Bugaboo is a Dutch company known mainly for its lines of up-market strollers. I use the Bugaboo Frog in class to illustrate the concept of technotonicity: How designs appeal to potential users.
In physical terms, the Frog is praised for its handling, so much so that some people reported that they took it out for a push just to enjoy the feeling of steering it!
Although I have a smartphone, I am not a particularly heavy user of the technology. Thus, I was surprised to learn of a new smartphone phenomenon called "phubbing" from a research article entitled, "When phubbing becomes the norm."
In the article, the term is defined in this wise:
The term “phubbing” represents the act of snubbing someone in a social setting by concentrating on one’s phone instead of talking to the person directly.
Jevons' Paradox concerns how increases in efficiency can lead to increases—rather than decreases—in consumption of resources. Designers expend a great deal of brainpower and passion on increasing the efficiency of their designs. The goal is often to decrease consumption of a resource, as a way of improving overall sustainability. In brief, the reasoning is that if a given task can be completed with fewer resources, then those resources will be conserved.
The slogan "form follows function" has long been associated with a minimalist view of good design. On the positive side, it has been used to mean that designs should be configured to fulfil their intended goals. On the negative side, it has been used to limit those goals to so-called basic needs only, to the exclusion of social goals.
What is a computer? Wikipedia currently gives the following definition:
A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out an arbitrary set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically.
This definition is one that might be expected from a computer scientist. It is very broad and entirely functional, that is, it describes a computer strictly in terms of what it does.
An electronic bike (or "e-bike") is more-or-less what it sounds like: a bike with an electric motor integrated into it. E-bikes have become quite popular in Europe and in China, especially as a substitute for cars for short distance commuting.
Increasingly, food companies seem to manipulate food coloration as a marketing ploy. In 2000, Heinz marketed green ketchup as a way of attracting interest in a humdrum condiment. This was followed by increasingly odd colors such as purple, pink, orange, teal and blue.
Although the campaign had a good run, Heinz reverted to the traditional red after a few years.
In STV 202: Design and Society, I often use the design of the typical crosswalk as an example of how designs embody social contracts.
A crosswalk is a place where two parties, drivers and pedestrians, share a resource that both want to use, namely, a certain stretch of roadway. In order to do so for the benefit of each, and reducing the danger to pedestrians, there is often a signal system that manages the right of way. Only the party with the right of way, as indicated by the signals, is permitted to use the contested area of street.
With the approach of the Rio Summer Olympics, the role of technology in sport comes naturally to the fore. Many of those questions center on issues of enhancement.
The aptly named Product Design Studio of Japan has improved on an old piece of design, namely the hand loop grasped by straphangers on public transit.
The classic handle for someone standing on the bus, streetcar, or subway was a loop of plastic hanging from a bar overhead. This solution helps to prevent people from being knocked over by jolts experienced during normal operation but is not very comfortable to hold onto.