Author Archives: Timo

Connected products

This is a design brief, one of many themes that the Touch project is investigating. RFID may begin to enable cheap – even disposable – products that have identities and connections to a network. What are the opportunities for integrating services, infrastructure, community and online brands into physical objects? In the longer-term, how does the [...]

Posted in Design briefs, Interaction design, Product design, Service design | 2 Comments

Interactions of transactions

This is a design brief, one of many themes that the Touch project is investigating. It is likely that NFC has a role to play in the future of our interactions with infrastructures like payment, ticketing and access. But it is clear that mobile phones offer a different interface and experience to cash, cards, wallets [...]

Posted in Design briefs, Interaction design, Mobile, Payments, Ticketing | 2 Comments

Local applications and services

This is a design brief, one of many themes that the Touch project is investigating. One of the most important features of NFC is that it only works at a very short range. This ties our interactions to particular places or objects, and forces us to design applications or services that work on a local [...]

Posted in Design briefs, Research, Service design | 1 Comment

Alternative RFID infrastructures

This is a design brief, one of many themes that the Touch project is investigating. The landscape of RFID technology is focused on surveillance, efficiency and control. The near-future possibility of RFID implants, identity cards and passports is focused on the ability to efficiently and accurately identify people. The rush to replace barcodes with RFID [...]

Posted in Design briefs, Service design, Technicalities | 1 Comment

Touch as culture

This is a design brief, one of many themes that the Touch project is investigating. Anne Galloway is a social researcher working at the intersections of technology, space and culture. Anne’s research in the Touch project involves looking at touch in different social and cultural contexts, in the first instance working towards Touchpædia, a reference [...]

Posted in Design briefs, Research | 1 Comment

Fields and seams

This is a design brief, one of many themes that the Touch project is investigating. “Don’t place your bank cards, hard disks, etc. here”. With increasingly ubiquitous wireless networks the physical world is becoming layered with a spectrum of radio waves. These fields range from massive GSM, 3G and DVB cells, through to household sized [...]

Posted in Design briefs, Research | 4 Comments

Interfacing the ‘internet of things’

This is a design brief, one of many themes that the Touch project is investigating. The ‘internet of things’ is a vision of a world full of interconnected things that participate in a wider network of the internet. The idea has been driven by the proliferation of wireless networks and the increasing use of RFID [...]

Posted in Design briefs, Interaction design, Mobile | 2 Comments

RFID and the everyday

This is a design brief, one of many themes that the Touch project is investigating. Many of us have experienced RFID as a way of paying for tickets on public transport or gaining access to places. But are there other ways in which RFID, through things, places and behaviour, may become part of everyday experience? [...]

Posted in Design briefs, Interaction design, Service design | 3 Comments