2011 was when I decidedly became more aware of my reading inadequacies.  I found Roger Ebert’s view on being “well-read” very affecting (http://tinyurl.com/3dabhws): Just to read for yourself for pleasure is the point. Dickens will come later, Henry James perhaps never. So I will focus less on all I need to read, and instead just read for the pleasure of it.

I enjoy browsing in book stores (especially used books) to discover something of interest. This act of finding a bookstore and browsing is rather delightful to me, so along with the books, I am also listing where I bought them.

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, William Dalrymple (bookstore: Connaught Place, Delhi) - I spent 5 weeks in Delhi this year. Instead of a travel guide, I decided to get William Dalrymple’s travelogue, and I am glad I did. Dalrymple is a great historian/storyteller and the metamorphosis of Delhi through history is engagingly narrated. The book left me with a deeper appreciation for the city. I also got my book signed, as the author was present at an event in Delhi.

Kieslowski on Kieslowski, Edited by Danusia Stok (bookstore: Amazon.com) - A delightful read for Kieslowski fans or otherwise. Kieslowski talks about his life and films and reading the book leaves you with the same feelings of profoundness you get from watching his films.

Yoga for people who can’t be bothered to do it, Geoff Dyer  (bookstore: Better World Books, South Bend, IN) - Geoff Dyer’s book of travel essays was an enjoyable read. The wide-ranging associations that Dyer is known for are on display here, and the travel leads to engaging meditations on other things. His account of a trip to Detroit was my favorite.

The picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde (bookstore: Bargain Books, Mishawaka, IN) – Resolving to read more classics, I picked up Oscar Wilde’s only novel. The many witty statements make it an interesting read.

My guru and his disciple, Christopher Isherwood(bookstore: Casperson Books, Niles, MI) – For my birthday, I was at home in Hyderabad and we went to the Ramakrishna Math. I’ve always found the place very calming.  So when I saw Christopher Isherwood’s book about his experience at the Ramakrishna mission, I grabbed it. It is a very funny account, and reading his observations on religion, helps you form your own. That his guru smokes and has no objections with Isherwood being gay, left me with an appreciation for the liberal attitude of Hinduism, at least as practiced by the mission.

The consolations of Philosophy, Alain de Botton (bookstore: Hyderabad Book fair) - I am a fan of Alain de Botton, and had to pick up this book when I saw it. I greatly enjoyed his “How Proust can change your life”, where he offered life advice from Proust, and in this book, he provides advice for life’s problems (Unpopularity, Not having enough money, Frustration, Inadequacy, A Broken Heart, Difficulties) from philosophy. This is great self-help you won’t be embarrassed to read.

Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott (bookstore: Feldman’s Books, Menlo Park, CA) -  Very funny and generous advice about writing and life.  Anne Lamott is very honest about the trials of the writing process, and it is very comforting to hear from her that bad first drafts and self-doubt are the norm in the creative process.

The search for signs of intelligent life in the universe, Jane Wagner (bookstore: Paws and Read, Sawyer, MI) - I had heard about Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner’s play, so it was a nice surprise to find this book. The play is very funny, and while it has a feminist bent from the period it was written in, it is very relatable.

Reading like a writer, Francine Prose (bookstore: Casperson Books, Niles, MI) - Very engaging dissections of writing. Francine Prose’s wide selection of texts left me insecure about how much I have read, but her masterful dissections left me with greater appreciation for the writers’ craft.

Here’s hoping I read more in 2012. I am looking to read fiction/classics and design-related books.

Yes,  I am beaming at my own cleverness.  However, at the gift exchange, it didn’t quite elicit the surprise I hoped it would. It was competing with a $15 gift card to BestBuy (which I got), a Jersey Shore board game and a dart board among others.

Fun fact: I have not baked a cake, ever.  It was the first time I bought ingredients for a cake. The recipe is here:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/one-bowl-chocolate-cake-iii/

Nanda Home Gauri Nanda started a business based on her MIT media lab project, Clocky, “The patented alarm clock that runs away and hides to get you out of bed.” Now, Nanda Home also has laptop bags in the store. From their website: “Our ideas come from ordinary questions like ‘Why does my alarm do such a terrible job of getting me up?’ and ‘Why can’t I find a bag that makes it easy to carry my heavy laptop around?’ Then, from these ordinary questions, we set out to create extraordinary products.”

Jackson Fish Market Founded by former Microsoft employees, JFM creates beautiful web experiences that are available to companies to brand with their name. Great visual design, and a simple, easy function characterize these experiences. I especially like Invitastic, a very simple no-frills website to send invitations. From their blog, “There are pretty much a limitless number of things that Invitastic doesn’t do. Hopefully however, when it comes to letting a bunch of people know that you’re having a party or gathering, and finding out if they’re coming or not we do our job exactly as you’d hope.”

Scott Amron Amron’s work is very inspiring. His creations demonstrate that there are products waiting to be designed if you looked keenly. The simplicity of the needs that the products he created address is amazing. One of them is a toothbrush that redirects water from the faucet to your lips, based on his observation, “Current methods of getting water into our mouths for rinsing after brushing are sloppy, create waste, and place unnecessary stress on our bodies. And, people love water fountains.” Another, uses a one dollar note as a way to hold your cash together, eliminating the need for a wallet, “No clutter. No extra pocket bulk.” and you can “Use the money clip as currency when low on cash.”

Crispin Jones In the “Six Questions” interview on Kicker Studio’s blog, Jones says: “It’s far more straight forward and less expensive to produce your own products than you might imagine. More designers should do this. It isn’t an easy option (the time demands and learning curve is quite steep), but for any modestly talented and intelligent person it is eminently achievable.” Jones himself has created Tengu, a “USB-powered character that lights up and lip-syncs to music, or your voice, or whatever noise happens to be around at the time.” He also has a line of quirky and beautiful watches.

It is interesting that all of the above products have a single or very simple function. I feel that objects with one function that is done well, in spite of their limited functions are cherished more than those that try to do many things with varying success. The recent success of Flip, the stripped down Video Camera, the Amazon Kindle whose purpose is only for reading books and Peek whose purpose is only reading email, seems to communicate the same thing.

And then of course, there’s all the people on Etsy, who sell their handmade stuff. Do you know of other designers who are producing their designs themselves or started a business on them? Also, thanks to Design Observer, I am now aware of a blog about design and entrepreneurship, Merge. All the pictures above are linked to their sources, and what is quoted above is picked from their respective websites.

Consider the variables involved in choosing a tire: there are many different price points, varying warranties, a range of possible sizes that can fit on your car, a choice to be made about all-season vs. summer vs. winter tires, a choice about speed rating and so on. You also have to choose a tire seller, Walmart or Discount Tire or Tire Rack and so on. And comparing between the sellers is a task by itself, as first they sell different brands with all the associated variables, then they have different prices for installing tires, and then like in the case of Tire Rack where you bought the tires online, you needed to check if there was someone local who would install them from you. The price variable itself is made complicated by the fact that different retailers have different installation prices and offer different services for the price: at Discount Tire the “road hazard warranty” is included in the price I found, where as at Walmart it isn’t. And, all the information needed to make your choices is difficult to find, it took several Google searches and several keyword rephrases. Yahoo Answers deserves a kudos for providing several of the leads for finding the information needed.

For someone who knows little about tires, this can be a very overwhelming amount of information to navigate. I spent more than 6 hours over a week trying to find the right tire. And, I am not passionate about tires, not at all. My motivation for spending that much time is to avoid the feeling of guilt later that I didn’t make use of the information that was available. This is of course, the paradox of choice. There are so many choices so I can pick the one that suits me best and be happy, but navigating through my choices and making the decision was more frustrating than happy. There is so much choice as there is even more diversity in people’s needs. Malcolm Gladwell’s wonderful TED talk in which he narrates the story of how there came to be so many kinds of pickles and mustard, illustrates very nicely how recognizing diversity will make us happy:

Recognizing that having choice is a good thing, the issue then is about making the decision easy and happy to make. What made the decision about the tires hard to make for me was I think that I was trying to make my choices as rational as possible. Some people are able to make snap decisions, in which cases they are probably guided by emotion: A liking for a brand, the visceral appeal of a product. And emotional guidance helps reduce choices, if I had a preference for Walmart or Discount Tire, it would have saved me the trouble of comparing those two, If I had a strong trust in consumer reports, I wouldn’t have looked at other sources.

In spite of my best efforts to make my choice as rational as possible, the emotional element was unavoidable. I got free air checks at the local Discount Tire store several times, and they seemed like nice people. That did sway my decision and I did buy my tires at Discount Tire. I got the Yokohama YK520 based on user reviews and ratings on the Discount Tire website itself. Apart from using the touch point of air checks in the real world to create a good impression, Disount Tire also scores by providing me most of the information I need on their website itself. By reducing the amount of searching I have to do elsewhere, they communicate that they understand my needs.

What is missing though is the ability to compare with what the competition is offering, how are the prices different from other retailers, how do the brands of tires offered compare with others that aren’t. Providing that information though is only possible if you have the best, you wouldn’t want comparisons on your website showing your inferiority. Having that information further reduces my need to go elsewhere, and also communicates the confidence the company has in its offerings, which is a good thing for companies to aspire to. Honda’s website does just that by allowing you to compare their vehicles with competitors on their website itself.

Thus, one way to improve the experience is to provide all the information in one place, anticipating people’s information needs. Another way is to provide guidance along the way of making the decision. If there was so much choice to suit so many needs, why can’t there be help guiding me to make my choice based on my particular needs? Why can’t tire websites ask me about my driving style, my warranty needs, driving conditions etc. and guide me through to the decision? One example I saw recently of such an interaction is on Capital One’s Credit Card Lab, they help me navigate the many credit card options they have by asking me about my credit rating, whether I need rewards for using the card, whether I am willing to pay an annual fee etc. The dynamic display of information, that updates the page with available options once a choice is made, without a page refresh, makes me quickly compare the effects of my choices and understand the information space.

In her show called “Here and Now” dealing with procrastination, her observations on news channels, Gogurt, all you can eat places, product packaging, the moving sidewalk in the airport and so on are so nicely and humorously articulated, they bring back your personal experiences, and never fail to make you laugh. The video above is one part in the entire show posted on Youtube, a must watch.

I often find that personal experience has a strong influence on what I am designing. To be able to articulate your experience like Ellen does can be very compelling when you are making decisions as a team on a design. At work, I often find people narrating their own experiences with washing machines and dishwashers to make a point and it has a direct influence on where the conversation is proceeding. That reminds me of a design research method I came across called “Directed Storytelling”, where users are asked to narrate experiences given a topic, and the experiences can be analyzed to understand their needs better. The method seems to have been originated at Carnegie Mellon University, as a search for directed storytelling yields mostly projects from there.

The whole idea seems to be about a more natural way of interaction. Moving away from using input devices to point at and modify things to being able to do it directly with your hands. There is great power in manipulating directly with the hands, as evidenced by how you can flick through photos or resize them on the iPhone. What Sixth Sense does is to take away the limitation of doing it only on the surface of a device like the iPhone to being able to use gestures to modify things you can project anywhere with the projector involved in the technology. Personally, I feel that introducing the physical distance between the hands and what is being modified makes it a bit less natural. For it to feel more natural, I would want to touch what I am manipulating.

A natural interaction will also have to do with the meaning of the gesture itself. Making a rectangle with your fingers to take a photograph, as in their prototype feels a bit natural because it is a somewhat recognized gesture. Making some of the other gestures shown at what is projected at a distance, not quite. Gestural input will also take some amount of learning like most interfaces, reducing its naturality, if new kinds of gestures that have no existing meaning are introduced. There is also the issue of introducing gestures with different meanings for different cultures, sometimes even being offensive.

It is my opinion that we don’t need to do away with physical interfaces for natural interactions. Take the Wii for instance, there is a physical control in your hand and it feels natural, especially when playing a game like Tennis as the Wii control takes the place in our mind of the racquet. I don’t think it will be a better experience just waving your arm for input. With just gestures, there is also the loss of environmental clues that physical interfaces can provide and aid in learning, such as colored buttons, green for okay, red for not, that appeal to our instinct.

Pattie Maes concludes her TED talk by mentioning that it is a possibility that in 10 years time they might have the ultimate brain implant. Maybe in those 10 years those gestures will become natural to us. Some of the features shown in the video prototype, involve technologies such as image recognition that are not perfect yet. The other missing aspect of the Sixth Sense prototype was the use of speech recognition, if image recognition can make it in those 10 years, speech will probably do so too, and I think speaking can be a more natural interaction than gesturing.

While in one of the scenarios, Maes suggests that we don’t take out our cell phones to look up ratings on products at a supermarket because of inconvenient interaction with existing technologies, I think a good experience is possible with a cell phone. Consider photographing bar codes that can be recognized on your phone and bring up the Amazon ratings automatically. I looked online, and there is an existing service like that called Snappr. What Maes was probably hinting at was that it’s not as natural as the object directly communicating to us, as in the prototype. Turning the pages of the book to get more information and information displayed on the paper towels pack as you hold it, is definitely more natural.

For that reason, maybe embedding information onto the objects themselves is worth pursuing. What if the book had a dynamic page? Esquire magazine had an e-ink cover sometime back, maybe we can embed internet connectivity cheaply in the future, and we can have a dynamic page displaying rating information. That is why I admire more the other project from Maes’ lab also demoed at TED (They seem to do everything.) Siftables, tiny objects with abilities to network with each other.

I began writing my thoughts a couple days back, and today I saw that a design firm I admire very much, Kicker Studio, made public its work on a TV controlled by gestures. I personally thought that the gestures were a bit funny. And, Kicker clearly knows what it’s doing. Maybe it’s the beginning of those ten years before the brain implant, the beginning of us learning our gestures.

1) Ethnography. I love to observe people and their behavior.
2) Design History and Critique, I find great pleasure in understanding how an idea came to be, and making meaning of it. I also enjoy visiting museums.
3) Ideation and Prototyping, or generating ideas and telling stories of them to make them seem real and sometimes building real stuff. Also related, I love cinema.
4) Entrepreneurship, or the making money out of design. I aspire to start a company fueled by design sometime.

And, that is probably what the content of this blog will be: Observations, Attempts at critiquing and making meaning of designs, Ideas I think of, stories of design in business. But then, like Paul Rand said “Design is everything. Everything”, and I might as well write about everything. Welcome, and hope you like what you read.