Download - Sketching and the Technological Horizon
by Giuseppe Burdo
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Sketchingand the Technological Horizon
Sketching and the Technological Horizon
1st edition, paper and pdf version
Printed in Venezia, Italy
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text: Scala Sans Light 9-13notes: Officina Sans Book 8-13titles: Scala Sans Regular 74-80subtitles: Scala Sans Regular 19-22pictures: Handwriting - Dakota 9-13
I submitted this document for the exam on the twenty-first of Sep-
tember 2009 of the Interaction Design Theory 2 course (Telecomu-
nicazioni) given by Gillian Crampton Smith with Philip Tabor at the
Facoltà di Design e Arti, IUAV University of Venice.
For all word-sequences which I have copied from other sources,
I have:
a) reproduced them in italics, and
b) placed quotation marks at their start and their end, and
c) indicated, for each sequence, the exact page number or webpage
URL of the original source. For all images which I have copied from
other sources, I have indicated:
a) the creator and/or owner of the image, and
b) the exact page number or webpage URL of the original source.
I declare that all other word-sequences and images in this document
were written or created by me alone.
Venezia, 21 September 2009
Giuseppe Burdo
Declaration of originality
Introduction
PART I: Explore and describe
What a sketch is
Paper media
Digital media
PART II: Imagine
Augmented Reality
Quantum Computing
Mind control
Conclusions
Are you ready?
Source List
Index
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6
Someone said that one image is worth a thousand words. Well,
this is not an assay on which media is going to win the marketing
cup on persuasion.
Since immemorial time, people used to make sketches on the
rocks for different reasons, for example to better express what was
in their mind. But nobody knows how many purposed they were
used for: safety, business, pleasure, education, and so on.
Have you ever told to a tourist how to reach a place? And vice-
versa? Well, if so you maybe know how sometimes it is hard to tell
it. And let’s see hand gestures or rough drawing on some waste
paper.
Images play an important role in our everyday life, as for a
designer to present a project, for a person to illustrate a map, for
an artist to show his world to the committee.
Imagine when the idea to express is made by more people.
Here the game starts to be hard.
The booklet is divided in two parts. The first one concerns
Introduction
in sketching nowadays, and the main uses. The second is a
personal possible view on how it could evolve in the next years
according to the most advanced technologies. Have you ever
thought to sketch without a pen..a board..a paper...mmm without
anything?
For this reason you will look at strange things here, as a new
virtual shared interface that enables us to sketch in an easy and
engaging way.
This opportunity is potentially useful for everybody; the image
has a more common dictionary than any other language.
The approach is itself sometime a sketch, so don’t be angry
if you don’t find too many details. But if you want to know more,
write to this e-mail address: iamtellingyousomethingnew[at]
future[dot]com
Kidding aside, remember to keep your mind with you. You will
know why.
I hope it will be an easy and enjoying reading.
7
Don’t speak loud, someone could be scared
8
Part I
Explore and describe
9Figure 1 Daily sketch
“quick, timely, cheap, disposable, plentiful, clear but not precise, minimal detailed, not too refined, suggesting, ambiguous” 1
As Bill Buxton says, a drawing to be called sketch has to assolve
different features. You don’t need a lot of time to sketch, because
of its inprecise shapes, it’s not fine art. You can do it whenever you
want, a piece of sheet or a napkin and a pencil are enough.
Thanks to its cheap property it’s also disposable, in a way that
it is always useful as a track of the design process and as a way
for ourself improving. It has to be not too detailed, because in the
brainstorming you don’t know how exactly what it will be and any-
way it has to assolve a great and essential function: to suggest.
If you show it to other people, stay open to more opinions as
possible ... because they can give you more details about their
experience, their needs and what they are seeking for. Welcome to
the design process.
What a sketch is
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Figure 2 How do you feel, Bill Verplank
Sketching is not prototyping
The design process is made by different and continuous stages,
from the research, based on needs and desires, to the real proto-
type.
We can represent this process with a funnel, where at the start
we have a lot of pre-ideas to manage and we define the opportuni-
ties that are the way how we think the things will work. But while
the sketches have to suggest and explore, the prototype phase
has to explain what the concept is, if possible in the appropriate
scenario.
There are already different studios who elaborate algoritms for
virtual environments, but they work just for prototyping in expen-
sive area of studies, where the final product is based on algoritms,
not just drawings.
Toward an experience design
11
fast to see+fast to touch+acustic beep
iconic language high visible, low energy
Figure 3 Sketching a Train Button
Figure 4 Sketching funnel, Bill Buxton
The act of seeing is not just an action. Think about where you
are, who is around, what you are dressing. Well, what you are do-
ing right now is more than reading. You probably are listening to
something else, volountary or not, or you are sitting on a comfort-
able chair.
This moment covers up a lot of stimolous, but just very few of
them are conscious. In a process design everyone tries to consider
more things as possible, as a matter of fact the branch od Experi-
ence Design has grown to become itself a new discipline.
It gets sense when the person feels and does, is related to a better
awareness of what surrounds us.
Paper media
Probably You have read that you need a H pencil and then a
stronger one. Well, it’s more simple than it seems. Surely colors
can add details and information about your scenario, but they are
not necessary. Take the first pencil or pen that you find comfort-
able and start sketching. If you don’t know how to make them ef-
fective and clear, let you get inspired by google images for example.
As Bill Buxton remembers2, maybe the first sketch was made by
Mariano di Jacopo called Taccola, from Siena in the fourteen cen-
tury. He was an engineer, sculptor and architect. His work has been
broadly recognized from his colleagues in the following centuries.
There could be several purposes, for example the figure 6
shows an exercise done in the Telecommunication’s course, where
we were asked to imagine a service for the mobile.
wide or narrow, heavy or light, rough or fine, white or coloured, from trees or rocks, these are usually the most flexible surfaces
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Figure 5 Taccola’s sketches
Figure 6 Alcove finder by G.Burdo, A.Filippi, V. Venza
Whatever is your idea, you have surely more chances to be clear,
and sometime also funny.
Fast prototype needs fast tools. The figure 7 shows how we can
design an application for a small device in less than one minute. It
doesn’t matter how it is refined at the start, it’s a good way to go
on in order to show how it works ... or how it will work.
“Sketching is a way of understanding the physical world”3.
Everyone has a way of doing that. And also you can be more aware
of what is around you, as for example to know how many plugs
are in your apartment. Sometimes it is a reason for the appliances
placing.
every line starts with a dot.every physical product grows out of a thought.
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Figure 7 Post-it way of thinking
Figure 8 Looking for plugs
Digital mediafast, portables, easy to edit, are no longer related to the heavy and voluminous computers.
Digital is about the information stored and eventually sent
using just two numbers, zero and one. Take for granted some bool-
ean logic, it’s amazing how many things our devices are able to do.
Think about deleting and re-drawing instantly without any
eraser.
Have you ever tried an etch to sketch board? Almost every
kid has used it or something very close to it. Someone has even
achieved wonderful results, often overpassing the sketching funda-
mentals to get into drawing.
Also the multi- award iphone and ipod touch are very suitable
for fast and small sketches. Use your finger, save or send it and
shake it to get a new blank window. That’s a deal!
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Figure 9 Etch a sketch board
Figure 10 Application for Ipod touch and Iphones
When computers started to show their potentialities, prob-
ably few people thought about sketching. The machine language
seemed not suitable for expressing something different from
complex calculus or hard-core programming.
On the left side there is a Google sketch screenshot This is used
for any type of project and sometimes also for serious purposes,
for example you can create your own building and export to google
map. That’s in just few minutes( yeah, more or less).
On the right, you can look at a funny web application called
iSketch. After the registration process, choose the language and the
level and get into one room chat. In turn while one member starts
to sketch, the other tries to guess what the object is. Then you get
a score. That’s also a good way for training. :)
digital for people involved in the work, analogue for everybody
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Figure 11 Google sketch
Figure 12 iSketch, web application
00101011 10001100 10101111 11110000
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Figure 13 From people to people through the World
DESIG
N
AR
TS
SCIEN
CE
MED
ICIN
E
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Part II
Imagine
Augmented RealityLet’s keep it simple and fast what your world suggests to your mind
As Nathan Shedroff says, Science fiction has influenced also
Interaction Design. And surely, this is a part of truth.
On the other hand, even this genre is really inspirational, actu-
ally it is so artificial that people are no more humans, and this is
the last thing that IxD designers want.
Here we have a screenshot of the Matrix film, made in 1999 but
set in 2300. The police agent is using what it seems to be a com-
mon interface for retrieving data.
This is very close to the augmented reality, where you are both
in two spaces, real and virtual. The second one is able to give you
a more effective way of operating, and also more engaging. It’s not
by chance that the first purpose of this technology was used for
military simulations.
catch what you see
build what you need
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Figure 14 Sketching in the augmented reality
Figure 15 Matrix frame movie
While you are sketching something new, it is common to use
many things and objects from the real world. So, why should we
redraw something that is already real?
What you see in the picture above is the new way of sketching in
the augmented reality.
You can catch whatever you want thanks to a gesture recogni-
tion system and put it into your virtual sketch. Even if there are
several steps, you can come back whenever you want. Now you
build upon what you have just caught or closed to it. Other people
can also share the same space and editing or adding something
new. You can also keep your design process private, because of
your own glasses.
At the end you can show your sketch to the committee thanks
to a hologram projector.
show the virtual sketch to your committee
share the virtual space
combine whatever you want
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Figure 16 Haptic glove scheme
Figure 17 Virtual-reality glasses
Quantum computing“Nanotechnology allows control of physical properties of nano-structures and devices with single-molecule precision” 4
Do you remember the first computers in the world? Well, surely
you have seen them just on tv. They were big as a room, expensive
as a house, and so complicated that you needed a master in engi-
neering for using them.
In few decades of years, while they were used for even more ap-
plications, the prices were going down allowing more research on
them, in order to be the most fast and small as possible.
If a “normal” computer works by units of zeros and ones, the
next generation will not be based on bits, but on qubits5. Here, the
basic information is not just zero or one, but it could be both and
something else.
That’s why computers will became even smaller and able to
elaborate more information at the same time. When this technol-
ogy will be ready on confirmed improvements, it will be integrated
everywhere.
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Figure 18 Molecule structure
“We are just atoms and molecules”. I remember this sentence
from the high school, and I almost hated that because of its cynic
view. But actually, it is surely a true point of view. When we will be
able to catch easily information from molecules, we can extend our
potentialities to every kind of surface, more or less tangible. For
instance we can import the textile properties, or also the drawing
above that and export it to a new surface, just to say if it looks good
or not.
Think about tattoo. You will be able to transfer a new one
directly to your skin, and then you can decide if you really want it or
how long do you want to keep it.
We can extend the output of our imagination to all objects
around us, give them a different shape, size and color according
to our preference. Virtual is just what we are going to do, not just
awesome effects in dark environments.
In the future it will be possible to elaborate everything from and to whatever our senses can feel
tools
objects
environment
people skin
screeens
holograms
streets
wearebles
liquids
bulb projector
as humans, each innovation needs the communication of matters and shapes
walls
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Figure 19 Internet of things based on atoms
Mind control“It’s the thought that counts” says the Emotiv Team. It’s not just a way of expression, but also an interaction tool.
Have you ever realized to turn off the light when you were
already on the bed? Ok, maybe someone could clap his hands,
someone else uses a remote control. But think about to do that
just by the thought. Is it useful, isn’t it?
This research field was born in the last years with the purpose
to give a better living to paralyzed people. Actually scientists know
few things about, but some of the first experiments have already
achieved effective results.
How does it work? Well, the picture shows something like a hel-
met with sixteen electrodes. Each one gains signals from the brain
areas involved and they are interpreted by the software. Then the
recognized patterns are able to turn on the programmed devices.
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Figure 20 Brain Computer Interface device
signal processingand acquisition
signal classification
nowadays is almost possible to control things by our mind, but what if viceversa?
Until the previous possible innovations people have to use at
least their body, as the arm gesture, for using tangible devices, in
the future the thought will be already enough.
When scientist will be master on that, it will be possible to cre-
ate physical interaction without any physical movement. The chal-
lenge is about the training, both for the person and the systems.
Sometimes the way how the brain works is a little bit different from
each other. For this reason, the calibration is essential.
Each eeg signal with a particular range of frequency could be
assigned to a specific command, where all the external devices will
become part on the own body.
Many theoretical implication could come up, but as all the dis-
coveries and inventions done until now, the life of humans is also
due to their responsibility.
mind controlled
wireless controller
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Figure 21 How it works, general scheme
Figure 22 EEG Signals
Are you ready?
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Figure 23 A Human approach to the diversity
LAND ART AWARD CEREMONY
Dec 2104
Every object that we use could tell a story. A story of people
who have lived and continue to do it designing objects. If you
think about journalism, when you are not in the same place where
things happen, and you are not updated by any gatekeeper, you
don’t know anything about them. Well, probably it’s the same when
you are managing something tangible.
As a matter of fact, this tangibility doesn’t have a sense when
there isn’t a relation of the user. This relation of any kind of form
and context is called experience. Variables as time and context are
absolutely essential not only for evaluating, but they are the integral
part of the meaning.
The contemporary art also gives examples in this direction,
where artists consider their work to be finished by the spectators 6.
Obviously the value of experience has also affected the techno-
logical world. Even if the hardware is the same, the software can
make the difference, as the behavior of who you like or not. That’s
way you can listen to different opinions by mac and pc users.
So meanwhile computing becomes more and more invisible, in
the next years we’ll probably talk about human and artificial media
instead of hot and cold ones 7. Maybe over time we will resign
ourself to it, even if before we will be challenged from the same
people who at first consider innovation as an alien, and later they
will forget which is the difference from him.
Do you believe you are a medium too?
The media are us
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Source List
Text
1 Buxton Bill, http://www.sapdesignguild.org/community/book_people/review_sketching.asp2 Buxton Bill, Sketching User Experience, pg. 1053 Hart J, http://web.mit.edu/iap/www/iap01/searchiap/iap-2957.html4 http://www.youtube.com/user/dineshvadapally5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit6 Arturo Schwarz, The complete works on Marcel Duchamp, pg. 8857 McLuhan, http://it.wikiversity.org/wiki/Media_freddi_e_media_caldi
Figures
2 http://www.seisdeagosto.com/indica/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/howdoyou.gif
4 http://www.vuidesign.net/wp-content/images/BillBuxton_Mix09.jpg
5 http://www.facsimile-edition.com/3882261706c.jpg
9 http://www.coolest-toys.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/flairclassic-etch-a-sketch-the-worlds-favourite-drawing-toy.jpg
16 http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6748604-0-large.jpg
17 http://www.gearlog.com_images_17977.jpg
18 http://www.flickr.com/photos/21210850@N06/3378473847/
20 http://www.lewiswire.com/us/uploaded/front-whiteSM.jpg
21 http://nitrolab.engr.wisc.edu/images/BCIoverview1.png
22 http://www.neurodevelopmentcenter.com/uploads/pics/eeg_traces_01.gif
About the booklet
Sketching and the Technological Horizon is the second
booklet asked to make in the core theory courses in the
Visual and Multimedia Design graduate programme at
IUAV University, which are run by Gillian Crampton Smith
and Philip Tabor.
We were asked to explore, describe and imagine possibile
futures about our topic after the basic lessons concerning
the key concepts and techniques of computing and tele-
communication technologies. The size had to be in A4.
more infos at http://www.interaction-venice.com
About me
I was born in Terlizzi, near Bari, in 1985. After gaining
a Diploma in Electronics and Telecommunications, I
moved to Ferrara University to study Multimedia Design,
gaining my undergraduate degree with an experimental
thesis on visuo-haptic interaction in virtual environ-
ments. Meanwhile I worked in Milan as a multimedia
content manager for a communication agency and in
Lucca as product designer for Sca Hygiene Products.
Now I am in my second year of IUAV University’s Visual
and Multimedia Design graduate programme and as
erasmus student in the MSc Medialogy course in Cope-
hagen.
For any suggestion and/or comment I look forward to
hearing from you at [email protected]