• New website

2011-12-15T07:54:00.001-08:00

Having recently completed the MDes course at LCC, I have put together a website at www.amyricketts.co.uk showing a selection of my work over the year.

User testing

2011-04-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

I'd like to develop some methods to test the service; this may mean printing a number of prototype options to gauge the ease of interface for users. I'd really like to keep the process as open as possible and encourage a level of co-design with the test groups.

The service is really about pre-journey information due to the level of planning that takes place before users begin any journey. Looking at this pre-journey stage; the time spent planning, there may be additional opportunities - for example making print friendly versions of the site results for those without smart phones.

Research

2011-04-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

Department for transport publish all of their road sign sketches online, complete with measurements. This may or may not prove relevant, either way, they are lovely.

Otl Aicher

Royal Mail branding

Initial tests

2011-04-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

Recommended fonts:

Websafe fonts:

Colour tests:

Accessible design

2011-04-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

One of the projects I am working on, is a website and app service for disabled users with varying degrees of accessibility issues (visual through to physical impairment). The project is being run by a small team of people working within a transport company.

My role will be to help test and design the site and application. Over the next few weeks I am hoping to do some research into accessible design in terms of required levels of clarity, sizes, colours, interface and so forth.

The Web Accessibility Initiative

'... a set of guidelines intended for web developers, authors, and designers- about how to make the web content accessible to people with disabilities.'

The WAI and readability guidelines on the w3schools suggest a number of things:

- Use an adjustable font size

- Include the alt function on the images

- Use contrasting colours

- Well spaced letters and line heights

- Don't use italics

- Use a clear font

Webcredible

- Don't use alt function on 'decorative images'

- Accessible forms - flashing cursors and prompt text

- Check the website in Lynx

- Check the site can be navigated without a mouse

- Include a site map

- Descriptive link text

- Use WebXACT and Wave to test the site

AIG A

Useful article on typography for those suffering with eyesight problems.

According to the ADA (The Americans with Disabilities Act) the following serif fonts are suggested:

- Bodoni Book

- Times Roman

- Garamond semi-bold

- Century schoolbook

- Glypha Roman

San-serif:

- Futura heavy

- Helvetica bold

- Univers 65

- Frutiger bold

- Syntax bold

Body weight = 60%-100% of character height

Stroke width = 10%-20% of character height

'The American Printing House for the Blind (APH) has developed a typeface known as APHont, which was specifically designed to be used by readers with vision problems. '

One semester in

2011-04-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

I'm currently almost 4 months into my Masters course; having finished the first semester and enjoying a couple of weeks off for Easter.

I've completed 4 projects and am still working on around 3 others that will continue into the next term. As 2 out of 3 of these projects are not compulsory but extra to my course, I would like to document my findings and progress through this blog.

Back to school

2011-01-10T12:04:00.000-08:00

First post of 2011 and as a student at the LCC. I have gone back to University to study an MDes Innovation and Creativity in Industry.

This blog seems to serve well as a kind of journal to get any preliminary ideas down, as well as quite nicely bridge the gap between my own practice and course work.

UV and Vitamin D

2010-11-15T08:50:00.000-08:00

Creating a device that suggests a suitable amount of time for one to spend in the sun has a number of physical health implications, therefore I'd like to declare a disclaimer.

The unit is in no way intended for the use of prevention of skin cancers or as a benchmark for advised Vitamin D intake.

However, as the timing system will go some way towards these issues, I would like to follow out a little research in just how long it would take for someone to achieve their RDA of Vitamin D through natural sunlight.

There have been a huge number of studies into the correlation of UVA and UVB radiation and skin cancers; however, it is also evident that a short amount of time in the sun each day can be beneficial to reaching our daily intake of Vitamin D and also for general well being.

In some cases, Vitamin D has even been linked to a decrease in the risk of developing some cancers.

It is widely accepted that the time needed to expose your skin to the sun in order to gain enough Vitamin D, is much less than the time you would spend sunbathing to produce a tan or suffer sunburn.

Because the device would only operate during the week; when people are typically working, it would only be used for these short breaks you might or might not take as the case may be.

According to The British Association of Dermatologists, '...the range of vitamin D intakes required to ensure maintenance of wintertime vitamin D status of 20 to 40 year old adults, considering a variety of sun exposure preferences, is between 7.2 and 41.1 micrograms/day.'

This figure seems to equate to around 10-15 minutes in the noonday sun. See here and here for suggestions.

If that period of time is the maximum one should spend in the sun without protection whilst the sun is at its strongest, then during cloudier days, that time would supposedly increase.

As this project is born of personal interest without any view to market, I will fabricate a system based on the little information that I have. In an ideal situation, this project could warrant further research, professional advice and rigorous testing.

Presently however, I hope to simply build a rough working prototype, based very loosely on general information that I gather together regarding the health implications of UV.

In terms of translating that 10-15 minute daily recommendation into the system, each LED could represent 5 minutes. Therefore, in the strongest rays, at the hottest period in the day - between 11am-3pm, only 3 LED's would illuminate. If it were cloudier or outside of those hours, more LED's would activate relative to the UV levels.

The prototype will be suited to my personal situation - being located in London, being fair skinned with light hair. This would vary if you were in a country with warmer climes and had darker skin, which would increase time for the skin to burn and absorb Vitamin D.

How it could work

2010-11-11T05:41:00.000-08:00

This post is a fairly rough run down of how the device might operate, presented as series of steps.

The complete cycle takes place only once within a nine hour window, between 9am and 6pm.

1. The user arrives at work at 9am and sits at their desk with the device plugged into their computer via USB.

2. The computer is connected to the Internet.

3. An RSS feed containing UV data is processed through a sketch and uploaded to the device once every 10 minutes.

4. If UV levels reach a certain point during the day, the device will give off a signal, perhaps by vibrating or buzzing.

5. There is also a series of LED's running along the device - one LED signifies an alloted amount of time. Depending on the data, the appropriate number of lights turn on - the user spends as much time outside as it takes for all lights to go out.

6. The user unplugs the device and goes outside in the sun.

7. A UV sensor on the device registers an increase in UV levels to match the data and a timer starts, beginning the countdown of LED's.

8. If UV levels drop below a certain point (i.e. the sun goes behind clouds) for less than or equal to 3 minutes then the timer pauses and the LED's begin to flash as a warning.

9. If UV levels remain below a certain point (i.e. the user goes into a shop) for more then 3 minutes then the timer remains paused and a loud buzzer sounds, prompting the user to complete the cycle.

10. At this point the user can go outside in the sunshine again, or manually pause the device.

11. If the user chooses to pause the device, they can complete the cycle later in the day at a more convenient time. The LED's will flash to signify this paused state and it will give off a short, sharp buzzing noise once every 30 minutes until it is re-started. If the user returns to the desk while the device is paused, they may wish to update the data in case the weather has changed and they can no longer complete the cycle as UV levels have reduced. If this is the case, the LED's will react accordingly, letting the user know how much time, if any, they need to still complete.

12. Once the cycle is completed, the LED's will flash in a pattern and turn off.

13. If the cycle is for some reason not completed by 6pm that day, then the device will reset itself.

14. If the user exposes the device to extra UV rays once it has completed its cycle and within the nine hour window, the buzzer will sound until UV levels are reduced accordingly for up to one minute. This is to prevent over exposure to the sun and a lax attitude to work during the summer.

The nine hour window would increase and decrease in line with the seasons and location of the user.

Being more specific

2010-11-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

I'm now at a point with the new device where I need to start thinking about how it is going to work.

In terms of how the user will interpret the behaviors, how appropriate they are to their purpose, the practicalities and so forth.

The next few posts will centre on these issues whilst I make start on some more in depth research.

Lack of Vitamin D which can be obtained through the suns rays can cause Rickets. How fitting.

Summer Guilt

2010-10-22T00:38:00.000-07:00

This idea is by and large a development of the Commuters device; both play around the idea of making the frustrations of your day job a little more bearable, improving your physical health and state of mind.

On a hot summers day, no-one wants to be stuck inside in front of a screen whilst it seems the world is outside enjoying the weather.

This feeling is something that is particularly frustrating to control, especially when you work for yourself.

After sitting for a few hours in a cool room starring at the sunny scenes on the other side of your window, you might decide to have a break and take yourself outside.

But the moment you do that, you begin to feel an ever increasing weight of guilt that you are not working hard enough, that you are slacking off. So any enjoyment that you may have had is replaced by a pressure to get back inside and carry on working.

This internal battle just adds to the stresses of an everyday working environment.

The Summer Guilt project would alleviate any of these decisions for you, leaving you to continue with your day.

The device will collect and process local weather conditions, in particular, UV strength levels and alert you as to when you should take a break outside.

Then, depending on how much time you have spent in the sun, it will prompt you to return to your desk, either because you are at risk of skin damage without protection or because you have 'taken enough time' away from work.

Because the device negates any responsibility on the users part, each person can relax in the knowledge that they are neither not doing enough work or not taking advantage of the weather; it experiences the guilt for you and acts as your conscience.

Research to come.

Prototype

2010-10-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

With a huge amount of help, the first prototype for the wearable device is now complete and has inevitably thrown up many issues along the way of making it.

The main problem is that the idea is not as robust as I once thought, mainly due to the inaccuracies of results with varying UV strengths.

For example, if it were cloudy on a Monday and the wearer walked for one hour to work and then it was sunny on Tuesday but they walked only half an hour, the results from the device would be very similar.

So instead of 'rewarding' outdoor travel exclusively, what it actually does is 'reward' being outside in stronger UV rays.

One solution would be to include within the circuit a means by which to aggregate local weather conditions, possibly using an ethernet shield and Arduino technology. This would allow me to write a program that creates more resistance in the circuit in bright sunshine and less when the local conditions are cloudy. Thus, returning a more appropriate response.

As an alternative, a pedometer could be a much simpler way of processing data based on exercise. Perhaps an idea would be to adapt that kind of mechanism to operate when light levels are above a certain point based on readings from a UV diode (so it doesn't reward an exercise carried out in a gym).

If the concept was centered around the idea of general exercise then any regular pedometer would do the job; but it is not this that I am really interested in.

The point of the project was to create something a bit more confrontational that could become a part of the social dialogue that takes place between work mates, friends and family. Something that people could play and compete with.

It was also very specific to local travel and therefore reducing our carbon emissions. For instance, cycling for two hours to get to work would be a very unattractive prospect for most.

So this electronic embraces the notion of locality; a logistically simpler way to run a business.

Although currently for many, travelling to work might mean a considerable commute, changes may occur over the next decade that see the centralisation and localistion of business in an effort to cut costs.

A regular pedometer does neither of those things and although the recent Nike+ kit does track your progress and provide platforms for its users to play games and compete online, it seems to be more useful for a personal, 'beat yourself' kind of attitude to exercise.

This device is less subtle or sexy, appealing much more to our basic needs with the user appearing like a gorilla beating its chest or a peacock performing a courtship display.

I'm in danger of repeating myself at this point but in order to develop an idea, I must clarify exactly what this will and won't hope to achieve.

As to not confuse myself, I will post separately another idea which adheres to similar principles.

Commuters device

2010-10-15T05:19:00.000-07:00

A work in progress - first prototype

I am working on a new project and aim to finish the first prototype by next Wednesday. The idea is as follows:

As you leave your house in the morning to begin your journey to work, you attach your device in preparation, just as you would put on your gloves/hat etc.

As you travel - the more time you spend outside, under UV light, the more 'charged' your unit becomes. Walking, running and cycling to work would be more beneficial to you (health-wise) than driving or riding a train.

This also harks back to a time where industry was centralized and your place of work was within walking distance.

Having access to parts of the country and the world within such a short space of time has meant that everything has spread out and we spend significantly more time travelling.

So the electronic not only encourages outdoor travel as a form of exercise but also celebrates a localized industry structure of the workforce.

As you arrive at work with your charged or uncharged device, your peers and colleagues can see just how much time you have spent outdoors before coming to work.

The colours on the threads will be brightly coloured if you have fully charged the unit, or dull and white if not.

Then, upon pressing a button, any energy that the unit has stored up from the UV rays is expelled by a loud buzzer, as a kind of boastful call to your work mates. Each wearer can activate their device at the same time, enabling us to observe our co-workers travelling habits.

Laziness has become a much more unacceptable state of mind with the social pressures of staying fit and looking after ourselves and our planet. This creates a new dialogue between people; our sense of travel and locality are heightened.

The one with the brightest unit and the longest beep has travelled outdoors the furthest.

An animalistic display of vitality to our potential mates.

UV threads - change colour from white when exposed

Project complete

2010-10-08T09:10:00.001-07:00

The gender reverse project is now complete and in fully functioning order.
To visit the site, click below:

Development

2010-09-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

The project is coming along fairly well, to the point where web pages can be displayed and gender terms switched to a high enough accuracy. All of the images are stripped and replaced with coloured boxes and all links and javascript is disabled.

This means that only the switched text is visible to the reader.

I may try to develop this into a plugin/extension for Google Chrome. This would give a much more seamless interface to the project - the visitor simply enables or disables the plugin to either view the page in its original or reversed state.

New

2010-09-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that there are ways of realising most ideas, but it takes a deal or prior knowledge to understand how projects may come together.

Grayscale bulb
This, as far as my understanding allows, defies science and is therefore impossible.

A bulb that emits a grey/black light, in essence, a lack of colour - subsequently a lack of light, as colour is light.

I'd like to walk into a room and everything, even my own coloured clothes and skin to appear in grayscale.

Weather cubes
A series of large, water tight glass cubes on plinths containing the weather from different countries.

Cloud cover in one cube, simulated as water vapour.

Rainfall in another; a gradually rising or falling level relative to the volume of the cube and area of rainfall.

Sun strength displayed using a super bright light.

Temperature - warm or cold air being blown into the cavity of the cube, heating the glass to touch.

Each weather cube is from a different location on a different continent; data is streamed live and the viewers can pick and choose which area they would like to experience. The cubes then reset and react within minutes to simulate the weather patterns from the newly selected location.

Weather stations containing the sensory equipment could be located at landmark positions, or the data could be sourced from existing stations that publish feeds for public use.

Containing the weather in such small and controlled amounts provides a kind of 'snippet' of that weather system. This changes how we perceive the weather - it becomes a much more removed experience as opposed to the immersive and inescapable that we season each day.

Gender reversal

2010-09-14T00:04:00.000-07:00

I vividly remember watching a 'Carry On...' film, at the age of about 12, and it leaving me with a very strong sense of frustration. Not at how bad the film was, but at how the female characters, ran about, bosoms bouncing for the leering male characters. Something as slapstick was never intended as a serious comment on preferred gender stereotypes but none the less, it told me that this was OK to poke fun at.

It often surprises me, at how unaware and accepting society is of casual sexism, ranging from the aforementioned slapstick to borderline misogyny.

If we could notice these inequalities as blatant, embarrassing and unacceptable acts of prejudice then that may be one small step in the right direction.

If male and female terms were exchanged (for example 'She looked beautiful' to 'He looked beautiful') in everything from film synopsis to news stories, we may begin to notice these differences and how they condition us to make certain choices.

Incidentally, it may draw attention to how the sexes are defined and described in the mass media; if words describing aesthetic values are used in association more with men or women and so forth. Seeing words that we more commonly associate with one gender over another should create a kind of jarring effect as you read. These are the kinds of subtleties which I hope to highlight.

Using PHP I am working on a website which should automatically convert this text for the viewer, eventually resulting in a collection of RSS feeds within one page. This will present a range of sources and hopefully provide an overview of how men and women are described or do feature.

A kind of ideal format for this idea would be perhaps a pair of glasses, or atleast a viewing frame from which to hold up to real, live content such as signage, posters, digital screens etc, which would again, reverse the male and female images and words.

Something like the augmented reality apps available now would be the closest thing existing today, however this would require the permanance of posters and signs so the app can respond to the environment using GPS.

This would not work; posters are taken down/moved so quickly - the device would need to react live to the information, perhaps using optical character and facial recognition software.

An alternative, is if print were completely obselete and all marketing was digital. This would allow maybe a bluetooth signal to be sent out from each poster to phones and devices passing by. Within the signal would be a number of uniform 'tags' describing the content of the poster. So if there was a poster advertising womens underwear then the tags may be 'woman' '20-30 years old' 'lingerie' 'sexy'.

The app (or whatever form it may take) could then exchange those words with 'man' '20-30 years old' 'pants' 'sexy' and so forth.

If there was a public reaction and interest in how genders are represented then things may begin to change.

UPDATE: Augmented reality / phone app gender reversal may be more possible than considered.

An illustration

2010-09-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

These images illustrate how the USB flash stick could appear if it were to ever be manufactured.

Capacity : empty

Capacity: half full

Capacity: full

Not a chair

2010-09-10T10:48:00.000-07:00

After doing a little research into existing technologies thats aims are to monitor vital signs, a few projects came to my attention; one of which is almost exactly the same as my original idea.

The 'Surgery Pod' is a unit installed in GP waiting rooms to take vital signs and transfer data to permanent health records. The only difference between my original proposal and this is the interface. This requires a very active input from the user, whereas the chair would take the data much more passively.

Surgery Pod

Having the patients fill out a questionnaire or hold a small unit as opposed to just casually sitting on a chair, makes the process much more visible. This would increase patient trust of the technologies efficiency and accuracy as well as most probably saving costs.
The only possible drawback would be the social effects of patient self evaluation. Again, I am not convinced of where the responsibility would lie if the readings were incorrect for some reason. Perhaps the act of patient participation in their own exam would leave onus on the individual.

The results from the site seem promising although the financial savings are hard to quantify as the main benefits are an increase of productivity on the GP's part.

Another more mobile and personal application is that of a kind of 'smart clothing'. Sensors integrated into clothes and items attached to the bodies of users give a more individual and relevant result - the conditions in a waiting room are different to that of other more everyday environments.

It's somewhat a validation of the original concept to find it already exists.

Vital signs chair

2010-09-03T05:30:00.000-07:00

Visiting my doctors surgery this week, resulted in a 30 minute wait to be seen, despite having a pre-booked appointment. Others also seemed to be waiting longer than 5-10 minutes for appointments which they presumably turned up on time for.

The time spent waiting to be seen could be put to better use, for both us as patients wanting the best care possible and for the doctors, knowing that they are not compromising their practice values because of limited time allocation for appointments.

One possible solution for putting this redundant time period to use is to begin a patients examination before they've seen the doctor using the passive surgery waiting room furniture as sensors for ones vital signs.

As the patient enters the surgery, the receptionist checks them in and allocates them to a specific chair. As they sit, reading a book or chatting, the chair takes a number of different statistical values based on their weight, height, blood pressure, pulse rate, temperature, and respiratory rate.

Each sensor would be subtly integrated into the chairs form, and the readings taken without invasive or noticeable collection.

As patient detailed and summary care records are being transferred to a computer system over the next 5 years, each individuals records can be added to as these readings are taken. Therefore, the longer you are waiting or the more you frequent the surgery, the more accurate a picture of your vital signs is built up.

Additionally, as each chair is assigned to a patient, your statistics already in your files, for example a heart condition, are taken into account when the chair is processing the data.

The collected information is then sent directly to the appropriate GP, so by the time you see your doctor she/he already has these statistics, at which point can be further acted upon if necessary.

'Doctors spend on average eight-10 minutes with each patient'; if some of the basic examinations have been carried out before the appointment the time spent with the doctor can be used more effectively.

Relying on a piece of standalone technology may be problematic; from a user point of view particularly, trusting the equipment to deliver accurate responses.
And if there is a glitch or anomaly, who is to be held responsible?

The lack of accountability, with something as important as personal health is something to be considered.

Tangible capacity

2010-09-03T00:01:00.001-07:00

Having read some of Hertzian Tales by Professor Anthony Dunne; my attention was drawn to the way in which we (as users) regard information and data. Especially in the case of data storage devices such as the iPod, Compact Disk, USB flash drives, internal/external hard drives.

Data that is used and relied upon everyday has become so far removed from the physical, that being able to store 'x' amount of information is simply a nebulous number. We are not able to think of this information in the same way that we do a stack of paper, or a cabinet full of files.
We therefore do not regard it in the same way, investing in the idea of portability, convenience and self-containment of data storage.

To explore the ways in which digital information can become tangible and force users to handle the data differently, existing storage devices are transformed from static, physical objects into variable and dynamic forms.

These articles materially expand and contract depending on their relative storage capacity volumes. For example if a USB flash drive was empty (apart from its default operational files), then the device would remain at its originally manufactured size. However, when the drive begins to fill or when it has reached its limit, then the outer 'skin' or casing of the object will have expanded relatively to its former size.

This renders the very nature of the equipments primary function as data storage to an extent useless. Each piece of technology would still store and transfer data in the same way, however it now has no claims for convenience or compactness.

This would require the user to think about the information in a different way, having to compensate for size and/or weight of a full MP3 player for example.

Would the person become a potential target by petty thief's if it were visibly apparent how much data they had on them?

Does all data have a certain value?