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Working on my project last week, I found myself plunged into social theory (actually drowning in ideas from  Baudelaire, Benjamin and Habermas.). Very interesting stuff for sure, but I realized that I may be going too deep into the theoretical stuff. In the end I am designer and should focus on creation rather than evaluation (although the theories themselves are easily inspiring). So I decided to compile my thoughts  and inspiration coming out of these papers. It turned out that a text was to big a task for a Friday afternoon, so inspired by Christers dictionary, I have started on a kind of lexicon of my own. It is just a begining, so feel free to critique or add words and concepts.

 

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Further, I am pushing to focus my project to a more concrete level. I´m doing further research on materials, information and interfaces in public space, and to set the project in a specific context, I´m looking at people in transit, in local places. With this I mean i.e. a student unlocking a city-bike, or a woman waiting for the tram to work. The moments when we are moving from  one mode of transport to another.

The coming week our course are having a work-shop with Tom Igoe to make working prototypes for interactions. I have been trying to think what kind of platform I could build that is useful for my project. Obviously, I would like to make a communication platform that can deal with RFID reading and bluetooth or wifi technology, but  I see that as being a tad ambitious for one week. I would like to make two RFID readers to talk with each other. 

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What I also need is a platform that can be used to make various feedbacks from the RFID reader. This would allow for detailed mapping of the actual interaction, but what feedbacks should i concider? (I want to work around using the screen as the main interface, so sound, vibration and lights are obvious contestans).

Last, as I´m making a interface that has to work outdoors, it has to be robust, and withstand a tough climate (and also “age well”). So the interface itself might want to respond to different lighting conditions, temperatures and humid conditions.