffered by the “social mobile” and ICT4D space, but would this give the Finnish giant Google-esque powers?

These are interesting times. And, for once, it’s the users at the bottom of the pyramid who stand to gain the most.”

Clinton Jeff from DarlaMack.com, also posted a big write-up.

She made it last week into the International Herald Tribune, and now you can read another story about her company Participle in Fast Company magazine. Both stories are written by the same author Alice Rawsthorn, but have a somewhat different angle.

Participle isn’t a conventional bunch of social workers or do-gooders. It’s a design team. Participle’s interdisciplinary crew includes anthropologists, economists, entrepreneurs, psychologists, social scientists, and a military-logistics expert, but it is driven by design techniques and headed by Cottam, 42, who also has used such strategies to tackle the shortcomings of Britain’s school and health systems. “Hilary’s — and my — favorite kind of design has to do with making people’s lives better, often taking account of their mundane daily concerns,” says Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “Her projects not only work, they give people a sense of hope and strength.”

Cottam is one of a new wave of design evangelists who are trying to change the world for the better. They believe that many of the institutions and systems set up in the 20th century are failing and that design can help us to build new ones better suited to the demands of this century. Some of these innovators are helping poor people to help themselves by fostering design in developing economies. Others see design as a tool to stave off ecological catastrophe. Then there are the box-breaking thinkers like Cottam, who disregard design’s traditional bounds and apply it to social and political problems. Her mission, she says, is “to crack the intractable social issues of our time.”

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“The word we use to describe this is “Context”, and we feel strongly that mobile devices will play a central role in establishing a context to the places and people in our lives.”

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“In this report we explore the dynamics of the role of mobile phones in enhancing access to and creating information and citizen-produced media. We explore trends in the use of mobile telephony with a focus on software and platforms that make content creation and broadcasting easier. We also present an inventory of current and potential uses of mobile phones to promote citizen media and freedom of information, and present short case studies of examples–all from the MobileActive.org community.”

We further discuss security considerations that might impact citizen media and freedom of information. Finally, we describe some direction for medium-term directions and donor investments. We invite additions, corrections, and new projects to make this as much of a living document as possible. To this end, we are addding A Mobile Voice to the MobileActive.org wiki after tomorrow to continue to add additional tools, case studies, and insights. We are looking forward to your feedback!”

Download report

During a speech at Mobile Monday Amsterdam, Bruce Sterling announced his next book “The Caryatids”.

According to Sterling, the book which will be published in February, is an “internet of things” book, set in the 2060’s, that “tries to describe what life is like in a working internet of things”.

Promo copy
In the vein of William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, The Caryatids looks at the near future and forecasts not just our problems, but incredible solutions using technology currently under development. The caryatids are three identical clone sisters: Vera, a pollution expert who’s dealing with worldwide cleanup efforts; Mila, media star extraordinaire and member of the most powerful family-firm in southern California; and Sonja, a medical specialist stationed deep within China’s Gobi Desert. All three have the brains and the talents desperately needed to save a world suffering from global warning, runaway pollution, and uncontrolled political maneuvering. Too bad their explosive family history has left them hating each other…

“As this study reveals, if we’re shown an object, we can often be very accurate and precise at being able to say whether we’ve seen it before. If we’re in a toy store and trying to remember what it was that our son wanted for his birthday, however, we need to be able to voluntarily search our memory for the right answer—without being prompted by a visual reminder. It seems that it is this voluntary searching mechanism that’s prone to interference and forgetfulness.”

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“When New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center wanted to make the chemotherapy process easier on patients three years ago, it sought help from an unusual place: the design firm IDEO Inc.

The IDEO consultants approached the problem the way they design eggbeaters or CD players: by closely watching patients and testing little changes.

The process delivered surprises. Clinic staffers thought patients disliked long waits for treatments. But patients said other worries were more stressful, so the clinic changed how patients are tested, how they learn about chemotherapy and how they get to the clinics. [...]

Sloan-Kettering’s work with IDEO comes as businesses increasingly tap the design world for fresh ideas on management. Some are struggling with new business models and unexpected rivals; others seek new approaches to old problems.

The article features other examples of businesses working with designers such as the New York public-radio station WNYC, a health insurer develop new products, an Asian telecommunications firm, Mexican cement company Productos Cementeros Mexicanos, and Mattel Inc.”

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No video or presentation download is as yet available, but several bloggers have it summarised.

Robert Fabricant of frog design focuses on his personal favourites and is an especially interesting read. Christine Huang of PSFK found especially interesting the principles that guide him and his team members when they’re conducting research in the field. Drew Cogbill wrote a more general summary.

Required reading for those doing research in emerging markets.

Preaching his story from a somewhat unconventional place, the pulpit instead of the stage, he managed to silence the audience.

Check the video to see what he had to say to the Mobile sinners.

(via InfoDesign)

User Experience is the quarterly magazine of the Usability Professionals’ Association (membership is a modest 100 USD) and its latest issue is devoted to usability in transportation. Here are the titles of the feature articles and you can find the abstracts online:

Taxi: Service Design for New York’s yellow cabs
By Rachel Abrams

Safer Skies: Usability at the Federal Aviation Administration
By Ferne Friedman-Berg, Ph.D, Kenneth Allendoerfer, Carolina Zingale, Ph.D, Todd Truitt, Ph.D.

Listen Up: Do voice recognition systems help drivers focus on the road?
By David G. Kidd, M. A., David M. Cades, M. A., Don J. Horvath, M. A., Stephen M. Jones, M. A., Matthew J. Pitone, M. A., Christopher A. Monk, Ph. D.

Get Your Bearings: User perspective in map design
By Thomase Porathe

Lost in Space: Holistic wayfinding design in public spaces
By Dr. Christopher Kueh

A Really Smart Card: How Hong Kong’s Octopus Card moves people
By Daniel Szuc

Recommendations on Recommendations: Making usability usable
By Rolf Molich, Kasper Hornbæk, Steve Krug, Josephine Scott and Jeff Johnson

Disclosure: my business partner Michele Visciola is on the editorial board of this magazine.

Interactions is the bimonthly publication of ACM. Better designed than User Experience, it has become, under the thoughtful leadership of Richard Anderson and Jon Kolko, both profound in its analysis and broad in its interests. At 55 USD for six issues, it is also a bargain.

Here is the latest harvest of articles, some of which you can actually find online:

Designing Games: Why and How
Sus Lundgren

An Evolving Map of Design Practice and Design Research
Liz Sanders

Signifiers, Not Affordances
Don Norman

User Experience Design for Ubiquitous Computing
Mike Kuniavsky

Cultural Theory and Design: Identifying Trends by Looking at the Action in the Periphery
Christine Satchell

Understanding Children’s Interactions: Evaluating Children’s Interactive Products
Janet C. Read, Panos Markopoulos

An Exciting Interface Foray into Early Digital Music: The Kurzweil 250
Richard W. Pew

Some Different Approaches to Making Stuff
Steve Portigal

Design: A Better Path to Innovation
Nathan Shedroff

A Call for Pro-Environmental Conspicuous Consumption in the Online World
Bill Tomlinson

Of Candied Herbs and Happy Babies: Seeking and Searching on Your Own Terms
Elizabeth Churchill

Experiencing the International Children’s Digital Library
Benjamin B. Bederson

Taken For Granted: The Infusion of the Mobile Phone in Society
Rich Ling

How Society was Forever Changed: A Review of The Mobile Connection
Brian Romanko

Audiophoto Narratives for Semi-literate Communities
David Frohlich, Matt Jones

Think Before You Link: Controlling Ubiquitous Availability
Karen Renaud, Judith Ramsay, Mario Hair

Disclosure: As of next year, I will be a contributing editor to the magazine (and I feel honoured to be in such esteemed company).