Challis Hodge’s UXblog

More Design in the media. Check out the cover story in the June 2004 issue of FastCompany Magazine. “No matter what you do for a living, design matters. Meet and learn from 20 visionary men and women who are using design to create not just new products, but new ways of working, leading, and seeing.”

Science.gov (www.science.gov), the public’s “go to” Web portal for the vast stores of Federal science information, has made searching for information easier for the user. At a roll-out on May 11, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham launched the new search version of Science.gov which includes ranking the relevance of results to the users’
question.

While retaining the content and advances originally unveiled in December 2002, Science.gov 2.0 will search its 47 million pages of government R&D results and present the results to patrons in relevancy-ranked order. This new technology sorts through the government’s reservoirs of research and rapidly returns information in an order more likely to meet patrons’ needs.

The Web portal is made possible through a collaboration of 12 major science agencies forming a coalition called the Science.gov Alliance.

The Department of Energy, which hosts the site through its Office of Scientific and Technical Information, funded the R&D of a new relevancy-ranking technology by a company called Deep Web Technologies. The technology was applied to meta-searches in the deep Web where traditional search engines cannot go.

American Girl Place, which opened in Chicago in 1998 and in New York in November 2004 epitomizes the best in experience design. The company caters to “tweens,” girls who are too old for Cabbage Patch but too young for Bratz. They deliver an incredible experience that is their brand that becomes very quickly a part of your life.

You can of course purchase an American Girl doll to match your skin tone and you can also purchase matching outfits for you and your doll! All dressed up and nowhere to go? How about tea or dinner at the American Girl Place in Chicago or New York? American Girl dolls are treated as V.I.P.’s, sitting in booster seats especially designed for them, and drinking from their own striped china teacups.

Before opening in November, the New York cafe had already taken 30,000 reservations. And this week, callers looking for a Saturday night table (prime time is 5:30) were told that they would have to wait until August.

Read more in the New York Times Online (subscription may be required).

One trait believed to differentiate humans from other primates is the ability to appreciate aesthetics. A recent study proved what scientists have suspected, that such judgement stems from an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex–one of the last cortical regions to expand dramatically over evolution. This part of the brain is generally known to play a role in different kinds of decision making, the researchers note, but their analysis further identified a specific region within the prefrontal cortex that responds when an individual deems something beautiful. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that this area may be “intrinsically related to conscious aesthetic perception” and may offer tantalizing insight into how “a phylogenetic change in the prefrontal cortex could give way to the decorative and artistic profusion” in humans.

Paper abstract (full text and PDF versions require subscription)

In the Winter 2004 Issue of Rotman Management, Rotman School of Management Dean Roger Martin writes on the Design of Business.

We are on the cusp of a design revolution in business. Competing is no longer about creating dominance in scale-intensive industries, it�s about producing elegant, refined products and services in imagination-intensive industries. As a result, he argues, business people don�t just need to understand designers better � they need to become designers.

Also in this issue: Jeanne Liedtka on “Strategy as Design” and Karen Christensen “CEO�s Corner: IDEO�s Tim Brown.”

The Harvard Business Review in its look at Breakthrough Ideas for 2004, suggests that the MFA has become the new MBA, essential currency for a business career.

Businesses have come to realize that the only way to differentiate their offerings is to make them beautiful and emotionally compelling–which explains why an arts degree is now such a hot credential in management. Meanwhile, MBA graduates are becoming this century’s blue-collar workers: They enbtered a workforce that was full of promise only to see their jobs move overseas.

Use this link to purchase and download a copy from HBR.ORG

You have to check out Wired’s NextFest a celebration of the cars, spacecraft, gadgets, drugs, and TV of the future, including: William Gibson on extreme ads & TiVo tribes; Nanobombs & microbots; 5 designs for the dream machines of 2014 and more!

One of my personal favorites is Sticky cam: “Sold in six-packs, these cheap wireless lenses can be stuck on any surface and feed video back to the CanCam. Each contains an integrated digital imager and optics, a printed antenna, and a zinc air battery � all mounted on a flexible bed with an adhesive backing.”

On May 6th Adidas unveiled “smart shoe” to reporters from around the globe. A computer chip that adjusts cushioning level to a runner’s size and stride is the secret behind this shoe Adidas claims will “revolutionize distance running and training.” The Adidas 1 is the product of a three-year secret project the German company developed at its U.S. headquarters in Portland Oregon.