ManufacturedLife

Ok. I guess it's obvious that the power of the CLEAR technology and user experience is only a powerful as the company's partnerships. The limited locations and UNclear awareness campaign certainly kept it from taking off. I often caught myself wondering 'wow, no one's using that thing.' Then I realized that if it is functioning as intended, you should never see anyone standing around the CLEAR terminals, they will have already walked through.

So we potential customers are left looking at a very lonely technology with a few uncomfortable, well-uniformed employees waiting to give you a pamphlet.

Maybe there's something comforting and attractive about seeing fellow passengers clustered and attempting to stay in line.

Again the comfort of going through the burden (of an airport security line or an unstable economy) together is a strong collective tissue in this recession.

It's always sad to see an impressive and well developed technology fail in the market due to strategic oversight.

Another case for design thinking?

I guess in times like these people are willing to spend time over money.

Sometimes the quickest and easiest way to get a read on society for any given week or month is to see who wins the big contests.

When American Idol was down to “Kris, the boy next door” and “Adam, iconic aspiration and glamour” I was less anxious about their respective talents but very excited to see how America was feeling at the time, in these times.
-Do we crave a a dreamlike alternative reality to escape the daily anxiety of the recession?
-Or are we looking for the comfort in the familiar and a reminder of the power of the American dream?

Well Kris won, and I thought he might.
The thought of the kid next door becoming the next big thing provides the subtle confidence and hope that we might all get out of this alive...and possibly even better than we were going into it.

I was on the way into work driving next to a big old truck with rebel flag bumper sticker. As this was just minutes before our historic trigger for change it made me think of how the strength of that symbol has diminished in the past few months, certainly in my mind and I assume in the mind of many in this country. The hatred and racism associated with the legacy flag is not what is once was before. Even the strongest symbols can lose meaning and value as the social and cultural landscape shifts. A very appropriate transition.

During a recent research trip to Brasil, I noticed an interesting visual. The universal wheelchair icon was coupled or covered with a second logo in the opposite direction to form a humorous visual. So, I stood there wondering if this was deliberate humor or coincidental? Sao Paulo is filled with Graffiti as it feeds the expressive and anarchistic nature of Brasilian culture.

Either way, it does re-emerge my attention to Universal Design. My passion for Design Research and Human-Centered Design was initially triggered by the drive to really help people live better lives. I'm impressed with the ongoing initiative within Universal design around hardware but see suck a lack in great universal software design. Business won't drive this, but hopefully technology can. Let's hope that 2009's promise of voice-recognition software can push Universal Interaction Design.

Either way, it was worth a chuckle.

Building Resources

It's always a pleasure to visit Building Resources (http://www.buildingresources.org/) in San Francisco.

It's surprisingly calming/soothing to walk through walls of various building materials and home artifacts. The rows of doors, windows, and sinks make for nice walking paths stopping to dig through old tiles, doorknobs, and random metal widgets.

Consider the role of the object in people's lives and the services and experiences they enable, including self-creation and personal evolution. Explore metaphors to describe the dynamic relationship between people's things, thoughts, and feelings.
It is part of human nature to care for and apply meaning to the things in our lives. Historically, people have cared for their belongings. The growing emphasis on consumption and disposability challenge us to design truly meaningful objects that people will value for years.