Welcome to Interfaces.com

This blog is dedicated to product design issues.

I hope this online collection of notes would prove valuable not only to me but to all students and colleagues looking to develop innovating and interesting products. This site focuses on product design, conceptual design, interaction design, interface design, and failure analysis.

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Scaffolding

The Haptic Feel of Books versus eBooks

July 29, 2011
The Haptic Feel of Books versus eBooks

We’ve traveled to Rome for our family vacation this year, and aside from a few summer reading books that I couldn’t find in an eBook format, we relied on our two Kindles and 3 iPads for our family reading needs. This is the second summer we brought primarily electronic versions of books—”The Count of...
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Generation C, a Sample User Persona

June 15, 2011

Here’s an Booz & Company article by Roman Friedrich, Michael Peterson, Alex Koster, and Sebastian Blum: “The Rise of Generation C Implications for the World of 2020.” The Rise of Generation C
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Design & Emotion

June 13, 2011
Design & Emotion

Greenpeace communicates its point well: using emotional scaffolding, Greenpeace drives its ideas home on conservation. Read a CNN article here.
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Empathy on the Brain

June 9, 2011
Empathy on the Brain

Empathy is a necessary component of product design. To design and make something that is comfortable to use for someone else, requires the maker of the product to imagine how another human being would feel while using it. This is a hard thing to do. Medical students have to take “bed side manners” classes...
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Advancing the New Machine UCLA Law Forum Presentation

April 27, 2011
Advancing the New Machine UCLA Law Forum Presentation

Today, I presented UCLA Law Forum at the Advancing the New Machine human rights conference in Berkeley. Below is an approximation of my presentation. How many of you have ever used a chair to reach that jar of tomatoes on the top shelf? I do it all the time. I’m the shortest member of...
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Entropy & Design

April 17, 2011
Entropy & Design

Entropy is the measure of a system’s disorder and it increases with time (as dictated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics). Once the egg is cracked open, it’s impossible to make whole again: “Humpy Dumpy sat on the wall, Humpy Dumpy had a great fall; all the king’s horses and all the king’s men...
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Knowledge, Context, & Expectation

March 23, 2011
saving zoo animals during tsunami

These are three necessary components of any product design: Knowledge: the background information that forms the foundation of product design Context: the ecosystem in which the product will be used Expectation: the alignment of goals between product creators and the users for which it was designed A failure to fully understand any of the...
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Pipsqueak Articles

Ambiguity of Natural Language and Computer Language Interpretation

Bad Cop Good Cop Language Abmiguity

In his book “The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature”, Steven Pinker gave the following defense of language ambiguity: Imagine...
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Press Release: World’s Tech Elite Named to Interaction-Design.org Board

Press Release: World’s Tech Elite Named to Interaction-Design.org Board

Today the Interaction Design Foundation, the IDF, has announced its new executive board. The executive board includes Don Norman; Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher at...
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Task Analysis and Product Design

Task Analysis and Product Design

Imagine your were given an assignment to develop a product that could help people eat healthy. How would you go about creating such a...
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Going Potty…or iPotty!

Going Potty…or iPotty!

An iPotty App for kids learning to use a toilet: And here’s a bit for an older audience: Would it have worked if the...
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Musings on Failure in School

Musings on Failure in School

The Math Obstacle In the past few years, reports came out showing strong correlation between failing Algebra and graduation rates — if a kid...
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25 Awesome Quotes, 11 Ways, 10 Hateful Things, 8 Steps, 7 Reflections, 5 Hard Facts, 3 Reasons Why, 2 Questions, and 1 Mistake

5 second test

The latest in the professional social media writing is the creation of lists. Sing it with me: 25 Awesome Quotes 11 Secrets & 11...
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Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!

Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!

Who would have thought that our KFC fried chicken would be an object of desire in Japan? But perhaps all it takes is some...
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Google Apps New Pay Policy and Behavioral Economics

Google Apps New Pay Policy and Behavioral Economics

Yesterday, Google flipped a switched on its Google Apps policy — starting with December 7th, 2012, Google Apps will no longer be free! The...
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UCLA Law Forum: Discuss International Criminal Law

UCLA Human Rights and International Criminal Law Forum Logo

UCLA School of Law and International Criminal Court's Office of the Prosecutor partnered together to create UCLA Law Forum—a place to discuss international law issues. My company, Pipsqueak Productions, designed and developed the site. Please join the debate! UCLALawForum.com.

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Tim and Nick Werby with DRIPS Prototypes

DRIPS project — stands for Deep Root Irrigation and Precipitation System — is a simple device that collects atmospheric water and delivers it to the roots of plants below the evaporation layer. My sons, Tim and Nick Werby, designed and developed the idea and the site. DRIPSproject.

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Cost of Chicken Project is a crowdmapping project that tracks the true costs of food around the world. Most data points are contributed by kids. My sons, Tim and Nick Werby, designed and developed the idea and the site. Please visit their site and contribute the data points from your area. Cost of Chicken.