xinoxano

Ugly revolutions

xinoxano — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:50:19 +0000

“It’s always the mistakes. Most things begin as a mistake. Most breakthroughs in music come out of a revolution of the form. Someone revolted, and was probably not well liked. But he ultimately started his own country”.

–Tom Waits.

“When you make a thing, a thing that is new, it is so complicated making it that it is bound to be ugly. But those that make it after you, they don’t have to worry about making it. And they can make it pretty, and so everybody can like it when the others make it after you”.

– Picasso (as quoted by Gertrude Stein).

1€ of usability

xinoxano — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:58:17 +0000

I fell in love with public Finnish library system a long time ago. Our affair, with ups and downs, still lasts Today. Despite the channel, offline or online, the user experience is always satisfactory.

I haven’t had much time lately to hang around any of the libraries in Helsinki, but when possible I love to visit the “misfits self”. There is always one in every library and it is full of books the library has decided to sell for the amount of 1 euro or less. The criteria why a book ends its days in the misfits self is unknown to me, but I guess issues such as outdated, low number of borrows and little damages are part of the game. You can guess the titles you may find and not surprisingly most of them are about technology: “Learn Macromedia Director 5 in 24 hours”, “Windows 3.1 for dummies”, “Frontpage Unleashed” and similar.

The reasons I always take a look to this self are also a bit misterous to me. I guess I always keep the hope to find a hidden treasure. Most of the times that hope vanishes but a couple of times I have found little photography jewels that keep me trying.

So what a surprise when I saw this cover among the misfits. The book is in good condition, so I assume the reason for this book to be discarded is an error or a lack of interested readers. If we discard the error, what could be the reason for the lack of readers?. I haven’t done any serious web design for a long time, so I wonder: are the contents completely outdated?, have its principles been absorbed by web design in general?, have they been discarded completely? or is it simply because web usability does not sound sexy anymore?.

BarCamp Helsinki

xinoxano — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:24:24 +0000

Most of the times I am not aware, but things happen in Helsinki. Conferences, congresses, workshops and other events seem to be all around the year, but for some reason, a BarCamp has not happened here yet.

That’s going to be the case only until the 10th of May. We are gonna host it and there is already a bunch of motivated people involved. A Jaiku channel and a Wiki are waiting for your ideas and input.

The BarCamp is not going to be limited to mobile, but I see it as another potential opportunity to get designers and developers of mobile applications and services together for discussion. The gap between designers and developers in the mobile arena tends to be bigger than in the web services area. So if you want, for example, your ideas to be validated for feasibility or want to get a bigger picture of what could be coming, be there or be square.

34

xinoxano — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:01:08 +0000

22 años en Valencia {EGB, BUP, COU, universidad, Tranquilo Niebla, Dublín, Mano Negra, Irene}.
1 año en Turku {Erasmus, Appelsiini, San Petersburgo, WWW, Pixies}.
1 año en Ibi/Alcoy/Valencia {AIJU/AITEX, prestación social, El Tornillo, PJ Harvey, París, Raquel}.
2 años en Turku {universidad, IAMSR, HCI, Moscú, Dynamo, Calexico, Raquel}.
2 años en Barcelona {iSOCO, separación, Marruecos, Nick Cave}.
1 año en Turku {universidad, Apteekki, Sari, Viena}.
5 años en Helsinki {Digia, primer hijo, Sysopendigia, segunda hija, Fjord, Berlín}.

Meme copiado con orgullo de Ariel.
Y seguimos!

2008

xinoxano — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 20:54:35 +0000

End of one year, beginning of other. Traditional period for lists of promises, commitments and wishes which traditionally would remain unfulfilled in one year from now.

But no. 2008 is going to be different. I’m determined on the following list:

1) Cook more.

2) Cook better.

3) Procrastinate just the essential.

4) Play more. Play better. With almost everything. With almost everybody.

5) Follow the command of Señor Amarillo: get involved.

Kick my ass if I fail.

Citywall Helsinki

xinoxano — Mon, 28 May 2007 20:40:37 +0000

This video was taken last weekend in the centre of Helsinki. The name of this interactive application is Citywall and has been designed and developed by the Ubiquitous Research Group of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology.

I subscribe this related blogpost by Mesq so I will try not to repeat it here. Browsing and manipulating the photographs allow users (mainly visitors) to get a bit familiar with the city and its people in a innovative and playful way.

Beyond this, what I find remarkable and interesting is the availablity of these technologies in a public space and the potential alternative uses. Could a interactive map of the city use these interactions?.

The other Aalto

xinoxano — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:26:23 +0000

A lot has been said about the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. We do not know so much about his first wife Aino.
She has been presented as muse of Aalto, but recent studies show that she had a more important role than that.

Aino joined Alvar’s study soon after she graduated as an Architect. Most of the works are signed as “the architects”, so it is not clear the authorship of those works. More pragmatic and less bohemian than Alvar, Aino made sure to meet the deadlines. All together, the professional collaboration between the couple was very intense in the first years.

In the first half of the 20th century it was common that, because the lack of a specialized professional role, architects were the ones in charge of doing the interior and furniture design of their buildings. This was part of Aino’s responsibilities.
Her work as a designer is characterized with the phrase “beauty is the harmony of function and form”. Functionality, simplicity and clarity are applied in her designs, still of daily use in many Finnish homes.

As a modernist, she believed in objects which were light, cheap and accesible to all the social classes. In this task, it was specially important the firm Artek, which Aino co-founded and managed for many years.
Aino Aalto provides a model of “non star” designer whose work still makes people’s life easier.

Non intentional design

xinoxano — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:02:20 +0000

xinoxano 2.0

xinoxano — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 19:40:57 +0000

Two years have past since the last post.

Quite many changes have happened in that time, both on personal and professional sides.

All those previous posts got lost on the road, but the last one was about the User Experience Cosmos created by Javier Cañada. At that time I found myself on the lower right area. My steps were inspired by Jesse James, Steve, Jared and friends, Eduardo… and I worked on websites, e-commerce applications and productivity software. In summary, somewhere between interaction design and information architecture.

Where am I now?. This time I can locate myself in the middle area. For two years I’ve been working on information appliances and the daily activities have been influenced by Cooper on a big deal.

Where would I like to go now?. Well, I still have much to learn about information appliances, but somehow I feel very attracted by the upper left area. Emotions, physical environments…

Where are you?.