Imagining the world of 2030...

At the end of last year, we ran an internal project trying to imagine what control rooms might be like in 2030.  What was interesting wasn't especially the thoughts on the work space but the wider sociological issues that might drive change in the control of our infrastructure.  We imagined a world where congestion and climate change had driven a move to localism creating hubs where all aspects of our environment were managed from.

Further thinking on what the world might hold in terms of the way we work and live and how technology might change our world can be seen at the Sony Futurescape website.  There are some interesting videos imagining four different scenarios for the future.  Take a look...

To continue the theme, CCD recently sponsored a brief for design students at Loughborough University to take on during their design week.  We will be posting some of the results here soon.

Improved Passenger Experience with Smartphone Technology

Alongside improving the design of airports, providing simpler wayfinding, and making the security process less stressful, the ever present smartphone seems to be the battleground for providing better information to the passenger at a number of points on the journey.

This article from the Amor Group presents a good summary of the current applications and uses for smartphone technology.  Worth a quick read:

Smartphones as an Enabler for Improved Passenger Experience

Interaction design awards...and the Spotify Box

The winners of the 2012 Interaction Design Awards have been announced - http://awards.ixda.org/interactionawards2012

We really like the Out of the Box winner (http://awards.ixda.org/entry/2012/out-box).  Its become all to easy to assume that the modern smartphones are all so intuitive that we don't need help to use them.  Maybe they are for the younger generation (my kids have no problems at all!) but for older users the change in their mental model of how it works is more problematic.

But our winner goes to the Spotify Box (http://awards.ixda.org/entry/2012/spotify-box).  The concept is fantastic - a really simple way of listening to playlists without needing your laptop or mobile device; we loved such a fun way of getting back to the mix tapes of old!  It's also a nice cool piece of industrial design if you needed any other reason to love it.  Please someone put this into production!

Spotify box from Jordi Parra on Vimeo.