The December UX Book Club meeting was a great end to the year. Thanks to Jeremy Yuille for offering a super space at RMIT to host. Thanks to all those who brought something yummy to eat or drink.
We had a great mix of regulars and newbies, even someone who’d only been in Australia for 2 days! Obviously the UX Book Club is a ‘must go to’ event…
For those who couldn’t make it here is a brief idea of the night…
The text was a blog post: http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/ Which included a Microsoft ‘Productivity Vision’ video.
The reactions to the post were varied, they included:
- Agreement that the lost of physicality in our day to day lives is not good.
- This is a long and broad trend, including: industrialisation, urbanisation, modern educational systems, westernisation (see http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html)
- Opinions that the video wasn’t all bad. The integration of devices was cool.
- There was a broad feeling that the post was more a Rant Against Futuristic Videos. That the video’s vision (Microsoft’s) was pretty narrow, and that the actual evolution of interaction should (hopefully) be more imaginative, more varied and more …interesting.
- And if it isn’t, well, we only have ourselves to blame.
It was also noted that the Microsoft video was very similar to an ad by Corning “A Day Made of Glass”
It was felt that a new language was needed to support new paradigms of interaction, the new modes of interactivity that will develop and new visions for the future.
Two names that came up were Edward Tufte and Carol Dweck, you might want to check them out.
We have some great plans for UX Book Club Melbourne in 2012. Watch this space for upcoming announcements.
Have a great Christmas.
This month the book is “Envisioning Information” by Eward Tufte. You can compare prices for the book at Booko, which calculates all online prices including postage.