This video, produced one year ago, contains three concept designs by IDEO on the idea of “the future of the book”. For this exercise, I only picked the first concept–NELSON. Considering this as a high level concept, it is very easy to be mean by just critiquing anything. So I think a constructive critique would be either based on the concept: what might be some of the considerations if it were developed further, or what might some other features for the concept within the same theme. I chose the former one.

Since the goal of the concept is

to give users what they need to form their own opinions on important subjects.

then my first question is about the comment/debate section on the left column: I noticed that the type of media in the section is merely text, for the purpose of debate online with multimedia at hand, will images or videos sometimes be more desired?

Second, as the comments are going to be more and more, while the screen size is limited, what could be done to better assist the user filter through the comments based on their needs?

Third, if this is a debate about a subject, there  must be a conversation format, then how does the design help with separating a conversation thread with a single opinion to allow a better reading experience around the goal?

And last but not least, regarding to the media feature, the concept/story doesn’t feel complete: what can the users do with the media page? Can they delete not that related ones, or can they bookmark the ones they want to keep for further reference? What the tools allow the users to do will affect how well they can understand the subject, and further, how well they can form their own opinions.

Overall, this is a very interesting and feasible concept. As a high-level concept, it’s very well thought out and from a prototyping perspective, it is well executed. I hope to see it developed some day soon.

不止一位先贤指出, 一个人无论看到怎样的美景奇观, 如果他没有机会向人讲述, 他就决不会感到快乐. 人终究是离不开同类的. 一个无人分享的快乐绝非真正的快乐, 而一个无人分担的痛苦则是最可怕的痛苦. 所谓分享和分担, 未必要有人在场. 但至少要有人知道. 永远没有人知道, 绝对的孤独, 痛苦便会成为绝望, 而快乐–同样也会变成绝望!

交往为人性所必需, 它的分寸却不好掌握. 帕斯卡尔说: “我们由于交往而形成了精神和感情, 但我们也由于交往而败坏着精神和感情.” 我相信, 前一种交往是两个人之间的心灵沟通, 它是马丁.布伯所说的那种”我与你”的相遇, 既充满爱, 有尊重孤独; 相反, 后一种交往则是熙熙攘攘的利害交易, 它如同尼采所形容的”市场”, 既亵渎了爱, 又羞辱了孤独. 相遇是人生莫大的幸运, 在此时刻. 两颗灵魂仿佛同时认出了对方, 惊喜地喊出:”是你!” 人一生中只要有过这个时刻, 爱和孤独便都有了着落.

读着周国平这段写自1992年的文字, 让我下意识的将这段文字的含义映射到当今的社交网络. 社交网络的分享实质似乎印证了文中阐明的道理. 而文中提到的交往的分寸也正直指社交网络中出现的问题–比如时刻连接和保留独处空间的讨论. 科技的进步在满足人类欲望的同时也提出了考验. 从设计师的角度考虑, 做出帮助人们掌握好分寸的设计是一个不小的挑战, 也是一份光荣的责任.

Last night, I wrote down what happened in the past six days,

everything happened sequentially, clearly,

in case I forgot.

I told Elizabeth on Friday, “this is surreal to me.”

It’s like a dream,

like the movie I watched twice called Midnight in Paris,

you see all the artists you admire,

you soak all the wisdom greedily,

you get wildly inspired.

It’s a magical place where,

the grass are foot long and bright green,

the backdrop are the mountains topped with snow,

the background music is the water,

“the eyes have trees.”

pebbles slowed you down,

but your feet are more into the ground.

you don’t feel the air,

because you’re part of it.

you work day and night,

you feel exhausted,

yet you still smile from inside out.

you see your dreams born into shape,

you find the courage and inner voice.

you ask, what is such a place?

the waitress in that mexican restaurant knows the answer.

Yes, I have gone to the place once,

and I brought it back,

because it stays,

in my heart.

2011.summer

As you write you will become aware that thought moves in an ebb-and-flow rhythm. You will have a flash of though, and turn to write it out. After that there will be a period of re-forming. Let the notes you took while drawing prompt your next passage, or read back though what you’ve just written, to see if a sentence two paragraphs back contained another idea that you passed by at the time. At first an idea my appear briefly and vaguely, it vanishes too fast for you to trace it. But the practice of journal keeping will improve your ability to generate ideas and get them down quickly, so don’t despair if it seems hard at first. If you feel truly stuck, take up the drawing again; give your mind more time to organize and respond.

This question hit me when I was jogging the other day: If sustainability is a big issue in the physical world, is it also applicable to the digital world? I decided to give it a try and see where this thought will lead me.

From the creator’s perspective, producing in the digital world and get it to the market is not a thing compared with its equivalent in the physical world. If one has an idea, she can hire a programmer or if herself can do the job to implement the idea and put it up on the web and charge for it. Due to cost of producing is decreased, people are more inclined and encouraged to produce more. This is not necessarily a bad thing, unless not enough thoughts are put into the product before it being exposed to the market. So there are always NEW products coming out, more than enough for people to consume. Just take a look at the introduction page for the apps in iPhone’s App Store: “The Best!” “#1!” “The First!” “The Most Satisfying. Ever!” etc. The creators are obsessed with creating NEWs, sometimes they don’t even bother to do some research on the existing ones. They don’t think through what make their products really stand out. They don’t have the big ecosystem in mind when they produce, just because they don’t see the pollution they produce in the digital world. More responsibility and pressure are needed for the creators before they put something in the digital world. They are producing, so there are people consuming, which all take time and effort. So the product must better be damn good or at least no harm.

From the consumer’s perspective, the procedure or process of buying cannot be easier nowadays. One just needs to register once and then she only needs to click one button. In another word, the product is one click away.  But there are always more products than what one actually needs. So people always buy far more than they actually need. The “free” tag tied to the products in the digital world makes this behavior even more frequent. If you are an iPhone user, think about how many free apps you downloaded from the App Store, but only opened once or twice, or even worse, never opened? Smaller size and non-tangibility of the digital products, more storage space on the digital devices, lower price of the product and more enticing advertising lines, all of which add together to make the consumer more attemptted to buy more than they ever need or be able to consume. The consequences may not be as visible as in the physical world in terms of taking up more space or even financially speaking. However, the decisions consumers have to make never become less. It may not cost a thing for a consumer from downloading a piece to deleting it. But the time and effort the consumers put into, bigger or smaller, all count.

From the artifact’s perspective, you might blame yourself if you have four cars in your garage, consumed all by yourself, while you feel no shame at all if you have installed eight different web browsers on your computer and have three of them opened at once for different tasks. What have changed when the product moved from the physical realm to the digital one? Does an iPhone application have a life cycle?  Can it be recycled, or reused? What does it mean to the consumers if one application takes 1M storage space? Is there an equivalent in the physical realm for application or software update? What does it mean to delete an application on your iPhone? Any pollution produced at all? In what form? Do whom harm? Any effect on the consumers themselves? You can returning a physical product and get a refund in most cases, but why not digital ones? Since products in the digital realm have no weight, no texture, and no aging, then what makes them unique, memorable and special to us? Are the apps charging your credit card on your iPhone necessarily better than the free versions? If we bought one digital product but later don’t feel it’s useful anymore, can we sell it to others? Etc.

These are some of the thoughts and questions that make me think when it comes to sustainability in the digital realm. They are by no means mature thoughts, but enough to keep me thinking as a designer when I set out for a design project. It’s a nice thing to keep in mind and make a positive change to the ecosystem in our digital world.