apple: technology that chicks like

There is an old, old diss in electronic dance music: "It's OK I guess. Yeah, I can really see gurlz liking that".

Because blokes like nerdy detail - fiddling about with basslines & noises & gadgets & suchlike. Design as an autistic journey up your own fundament. Whereas chicks tend to prefer music that makes sense as more than pure experiment - as something social & sociable, as something useful & desirable. Of course, the irony was: whenever chicks left a scene (be it jungle, UK garage, etc), the originality of the output would nosedive. The tension in dance music is between giving people what they want and then showing them what they never knew they wanted. Between experiment & familiarity.

Anyway, I was mildly surprised by the level of excitement shown by various women in my life about the new iPhone. These aren't just gadgets - these are designer objects (like a Marc Jacobs or Prada creation). And all designer objects are ultimately social objects of one sort or another.

I am not sure what the links between the iPhone &, say, Funky House are. But I suspect they could get me into very hot water. What do you think?

sociability & design (2): heuristics

Last year I posted on research carried out by Motorola in "sharing practices" and the augmentation of Usability Design by Sociability Design. I have revisited Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics through the social software lens. Some general changes are the replacement of "system" by "relationship", "user" by "participant" and "interaction" by "exchange". Click on the table to enlarge.

The perils of democracy

In a conversation outside the Westin hotel, Ralph reiterated his belief that powerpoint democratised multi-media. Which reminded me of something an Indian once said to me: "You British gave us democracy. It was like giving a monkey a jasmine garland*".

His point was that India was not in a position to make best use of that power over itself in 1947. Having power is only good if you can wield it effectively. Democracy tends to work best with educated and literate populations**. N.B. I am not suggesting that India (or any other state) should forgo democracy for technocratic rule by expert or neo-colonialism or enlightened despotism. But if powerpoint (& digital cameras & Flickr & podcasting & video sharing & etc) is a democratising force then it needs a literate citizenship to take it up. And I'm not sure we have that yet. But you have to start somewhere.

Which is why I still think we need the visually literate to be educators as much as designers in their own right.

*Hey ma, I just offended 1 billion people.
**Although you have to start somewhere and dictators often don't want their populations to be literate and educated enough to disagree with them.

Interesting (2): Making the tea

Lauren designed the set for Interesting. And made the tea. And gave some simple advice to those would want to engage with art "without feeling like a twat". Basically did heaps.

The stage was less of a set and more of an art installation. And it was quite cosy. Which is more than can be said for most art installations.