Can Data Take the Place of Hypothesis?

For years, folks have been talking about the analysis of huge data sets (and by huge, I mean really, really huge) superseding our ability to hypothesize.  A hypothesis to prove or disprove, that essential building block of the scientific method, is becoming less important than just knowing everything you can know about the problem.

This is the best example I have seen so far that this might be the case.  Deb Roy's analysis of his son's language acquisition yielded several simultaneous findings because the data was so rich and there was just so damned much of it.  Sure, you have to decide which axes to measure.  But what makes massive data manipulation so interesting is you don't necessarily need to know why you're interested in those axes.  Science becomes a more improvisational, reacting to the data-shapes changing right in front of you.

You still have to see the results, you just don't have to predict them quite as much.

If you build it they will ride

I've been working on a bicycle project lately, and as a result, I've been thinking about and riding bikes a lot more than usual.   As someone who still doesn't ride to work enough, I'm no expert.  But it feels like we're close to a tipping point.  I mean, San Francisco is the 6th most bike friendly city in the US.  But we're not there yet.  We'll be there when we have a real bike infrastructure.  I'll risk my skin in the (relatively) safe (mostly) bike path route to the studio.  But I won't take my kid.  If we had separated, car-safe bike lanes, like they do in Holland and other civilized places, we'd be much of the way there.

But in the mean time, I had a burst of optimism when I saw this video about New York's attempt to build it so that they will come.  The best part is that riding a bike is a fix for so much of what needs fixing about early 21st century urban life.

Dumb Prototypes are Brilliant

Prototyping for Elmo's Monster Maker iPhone App. from IDEO on Vimeo.


Low resolution prototypes are the bomb.  The quicker you can turn your ideas into something other folks can experience the better.

Here some of my old colleagues from IDEO are demoing their idea for a dancing Elmo iPhone app.  This is a classic example of "puppet show" prototyping.  All they did was have an idea, make an iPhone cut out and press record.  Brilliant.  You could have coded the whole thing and made it 5% more realistic.  But it wouldn't have been more fun.

And the X Prize goes to...a gas powered car!

Edison 2 X-Prize from Johnny St.Ours on Vimeo.

Electric cars have their good points.  And plenty of bad ones.  The conviction of many that they are a panacea for global warming is infuriating.  Only 27% of the US's carbon emissions come from the transportation sector, and cars are just a portion of that.  The embodied energy of batteries is HUGE.  Their efficiency and energy density leaves much to be desired.  Plus I'm just bothered by people who believe in silver bullet solutions to complex problems.

So it put a smile on my face when I read today that the winner of the Progressive Automotive X Prize was an aerodynamic, light weight, low power, gasoline car.  Not electric.  Not Hybrid.  Light weight and low power are the classic formula for fuel efficient vehicles like the Nuovo Fiat 500 and Morris Mini of the 1950s.  But there's a special place in my heart for the Citroen 2CV, the "umbrella on four wheels," which was designed in the 1930s, but released after WWII.  The design brief was for a car that could carry 4 peasants and 220lbs of farm goods at 37mph and get 78mpg.  That's right, 78mpg.  In a way, its sad that we are only shooting for 100mpg, almost 80 years later.  Many, Saul Griffith among them, think that its not nearly enough. 

Hats off to the Edison 2 team and their 250cc wonder.  Less is indeed more.  As the Edison folks themselves say, "There are only two absolute virtues.  The first is light weight. The second is aerodynamic drag.  Everything else is a desperate compromise."


Amen.

The Wildness and Vulnerability in Me

My teacher, friend and sometimes colleague Michael Barry shared this amazing mini documentary about Shinya Kimura with me.  I love Shinya's post-apocalyptic junk yard aesthetic.  These bikes look like they are cobbled together just enough to take their speed runs at Bonneville.  They feel utterly functional, like they are predetermined by the intersection of the tools you have in your shop and the parts that are lying around. But they're really delicate aesthetic exercises in authenticity; imaginary relics of a parallel hot rod universe.

I loved the way he said "A motorcycle is more than art, its something that brings out my instincts, the wildness and vulnerability in me."  He has taken the visual language of speed on a budget, and distilled out only the emotions.  I'm sure these bikes are fast enough to scare you.  But ultimately they are about the sounds, smells and feelings of speed, not speed itself.  Wildness indeed!

 

Experiences Make Technology Matter

I was really taken aback by the Apple Facetime commercials that have been running lately.  They don't tout the technological superiority or long list of features that the iPhone 4 has.  They show people connecting.  Sure they are connecting because they have a bunch of cool technology.  But the technology is not what matters.  What matters is how people feel when they have an amazing experience.

This video about open source eye tracking technology feels much the same to me.  Eye tracking technology has been around for a while now.  And it is kind of cool in and of itself.  But what is even cooler is to witness the experience that an artist with ALS has when he is able to create again.  Its so inspiring, in fact, that people are investing their sweat equity to make it happen.

All good design is experience design.

check out the video here.

Just the most important boat of the 20th century.

I'm going to Oahu next week for my sister's wedding, so I thought it might be nice to have a little Hawaiiana on the Thing Tank Blog.  Also, I happened to run across this video.


Today catamarans are commonplace.  The ubiquitous Hobie Cat was, at one time, the most popular sailboat in the world.  But the inventor of the modern sailing catamaran did it for fun.  With a background as a pilot and glider builder, he understood the lightweight construction methods of the time.  But he took his cue from the polynesian designs he saw overseas during world war II.  


Its absolutely incredible to see this masterpiece of engineering out joyriding.  Talk about experience design!


Thanks for showing us the way, Woody.