Escaping Flatland

My talk from Reasons to be Appy 2012.

Listen closely to James Brown's Super Bad; nestled in-between Bobby Byrd's keyboards and Bootsy Collins' bass line is a flaw. It's the sound of a squeaky hi-hat pedal. A squeak that nobody felt the need to remove – nobody felt compelled to record an update. And yet the recording is still wonderful even with this supposed flaw because – for me at least – it adds texture.

I strongly believe these bumps and scars – these moments of subtle poetry – are what we as human beings fall in love with. These amazing digital devices we hold in our hands shouldn't be an exception; in fact because of their Flatland like nature we need to make sure we add these often illogical empathetic moments in-between to our interfaces so we can create objects that not only Beep but squeak a little too.

Transcript

1. ESCAPING FLATLAND @brendandawes
3. MODERNISM NEEDS TEXTURE
6. NOBODY CAN EVER KNOW WHAT AN APP SMELLS LIKE
12. IT’S HARD TO HOLD HANDS WITH A DESKTOP
17. “@MoviePeg arrives in the office. Like all good kids, we discard the contents for 5 minutes to play with the lovely box. V cute!” – @denisewilton
18. DESIGN OBJECTS THAT HAVE THE CAPACITY TO BE LOVED
21. WHAT IF YOU COULD SCRIBBLE ON THE BACK OF AN APP?
24. LACK OF AFFORDANCE MEANS THERE ARE NO PRECONCEPTIONS
28. http://www.adafruit.com/products/14
30. http://blog.jgc.org/2012/05/simonoids-its-simon-in-altoids-can.html John Graham Cummings’ Simonoids
32. TO SEE THE FUTURE CLEARER WE NEED TO REMOVE THE ROSE- TINTED NOSTALGIA GOGGLES
33. THANK YOU @brendandawes