ScrollMotion is a company that focuses on iPhone-Applications and simplicity. They have 10 guiding principles about how to design applications and what mobile-applications should be able to do, compared to traditional web. Although manifestos like that can be a dangerous thing to stick onto, it nevertheless is definitely a good read for anyone, who want to get into mobile application design or who just loves to think and theorize about it. Examples:

1. 1 App = 1 Job

Think about one job you want to do for your user and do it well. It’s possible for an app to have multiple tasks. But at its core a mobile iPhone application should do one job in its user’s life. Remember, it’s better to do 1 thing great instead of 5 things just okay.

4. Instant Fun

New interfaces should be fun. When possible use the accelerometer, which allows the user to interact with the device using movement instead of just touch. Emphasize action, not buttons.

Somehow the style from ScrollMotion as well as their thoughts about design remind me on the traditional technology-company Phillips.

The second part of our small series on low-budget, but highly effective production methods. This time we will review a videoclip from beloved Utada Hikaru.

The whole magic comes from the synchronization of the music with events on the scene. The camera perspective is really “static” and also the scene, that has been filmed can be considered “daily life”. The only things, that makes the clip special and suspending are the surprises that emerge of the connection between the music and the picture. The water-tap for example seems to trigger the beats, while other elements have mini-narratives. Hey, I mean.. at least there are parts, where the singer leaves the picture and you sort of see nothing. And it is still interesting to keep on watching.

Is this the future of programming? OpenCode lets you write Processing-code right in your browser. If you click the RUN-button and wait some seconds, an applet opens, that runs the code you have written. Ok, if you want to develop something in that way, you will spend hours of waiting for the applet to start. But the process of sending code through the browser to the webserver is exactly the same thing, that php and cgi does back in the days as a real innovation. The very root of all internet-applications and modern coding-languages we have today for the web. So think twice. Maybe the way of dealing with code is completely about to change.

As you can see, this is still in the alpha-version of OpenCode. But opportunities are good, that the design, approach and vision around the MIT Media Lab and Processing once again could have the power, to re-invent programming and computational design.

Since weeks I am thinking about writing about this topic that really caught my interest. It’s about videos, that are really cheap in production, mostly even have a “lo-fi” aestetic as well, but nevertheless convince because they have the power of a good ideas, charima or funky tweaks, that make the difference. The begin of this new series on Digital Tools will make DJ Kawasaki.

The clip “Bright like Light”, well, basically does not show anything more that the singer itself at different places, singing her song. Nothing really special and really a classic in making music videos. Even the locations are nothing special. Mostly walls and things like that. The lack on original content or special places is totally replaced by the charisma of the singer and the natural vibe she spreads.

Just look at the video: production budget? Not very high. But I really liked that clip. You can make a clip like that also at home with standard equipment. And since we are living on a webvideo-age, also very high picture quality is needed not to convince the customer.

Don’t click it is a research-study in interactive design from 2005 that follows a systematic approach of making complete interaction with the mouse, but without using the buttons. The websites informs about the history of mouse-interaction and delivers interesting statistics about button usage of the users. It also transforms: at first it’s really hard to resist clicking the button. But after a while you begin to wonder, why we still use the click? It’s like a miniature world. It made me see the click as a transitional frame of time in the history of computing, where CPU performance did matter and navigational elements were not be able to be as fluent as today. Nevertheless I think it’s unrealistic that we will abandon the click on some day. It is somehow similar to the QWERTY-Keyboard. At least we can doubt, that click-less designs really speed up work, like Benoit Espinola notices on his blog.

There are several things changing at the beginning of the 21st century, including research. That’s a first idea of how research is done in the 21st century.

1. You don’t have to read books and also don’t have to quote or ‘work scientifically’, because the wisdom of the crowds is always one step ahead over the cartographic wisdom of the non-electronic world, means: Wikipedia beats book and paper research.
2. Using artificial intelligence algorithms of Google / YouTube can save you weeks and months of time. That algorithms are the best available in the world and will get you quickly related content of your research topic, if you for example upload a video. The related context that is generated by YouTube is much more devoted to the point as any symposium or conference could ever be. The ai-algorithms not only deliver content, but also connect you directly to the experts out there.
3. To basically do research you only need a blog. Unfortunately there aren’t any fundings for blog research yet. Here I claim: “Will do research for money”. Would do almost any topic in between the color- and artful world.

This is maybe a good place to present you our new node3000-project Eggshell-Robotics. For me blog researchers of the moment are: Serial Consign, The Artful Gamer and Benoit Espinola.

At the website of the excellent Pragmatic Programmers publisher website I came across a book that’s called Practices of an Agile Developer. The book seems to be very good, not only for newbies, but also for experienced programmers in order to get insight and knowledge of good development practices and coding habits. There is a try-for-yourself chapter online with the weight of not less than 27 pages. It is about coding and debugging and I highly suggest the reading of it.

I’ll point out one of the things mentioned there: it’s a good habit in object-orientated programming to design your objects in a way that they are somehow independent from other objects. Each should only influence things inside itself, not in the other objects. Other tasks should be submitted by communicating with the other objects.

“Tell, don’t ask. Don’t take on another object’s or component’s job. Tell it what to do, and stick to your own job.”

There’s the example of the paperboy, who delivers paper and then turns around the receiver (you) to get your wallet out of your pocket, in order to take the money for the paper. That’s the unwanted way. We want objects, that clearly do for what they are intended for and nothing more. So in this case, the paperboy should deliver the paper and ask for money. The rest is up to you. If you want paper, you have to do specific tasks on yourself and once again communicate with your own objects. There’s much more like this, so best directly start reading.