Category Archives: Theory

I was at a gallery opening a few months ago, serving wine at the bar. The gallery was a non-profit and so there was a requested donation for the alcohol. One of the guests became very angry about this and responded aggressively. The gallery director came up and placed her hand on his shoulder to [...]

Filed in Inspiration, Interaction Design, Technology, Theory | Comments (0)

At Kicker Studio, we’re interested in the idea of physical interface. We’re interested in discovering how we can take technology off the screen and make it become an additive that can be embedded into any product to make it stronger, smarter, and more powerful. Technology needs to respond in ways we understand. Technology needs to [...]

Filed in Gestural Interfaces, Inspiration, Interaction Design, Product Design 2.0, Technology, Theory | Comments (0)

What does it mean to “make tech speak human”? With the emergence of new technologies like touch and gesture, technology needs to learn how humans use those methods to communicate with our world. Let’s look at gesture, for example. When we talk we use our hands to emphasize and illustrate what we are trying to [...]

Filed in Gestural Interfaces, Inspiration, Interaction Design, Kicker, Technology, Theory, Why Products Suck | Comments (0)

I’ve always been really bothered by the term ‘form and function’. It somehow implies that form is outside of function. As if they are two completely separate things. In fact, I think form and function have a relationship that is a lot more blurred. That in fact, form is part of function.

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Recently, I read an article by Khoi Vinh, entitled iPad Magazines Go to ’11, expounding on the failure of digital magazines. He suggested the problem is in the glossy presentation layer of the content. Let’s not be duped into this, again. People love “glossy”. It’s why we pick the iPhone interface over any of its [...]

Filed in Product Reviews, Projects in Process, Theory, Uncategorized, Visual Design | Comments (7)

Thinking about underlying structures of sentences and how they relate to interaction design.

Filed in Interaction Design, Theory | Comments (7)

Many of the projects we do at Kicker involve new technologies, so I thought I’d put some thoughts down about how to do that and how to think about those kinds of projects.

Filed in Interaction Design, Speaking Summaries, Technology, Theory | Comments (0)

For me, there are five “levels” of designers: new designers, junior designers, designers, senior designers, and principals.

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Prototypes are ways to test ideas—but where do those ideas come from? It may be that the path to better device design is best followed by creating props that help tell stories before prototypes designed to test technical feasibility. What I want to suggest in this talk is the way that design can use fiction—and fiction can use design—to help imagine how things can be designed just a little bit better.

Filed in Device Design Day, Inspiration, Theory | Comments (0)

A talk by Wendy Ju at Kicker Studio’s 2010 Device Design Day.

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