Ronald featured (and pixellated) in a WSJ article today. Nice.

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FreshMeat #18 from Steve Portigal

               (__)
               (oo) Fresh
                \\/  Meat

FreshMeat. It’s free, it’s Fresh, it’s Meat. FreshMeat!
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If you build it, they will tell you what they think
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At the outset of the house-hunting process, one is
advised to make a list of requirements for the new home,
such as number of bedrooms, neighborhood, size of yard,
and so on. Of course, what is wonderful (and daunting)
about this step is that for a purchase as important as
a house, we may not know what we want (or don’t want)
until we see it.

The process of going to Open Houses and visualizing our
lives and our stuff in that space is enormously powerful.
We are, in effect, evaluating a prototype.

In this evaluation process we will decide whether we
want to buy and live in the specific house we are
visiting, but what else do we learn?

- confirmation of some of our earlier assumptions
("See, having a big backyard is crucial…")

- revision of earlier assumptions
("I guess if we had a shower like this I wouldn’t need
to have a separate bathtub fixture…")

- removal or reprioritization of earlier assumptions
("I don’t have to have a side entrance…")

- new requirements for the future house
("Now that I see it, I would love an outdoor barbecue
pit just like this one…")

To do this right, you’re going to talk about it. Out
loud. And that means the people involved will negotiate
these requirements over time, making them more detailed
and more robust. In fact, the conversation will continue
after the encounter with the prototype is over. I hope
you see where I’m headed with this.

Earlier this year I was asked to show consumers a new
home electronics device that was being developed. We
went to people’s homes with this…box. A big, ugly,
weird-looking box. It was the result of clever engineers
working with off-the-shelf parts to create an artifact
that could be experienced. In other words, it really
worked.
It turned out to be the best possible prototype for the
research. We explained to consumers that this was
something they’d see in the future, but it wouldn’t look
like this box. The box was so obviously a prototype that
people easily understood that and framed their comments
appropriately, offering up their needs and desires for
this future technology.

I wouldn’t say we were "testing" this product. Rather,
we used the box as a conversation starter. We got
answers to the questions we had formulated ahead of
time (i.e., importance of a proposed feature), and the
consumers we talked to gave us information in areas
we hadn’t even thought about (i.e, not only that they
wanted it installed, but how and where they would install
it). As in the house-hunting example, we confirmed some
of our earlier assumptions, revised others, removed
others, and identified new requirements.

In this situation we had the right prototype for the
type of learning we needed to do. Consider a similar
session where the box itself doesn’t do much of anything
but has a more realistic appearance. Then we might
explore what part of the home it might best fit with,
aesthetic issues, or what parts of the control panel
people would expect to touch.

We can accomplish a lot by selecting the best sort of
prototype to explore the right topics with a customer.
The conventional wisdom seems to be that prototypes are
made to best represent the current thinking about what
the product will do/look like/etc. These prototypes are
the outputs of the typical product development process,
and are not always appropriate for this type of study.
But there are cool ways to explore different options with
customers.

In the house-hunting example, it wouldn’t be at all
unreasonable to go look at a multi-million dollar
house (although in the SF Bay Area, that just means
you get a two-car garage – but seriously folks). A lot
can be learned from the "prototype" even if it isn’t a
literal example of what you might choose. In other words,
there’s no way you’re buying that house, but as an extreme
example, it can be very effective in revealing more of
those unspoken assumptions,and clarifying the requirements.
See, there’s real usefulness is being a Looky Lou!

In any product development activity there will always be
"outsider" ideas. Even though there are valid reasons
not to take them all the way to market, those concepts
can be especially effective in sparking the type of
customer dialog that we can really learn from. If people
hate it, let’s discover why, and leverage that insight
in the concepts we go forward with.
In addition to varying the "goodness" of the idea that
you prototype (as in, that’s not a "good" idea, but
let’s get people talking about it anyway), there is also
the realism (or "fidelity") in the way you prototype it.
We often use the phrases "looks-like" and "works-like"

but there’s more to it. Consider how to create layers of
"fidelity." A plain box with no styling can have a nice
color printout of a control panel right on top. Take a
photograph of a person on a plane and put a cartoon
product in their hand. There’s a lot to play with here.
If you saw the (horrible) animated film Titan A.E.,
they made fairly effective use of layers of animation
styles – cartoon faces inside stylized suits with
photorealistic backgrounds.

And consider the dimensions of "fidelity". If you are
concerned with the size of the product, you can use plain
boxes of various sizes. There’s no need to create a variety
of working, realistic designs if you are only concerned with
size (and be sure to bring along a too-small-to-engineer-
at-our-price-point box and a too-large-for-most-users box
and see what customers tell you, and why). Once, I saw an
engineer turn a bottle of orange soda into an excellent
prototype of color and finish. In the moment, it was the
best thing to get the customer to think about how, what,
and why.

If you’re interested in more, check out the work by
Stephanie Houde and Charlie Hill. You can read a brief
summary here, or see their chapter "What do Prototypes
Prototype?" in the Handbook of Human Computer
Interaction, 2nd edition, 1997.

And finally, Michael Schrage has written extensively on
how organizations can and should create a "culture of
prototyping. Check out this Fast Company article,
or his book Serious Play.

Tags: charlie hill, freshmeat, home buying process, michael schrage, prototyping, shopping, stephanie houde

The latest issue of FreshMeat is up.

Earlier this year I was asked to show consumers a new home electronics device that was being developed. We went to people’s homes with this…box. A big, ugly, weird-looking box. It was the result of clever engineers working with off-the-shelf parts to create an artifact that could be experienced. In other words, it really worked.

It turned out to be the best possible prototype for the research. We explained to consumers that this was something they’d see in the future, but it wouldn’t look like this box. The box was so obviously a prototype that people easily understood that and framed their comments appropriately, offering up their needs and desires for this future technology.

If you are in Seattle on June 1, you should definitely check out the Stockstock Film Festival where a film by Steve Portigal and Anne Williams will be screened. Stockstock is a film contest where entrants are given 30 minutes of stock footage and create a 3-minute film using only that footage.

Tags: anne williams, award, entry, film, film festival, movie, steve portigal, stockstock, winner

Stockstock Film Festival May 19 – Today’s the day we’re supposed to post the films we selected! The only problem is that we aren’t quite ready. We’re really sorry!

Argh! We’re very anxious over here to find out if we’ve won or not – are we going to Seattle? Argh!

Well I got rid of those errors by eliminating the pretty-much-unused comment feature. Site loads really fast now. But today I don’t see the blue background! Argh. It has been missing from the archive pages, and now seems to be missing here too. Yuck.

Tags: blogger, comments, errors

A nice blog entry for the Foreign Grocery Musuem….

Fantastic, cool, efficient alternative shelter designs
Of course, all these ideas sound wonderful in concept. And the designers are heartbreakingly well intentioned. Yet with rare exceptions, these shelters almost never end up stretching over the head of a needy refugee. When I asked U.N. workers why all these concepts remain drawings on a shelf, instead of real improvements in refugee lives, the general response I got equated to: ”Uh-huh, sounds nice. We use tents.”

NYT magazine story
The contemporary design vocabulary includes the biomorphic surrealism of Starck, the minimalism of John Pawson and Richard Gluckman, ”blob” designs by Greg Lynn and the Scandinavian collaborate Ocean North, classic modern pieces by Charles Eames and George Nelson and expressionist work by Ron Arad, Karim Rashid, Ettore Sottsass and Marc Newson. All of this feeds into a culture that makes new demands on buildings. In the postwar decades, global architecture still adhered to the prewar tenets of the International Style. It was thought that a limited vocabulary of forms would confer modern, machine-age unity upon the heterogeneous cultures of the world.

NYT magazine special issue on architecture profiles a series of interesting buildings.

Our purpose was to take the inquiry a step further and explore how these buildings have fared in the real world — what it’s like to live in a house that is a work of art, or to work in an office tower that is a monument, or to study and sleep in a dormitory that is inspired by a sponge.

Obsessive Compulsive: Calvin Pees Americans love thier cars, and Americans love to put ugly art on their cars, but nothing says �I�m an idiot with a pointless opinion� like a window sticker of Calvin peeing on something.

Really nice folklorist-type review of this trend, it’s variations and corruptions, and an excellent photo gallery

Weight Loss Through Brain Washing

With David Barron, Master Hypnotist

* Do chocolates, candies, sodas, and bread control you?
* Would like to eat only when your body is hungry?
* Do you want to end yo-yo dieting?
* Would you like your mind to automatically turn you away from unhealthy food?

The Mind is your most powerful tool for accomplishing anything. But there is a very good likelihood that your mind hasn’t helped you to LOSE WEIGHT and KEEP IT OFF.

In perhaps their most serious roles to date, famed Warner Brothers cartoon characters Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck launched a new landmine awareness program aimed at youngsters in mine-ridden Cambodia.

The messages — which feature Bugs, Daffy and an animated Cambodian landmine survivor named “Rith,” along with actual local footage — deliver “mine risk education and (encourage) landmine survivors’ social reintegration,” the department said in a statement.
The program, which is funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), was crafted after lengthy consultations with various landmine experts with an eye toward appealing to youngsters as well as older citizens, it said.
“Even the choice of Bugs Bunny from Warner Brothers’ stable of characters was by design, as the rabbit is considered a kind and intelligent creature in Cambodian culture,” the department said.

FROM:ELVIS MARTINS & ASSOCIATES.
LEGAL PRACTITIONER,
LAGOS STATES,NIGERIA
EMAIL: elvismartins@coolgoose.com

Sir,

I am Barrister Elvis Martins.I represent Mohammed Abacha, son
Of the late Gen. Sani Abacha, who was the former military Head
Of State, Following the release of Mohammed Abacha
The son of late Gen. Abacha who died in power in 1998, by the
Federal Government of Nigeria and the Agreement reached by the
Abacha family and the Federal Government of Nigeria, I write to
Propose to you this urgent operation that will be of mutual
Benefits to both parties involve. The Federal Government of
Nigeria has proposed to the Abacha family to release over one
Billion US Dollars (US$1 Billion) in their possession to the
Government and the government in return will withdraw all the
Charges against them and give them 100 Million US Dollars in as
Compensation.

Tags: 419, nigeria, nigerian, scam, spam

X2
Very enjoyable movie. I was thoroughly into it, loved the effects, and thought Alan Cumming was really great. I had no idea that was him as “Nightcrawler” until I saw the end credits.

Shaolin Soccer
Has been out for a long time in the rest of the world, and on DVD etc. My version had terrible subtitling, which sort of added to the humor of watching it. A very funny and engaging film about a guy looking to package Shaolin Kung Fu (the sort of magic power and flying version of Kung Fu) for modern folks. He finds his way to soccer, and there the fun begins. It’s a gentle parody, but not a farce. The special effects are also very cool. I enjoyed it a great deal. It’ll be excellent when it comes out here on the big screen.

Why these soccer players were hot chicks with men’s facial hair was never explained

Vanilla Sky
No matter what you think of it, it’s a very odd movie. Very alienating and distancing, you never quite get drawn all the way in, perhaps the feeling of a dream which pervades the film is part of it. At one point, it becomes very unclear what is real and what is a dream. And then it gets more complex – not confusing, but complex. There are more layers of possibility for truth and fantasy/dream/whatever as the film proceeds into the end of the second hour and beyond. Yikes, it was a long one. A really interesting film for Cameron Crowe to take on, a remake of a Spanish film from only a few years ago (now on my list to see). I can’t recommend this, but if you are curious, it’s not a terrible waste of time, it might be a bit boring at times, but it’s a very well made film that maybe wasn’t all that well thought out.

Mullet Men
Well, even though this film was sent to me for free by one of the folks behind the film after I mentioned it here a while back, I still have to say I absolutely hated this film. It’s the story of a guy working as an NBC page who travels to the Florida-Alabama border to enter a mullet (the fish) throwing contest. It’s a true story, and the premise sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? It’s very well edited, very well scored, but incredibly poorly thought out. When the protagonist leaves NYC for the contest, the tone of the film changes radically. He is seen interviewing people. Suddenly the subject is now the interviewer. Then we see him showing off, making conversation with babes on the beach, and in the final fish-lobbing event, we see him grandstanding – yelling to the crowd about who he is, and why he’s there, and they should all cheer for him. It’s yuck on both levels – it’s annoying to watch, and it’s grating to deal with what you thought was a documentary turn into a film by the subject, and finally the events the subject is in are totally created for the purpose of filming. It’s all about self-promotion, and volume seems to be the key here. There is not one sincere interview beyond the security guy in Central Park who is concerned about fish guts flying around a public park (this is the best part of the film) – most everyone is drunk and absolutely everyone is “on” – speaking in that sarcastic, kinda mean and definitely hungry tone you find in bars and at awful parties. It was like a badly done version of an MTV Spring Break special.

I’d be happy to put my copy in the mail to someone who wants to watch it. Just let me know.