I'm told that there will be video posted, but in the meantime, these (partial, paraphrased, etc) notes might be helpful.

(Some of these photos use Flickr photos. I never intended these for public viewing, and I've misplaced the author data, and even the original files. If one of the photos belongs to you or someone you know, let me know and I will add in a visible credit or take the photo down ASAP.)

Play-powered park

Using playground equipment - swings, teeter-totters, see-saws and others - generates friction, which could be used to generate electricity. The Play Powered Park uses children's play to power an animated sculpture (or more than one, depending on the amount of electricity that could be generated). The level of animation in the sculpture visualizes the amount of activity in the park.

Urban migrations

(note the 2007-style antenna on the phone!)

San Francisco provides many habitats for migrating animals, especially its lakes and waterfronts. Urban Migrations helps create a sense of anticipation about these seasonal migrations, then helps families plan visits to the parks and open spaces where they can be found. By sending participants messages about the upcoming arrival of animals such as swallows, whales, and geese, it makes the 'velocity' of animal travel across the natural and built landscape more visible.

Bounce games

Augmenting everyday rubber balls and playing field goal posts with proximity sensors gives playing fields and playgrounds the capacity to provide interactive experiences similar to those kids enjoy at home. At the same time, the spaces and balls can still be used for traditional games. Since the balls remain inexpensive, they can be easily replaced.

short history of design
we have become a little more object and a little less human
pre-design:
form follows need
then
form follows function

then human-centered/user-centered design
form follows need
making fixes
a system
but didn't deliver emotional connection to object

moving to changing the way he understands design
crossover between human and object - within the crossover area lies meaning
design from within
the space of emotions and relationships
ie, a soup spoon that has holes in it to scrape the tongue

"the galaxy is in imbalance"
"the world was always fast, we just didn't have the information about it"

clog vs clarity - but the clog of information isn't necessarily negative
it's just the overload
seeking clarity in order to find relevance
and enable harmony
work life in imbalance
so: harmonious devices to restore balance between work and life
OS is in mechanical age - too much glut of apps and noise
phones should change behavior depending on where you are
what if device knows your needs

diy
perfect design: when you can't see where design starts and engineering stops, and vice versa
for example, pasta.
desire for tailored devices --> diy or curated
print your own phones

mind / aging
formation of mental models - openness to possibility closes down
designing for people to feel at ease in their age
designers need to make things that don't clash with people's rigid expectations

sustainability
designing for objects that live in first and second-hand markets simultaneously
reusability and repurposing

what if we create objects that are subtly different but similar, like pebbles on a beach? that you could find one that relates to you like the "right" pebble on a beach?

photography
- ie, what about a camera that captures what's on the other side of the viewfinder?

when he teaches, asks students not to use Google, as a way to force them onto their own creativity -- then later check outside

so, new technologies
- right now we are better at capturing gesture than responding; we rely on visual/video

we are not meeting etiquette expectations
gesture recognition: slashing gestures --> "don't make me be mean"

importance of touch in development
studies suggest direct relationship between tactile senses and emotional responses to relatively unrelated questions

Kicker experiments
- interface of visual reading vs the interface of braille
- braille as a successful visual interface
- Kicker touchscreen braille reader
creating a tactile grid

(created with client, who is in audience now)

"teaching technology to speak human, with a vernacular we can understand

developed for blind children learning through digital textbooks, especially math

stress testing robots so that the parts can survive buggy code

robots for open-source coding
working on redesign of robot to make it more friendly for scientific research with ordinary people who might be freaked out by a head that "looks like a tarantula"

"the head is small because robots aren't so smart yet and we don't want them to look too smart"

collaboration with Henry Evans, a quadriplegic who drives the robot to do mundane things like scratching his face and shave himself by using his eyes to shave the robot

skunkworks "skype on wheels" for teleworking

turtle robot - uses kinect

personal robotic devices as a product category
- in a sense, your HVAC system and your washing machine are robots.

challenge 1: design agentic objects
lesson 1: underpromise and overdeliver to avoid disappointment
lesson 2: consider imitating non-humans in designing interactions

question: how do people make sense of behaviors?
video prototyping forethought and success with a Pixar animator
then showed the video online and did a questionnaire on reactions
also got a Pixar sound designer to do robot non-verbal sounds

where is the brain when the computer brain is in the cloud?
lesson: physical distantiation of disagreement so that voice is in a different place than the body

challenge 2: getting robots to be more [invisible in use]
once again, Heidegger
Gibson's ecological psychology and cars

the interesting space for robotic design are robots that seem like agents, and robots that disappear into use.
for invisibility in use:
analogy: equestrian relationships of people and horses

q: wally?
a: we do get inspiration from that

for Molly: first slide is a picture of pneumatic tubes for mail, used in 1965!

mostly same room and equipment supported 3 vehicles over 34 years

innovation and change in mission control are "kinda not good words"
cool thing #1
"dial a display" in the control room
a TV that can dial into any display you want, using something that looks like a combination lock -- from a mainframe!
so you're dialing into a mainframe to change your display
hardwiring new displays is faster than implementing comparable software upgrades today, because everything needs to be certified

cool thing #2
"the loops"
look like ear buds -- a series of channels that you can listen to, so you can listen in to every conversation going on
at first it's madness, because you're listening to a "cacophony"
so you could be listening to 13 channels at once
"things don't change in NASA interaction design because people could die" -- because "you know it's going to work when you need it to work"
"risk is a pretty bad word"

cool thing #3
"station" -- the space station doesn't have a manual
it doesn't work like they thought it would -- 98% troubleshooting
so that means hacks become SOP
"you can design for one thing, but you usually get something else" ... especially when you build stuff in space
using cardboard models of the station to troubleshoot complex changes

debatable cool thing #4
"failure is not an option"
flight control culture created by one man
"to always be aware that suddenly and unexpectedly we may find ourselves in a role where our performance has ultimate consequences."
flight control, you can't forget, are friends with astronauts
people work crappy hours in tough environments making hard decisions every day
spaceflight is not routine, even though it seems routine. everything is risky.

the bad thing is: there's a lot of redundancy
"it's more satisfying to punch buttons"

What's next for manned space flight after the retirement of the shuttle?
outside commercial partners will provide vehicles
wow! a research project being talked looking at what it would mean to send astronauts to live beyond low earth orbit

q: nasa's goals in hiring an ethnographer?
Only a few. Cori joined as part of a software dev team. She is the lone ethnographer with designers and engineers.

q: the loops?
Very restrictive. Not even allowed to use outside IM -- NASA rolls its own. Although in the background there are TVs.

q: Do the audio channels get transcribed into text?
a: No. The "black box" has everything recorded by date and timestamp, so you can go back and transcribe if you have to.

q: will commercial partners just supply equipment?
a: up for debate.

q: how long before we lose this experience?
a: most flight controllers are already laid off. but the station is still flying.

"the hard things for humans in space is, do you trust the computer to be right?"