Imran Ali

Where 2.0

With it's AJAX-ian user interface, remixable maps and numerous mashups and spinoffs, Google Maps kickstarted the current wave of innovation in UI design and locative media. MSN and Yahoo predicatably leapt into the fray with their own competing services, however it's worth keeping an eye on old standards like Multimap.

Following a link inside a Wikipedia entry, I discovered that Multimap now cleverly overlays maps onto aerial photos (kinda like Google Maps' Hybrid view) in the area around your pointer....a nice UI touch, providing an intuitive mechanism for juxtaposing map and photo information. It'd be great to see this extended to other locative data such as property values, crime, population and photoblogs.

See an example here...

Stamen Design

Yesterday, I met Mike Migurski and Eric Rodenback, the people behind San Francisco's Stamen Design. Stamen is the company behind innovative visualisations of digital media, including the Flickr-powered Mappr, reBlog and the del.icio.us-based Vox Delicii.

Stamen has an interesting philosophy, mixing innovative work for clients such as MoveOn.org, BMW and the BBC with experimental visualisations of complex data, such as Mappr and Vox Delicii.

Their work is fresh, vibrant and exciting and turns mundane sets of complex data into rich, tactile and fun user experiences.

We're hoping to engage Stamen on a number of projects, bringing to life the digital life experiences that we've been developing through 2004 and 2005.

Watch this space... ;)

Designing from the outside in

"Isn't it curious how many of the applications and ideas getting the most buzz right now are coming from fertile collaborations between designers and developers?".

He's right.

Tim O'Reilly attempts to deconstruct some of this relationship with 37signal's Jason Fried here...

Fried's own advice is to "Start with the UI - there's nothing functional, about a functional spec!"...indeed in contrast to the linear production-line and risk-averse methodologies of most web service design, 37signals espouse a more organic and iterative approach:

Start Designing

Start Prototyping

Start Experiencing

Start Changing

Rinse & Repeat

More advice from Fried and 37signals here...

Doors Of Perception

"When people talk about innovation in this decade, they really mean design" - Bruce Nussbaum.

Doors Of Perception has been variously referred to as the "World Economic Forum for the design industry" and an "international focal point for design, industry and culture".

Doors is in essence a global design and innovation network that seeks to identify, discuss and develop next-generation design concepts - for information and communication technologies.

The theme for this year's event, Doors8Delhi, is INFRA - the infrastructure of social innovation. If I'm very lucky, my credit card bears up and I can endure the 32-hour flight from San Francisco to Delhi, I'm hoping to be able to report back on Doors8.

In the meantime, the TR team, colleagues from France Telecom R&D and Orange R&I will be attending the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference in mid-March. ETech is an inspirational peek at the technologies, trends, people and companies that could mainstream in the next few years.