Early in 2005 I drafted a project together with the Oslo School of Architecture & Design that was designed to look at Near Field Communication (NFC) with an interaction design and user-centred perspective. In December 2005 the project was funded in full by the Research Council of Norway. So since March 2006 we have been setting up the project and conducting preliminary exploratory research work. You can see our ongoing process on the project weblog (and pick up the RSS feed too).
I’m collecting images from around the world depicting ‘you are here’ marks or ideo locators at Flickr. I’m fascinated by this mapping in context, in particular the relationship to local physical space. This is mapping with a a point of view, and maps as direct interface to the world. The best example to date is from Seoul, where 3D cross sections of a metro station are directly related to the point at which you are looking at the map.
For the last couple of weeks I have been experimenting with tagging personal space with NFC. This started by embedding RFID tags in my desk, to use it as an information surface for contacts, SMSes and links.
Thanks to Matt and Nokia I’ve had a prototype 3220 NFC shell on loan for a few weeks. It’s the second Nokia phone to feature an RFID reader and writer for ‘Near Field Communication’ the technology that I’ve been getting excited about for mobile services, stickering and touch.
This work explores the visual link between information and physical things, specifically around the emerging use of the mobile phone to interact with RFID or NFC. It was a presentation and poster at Design Engaged, Berlin on the 11th November 2005.
Download the icons (PDF, 721KB, Gif preview).
Here are my raw notes from the three days of excellent conversation, urban exploration and brainstorming of Design Engaged 2005.
Over Easter I sketched out some ideas for navigating music on a portable player. I was frustrated with the iPod clickwheel, thinking about reducing the reliance on visual interfaces and how navigating music has a lot to do with language. I wanted to explore richer interfaces that combine movement, language and vision.
Timo Arnall is a designer working with interactive products and media. Timo leads an international research project on mobile technology, collaborates on interaction design work and lectures in design, physical computing and design methodology. More...
