Sessions at dConstruct 2011 with write-up

Wednesday 31st August 2011

• Influencing behaviour: people, products, services and systems

  by Dan Lockton

  Whether we choose to do it or not, what we design is going to affect how users behave, so we might as well think about it, and—if we can—actually get good at it. Bridging the gap between physical and digital product design, a systems approach can help us understand how people interact with the different touchpoints they experience, how mental models and cognitive biases and heuristics influence the way people make decisions about what to do, and hence how we might apply that knowledge (for good).

  • Influence

  At 10:00am to 5:30pm, Wednesday 31st August

  Coverage photo write-up

Friday 2nd September 2011

• Beyond Usability: Mapping Emotion to Experience

  by Kelly Goto

  Addiction or devotion? The complexity of our relationships between connected experiences, devices and people is increasing. Stanley Kubrick once said a film “should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what‛s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later”.

  Design ethnographer Kelly Goto presents underlying emotional indicators that reveal surprising attachments to brands, products, services and devices. Gain insight on designing user experiences that map to people‛s real needs and desires.

  • Usability

  At 11:00am to 11:30am, Friday 2nd September

  Coverage video sketch note audio clip sketch note write-up

• What is the Shape of the Future Book?

  by Craig Mod

  We will always debate:
  the quality of the paper, the pixel density of the display;
  the cloth used on covers, the interface for highlighting;
  location by page, location by paragraph.

  This is not what matters. Surface is secondary.

  What are the core systems comprising the future book? What are the tools that need to be built?

  As designers we will need to provide the scaffolding for these systems. The interfaces for these tools. Not just as surface, but holistically—understanding the shifting of emotional space, the import of the artifact, the evocation of a souvenir, digitally.

  How will we surface the myriad data just below the words of digital books in organic, clean and deliberately designed ways? How will we shape the future book?

  • Books

  At 12:30pm to 1:00pm, Friday 2nd September

  Coverage sketch note write-up slide deck sketch note audio clip video

• The Full Stack of Entertainment: Storytelling, Play and Code

  by Dan Hon

  Forget transmedia. Forget alternate and augmented realities. Forget multimedia magazines, tablets, phones and puzzling QR codes. Our challenge lies in figuring out the full-stack of entertainment, designed from the bottom right to the very top: for phones, physical objects—part of the Internet of things or otherwise—tablets and conventional computing devices, where art, code and design mesh together perfectly with directorial vision.

  These teams producing our next generation of entertainment are right at the heart of Steve Jobs’ placing of Apple at the intersection of liberal arts and technology. Where did they come from, how are they evolving entertainment and how are they making storytelling, play, code and technology sing?

  • Storytelling

  At 3:00pm to 3:30pm, Friday 2nd September

  Coverage sketch note sketch note video audio clip slide deck write-up

• Pocket Scale

  by Matthew Sheret

  I punch in a keycode and enter the office. Three steps through the door I swipe my travelcard against an old wooden box, which starts spitting out a radio station based on forty million people’s answer to the question ‘What songs would a Joy Division fan like?’ The sexyfuture arrived yesterday, and it colonised my pockets.

  Even on the days you leave your phone at home, you carry enough hacked objects to unlock space and time, provided you find the right door. What should we be thinking about as we bring our products to life? What are we strapping to our keyrings? And what does all of this mean for a scale we’ve been familiar with for centuries?

  Matthew will empty his pockets live at dConstruct to find out, revealing the five things he’s carrying around with him in Brighton and why.

  • Gadgets

  At 4:30pm to 5:00pm, Friday 2nd September

  Coverage audio clip sketch note sketch note write-up slide deck video

• Reality is Plenty

  by Kevin Slavin

  Lately, Augmented Reality (AR) has come to stand for the highest and deepest form of synthesis between the digital and physical worlds. Slavin will outline an argument for rethinking what really augments reality and what the benefits are, as well as the costs.

  Rather than considering AR as a technology, we will consider the goals we have for it, and how those are best addressed. Along the way, we’ll look at the history and future of seeing, with a series of stories, most of which are mostly true.

  AR may be where all this goes. But how it gets there, and where there is, is up for debate. This is intended to serve to start or end that debate, or at a minimum, to bring the conference to a close by pointing at the future, perhaps in the wrong direction.

  • Augmented Reality

  At 5:00pm to 5:45pm, Friday 2nd September

  Coverage audio clip video sketch note write-up