Prototyping is an important part of the product design process, it is used by designers to test and get feedback about the use and response regarding a new product or concept. Here I present a few tools used to prototype electronics and gadgets.

Arduino

Arduino is based on open-source hardware and software, it’s easy to use and cheaper than other non-open-source platforms. The Arduino programming language is based on Wiring, a programming environment started at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy and farther developed at the Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia.

You can basically prototype everything with Arduino.

Bug Labs

Bug Labs is another open-source system like Arduino but composed by several modules that don’t need to be soldered. With them, it is easy to create mashups to prototype future electronic device designs. There is a LCD module, another one for audio, another one for motion sensing and more.

Shapeways

If you don’t have access to any 3D printing facility you might want to give Shapeways a try, a 3D printing service that delivers in a few days the 3D parts you upload. The website has its own community, thing that it could be helpful in some cases, for example if you are looking for other designers’ opinion. It also has a 3D parts database that you could use for your prototypes.

We can shortly define layer manufacturing (or more commonly known rapid prototyping) as a group of technologies which are able to:

• build a part directly from 3D data
• within hours
• without using a mould or a specific tool

Due to their high costs, these technologies are rather used for prototypes, though they are slowly entering the low volume production parts market.

Whereas 10 years ago this technologies were still in an early development stage, nowadays we have a wide range of established machines in the market. Each system has its own characteristics and the available materials go from plastic and  resins to even metal.

The question for most of us designers is: how should I have my model built to have a good result? which of these technologies meets my requirements?

picture from rootoftwo

In the web we can find plenty of comparison charts and information sheets, but the ones I found are mostly focused on technical aspects and not in the result that comes out of the machine.

Here is my attempt to synthesise the basic factors in a check-list:

Material: The available colours and textures for plastics and resins are limited, and technology dependent, so this is one of the issues you should first look into if optics is your priority. To build your model in metal will cost in layer manufacturing in average 10 times more as other materials. I would recommend for medium – big sized metal parts to use CNC milling.

Size: this is a decisive point; layer manufacturing processes are additive, and this means the bigger your part the more expensive it is, and in a rather exponential factor. Each machine has also its maximum buildable volume, so if your model were bigger you’d have to build it in several parts, adding a good bit of work to the model.

picture from Wizard23

Part stability: if you need a functional model, you should go for a material with good mechanical properties. all materials look similar but you bet their properties are very different from one another.

Part geometry, detail resolution and accuracy: layer manufacturing processes work till some extent like printers; when they have a rough definition it is not possible to draw fine details in the model. You can also have a machine that can draw very fine details but that is not accurate and has a big tolerance. You should check the minimal feature size a machine can build and how accurate it can be. These factors are important if your model is part of an assembly and needs to fit into other parts.

picture from superrune

Surface finish: each machine and material provide their own surface. In all layer manufactured parts you will be able to recognise the layer structure, either like steps or as a non uniform roughness. If this is an issue for you it is always possible to apply a finishing to the part but this could turn into the most expensive and time consuming factor of all, so look carefully into the finishing before building your model.

You have to put  all these issues on a balance, set your priorities and have a look at as many parts as you can, to get a feeling how yours is going to look like.

In the last years there have been a lot of buzz around the electronic paper technology (or epaper, for short), specially after the introduction of the Amazon Kindle. At Design vs Art our motivation for our last project was the fact that, aside from ebook readers, not many devices have been presented using the epaper technology.

In order to discover opportunities we went through a whole design process: defining the problem to solve or motivation, looking for a strategy, ideation, prototyping and explaining the idea.

For us one of the most important features about the epaper technology is the possibility of creating a whole system around the device. Data on the display could come from different sources and the epaper device could communicate to a variety of other devices and to gather information from its environment creating a whole information ecosystem.

Once we decided to develop an advertising system, it was clear for us that we would need more than a device if we wanted a good user experience; so we designed epaper billboards and a whole information system including the necessary interfaces to manage it.

We also imagined the way the user would intereact with the billboard and how the service could add value to customers.

Of course traditional paper billboards already work in a system; but the digital nature of the electronic paper could revolutionize the business.

At Design vs Art we do product ideation and concept design, starting with a motivation and following a whole creative and design process.

If you are thinking of a new product or service focused on users or if you are interested in any of our concepts you might want to contact us. Here is our contact information.

Tata Motors has launched the cheapest car in the world with the purpose of providing a car with the minimum standards and affordable for many Indians.

Strategy:

It is an extreme case of design reduced to what is strictly essential; we have seen this in notebooks and other electronics already. Having a look at the features it includes, helps us picture the scene:

On the cheapest version the driver’s seat is the only seat which can be adjusted.

There is no power steering and various “luxuries”, such as air conditioning, fog lamps, front power windows or central locking are only available on pricier models. I don’t know about you, but I could do without  front power windows if that would mean reducing the price of the car. For us, the ones that see the car as a big tool that helps us get from A to B, there is a big difference in the value of real functionality, such as power steering, and commodities that allow you to get lazy such as central locking.

It is a nice example of targeted design: rather than competing directly with the next cheapest car, it aims to substitute scooters and small motorbikes, with a price of Rs. 100,000 (around $2000).

Safety on the road – the Nano has a point here. Image from Joe Athialy

To meet all economical and quality requirements a good bit of innovation has been required. It is estimated that at least 35 patents associated with the vehicle have been registered.

Environmental issues:

This is one of hottest aspects of the Nano; on the one hand it is a car and it pumps out twice the CO2 as a scooter. On the other hand it has a 4-stroke engine and a crude catalytic converter which appears to reduce most pollutants by about 80 percent and which scooters lack of.

It also meets Euro-IV and Bharat Stage-III compliant, European emissions standards.

From my point of view, the problem here is not the Nano. Of course it will have a terrible effect on the already highly polluted cities in India, when the 50 million orders already placed for the car are delivered. But this is just the consequence of a barely existing public transport system in cities.

Now 50 million can… Image from Jaaziel

Indian cities are extensive and saturated with traffic, and on top of it most of the families can’t afford their own vehicle. This is cry for a well planed and far reaching public transport. If there are no measures taking in this direction, India will probably soon assume the car centred transport system, similar to the US, and then it will be really difficult to change things.

It seems that if you don’t write the word "Apple" on an article this week your blog will be totally ignored. To be honest, watching the Steve Jobs presentation at the MacWorld I got inspired to write about direct manipulation. I was specially impress by the multi-touch function of the MacBook Air trackpad.

"New features like swiping and scrolling will help impaired people…"

This is not just a new toy, from the usability point of view this is great. New features like swiping and scrolling will help impaired people. As Steve Jobs showed, these two features works with the Safari internet browser, enabling to easily go forward and backwards and to scroll around the page. All with your fingers.

 

The screen zoom feature and the "pinch and expand" work also with Safari, helping visually impaired people to read web pages. The other features like tap and "click and drag" could also help people with problems to point with the mouse.

Many might wonder how is possible that nobody did it before. This is Apple Computer design, user-centered and easy to use. This proves that designing for impaired people is actually designing for all. See other articles on how usability can help impaired people.

I have recently done a mobile version of this blog and would like to share my experiences about it with you. I have a Nokia E61 and spend a lot of time surfing the web on my phone, although this device is not the best I could have. So I decided to make a mobile version of this blog to make it available to more readers.

I landed to Andy Moore’s site, a dotMobi Certified Mobile Web Developer who has been working with the mobile internet for some time (as he says on his home page). Andy has developed a nice plugin for WordPress to automatically create a mobile version of WordPress blogs.

The plugin is very easy to install and once you do it displays a “WordPress Mobile” configuration tab where you can change many settings for your blog’s mobile version like the use of CSS, mobile posting and tracking configurations.

Click here to see Design vs Art Blog Mobile Version on an emulator

The plugin comes with AdMob Mobile Internet Advertising ads embedded that you can set with your own publisher ID. This is a great feature as you can enable ads on your blog’s mobile version without any extra settings. The plugin creator, Andi Moore, asks you to share the earnings with him and he also embedded this  feature into the plugin but lets you decide how much would you like to share. This is something you can get rid of if you get into the code but to be honest sharing a little bit with somebody that is making your life easier is totally fine.

In my opinion the design of the mobile version of your site is quite OK if you are more interested in the content, but Andy says that you can always modify the CSS file. Navigation and usability are fine and adds do not disturb at all. It is worth giving a try!

It seems that lately internet telephone services have been out of the news, not many exciting new features, but recently I have learned about the new Jajah Buttons.

The configuration process could be a little bit confusing at the beginning with the system requiring a Screenname that can not be changed once you set it up (plus, FAQ section does not have a search feature!).

But the service seems to be interesting: it is a button you can paste in your blog, website, eBay auction and email signature. Then, when somebody sees that button and fills it with his or her telephone number Jajah connects that person with you. The owner of the button is the one paying for the phone call.

This could be a good idea for people interested in being contacted. It also allows you to change your phone number, block certain ones and reject calls.

eBay has recently deleted all listings containing the Jajah Button. The is that eBay owns Skype, a direct competitor. Too bad, eBay.

In my opinion, the button’s design is very smart, giving the possibility to choose different colors and sizes. At the beginning I thought that users would not click there, but Jajah guys were smart and placed an “information icon”, when clicked it tells you what is that Jajah Button about and makes clear that the call is free of charge.

This is the Jajah Button:

Now that the Apple iPhone release is confirmed to be on November 9 in the UK, France and Germany, I would like to tell you why I will replace my new Nokia E61 with an iPhone.

Internet
Getting access to the internet everywhere and being able to see web sites on a “big” display was the main reason I bought the E61. Well, I have to say that not even this is well done by this mobile that comes with two different browsers, one for normal web pages and other for wap ones, so you have to switch between them all the time.

Also, checking sites is not as nice and comfortable as with the iPhone, with which you can easily zoom in, select and point. Ajax support is also missing on the Nokia E61.

Synchronization
I am not a Mac user but synchronizing through iTunes is a fantastic feature. Right now I have to use a very user-unfriendly application provided by Nokia that makes my life boring while trying to put my music, videos and pictures into my phone.

General Design
The Nokia E61 has many design and usability flaws. Like trying to open an Excel file that was imported from the computer is a pain, with the phone telling you that the document is in “another” format, but ridiculous enough at the end displays it.

The navigation through menus is also badly design, having to go back and forth all the time. When you want to activate the Silent mode you have to go to a special menu, click on Silence, then Option, then Activate, then it will display a message saying that the Silence mode is activated, then it goes back the Profiles menu (why I would like to stay there if I have just changed the profile?!). Puuufff, this telephone is making my life more complicated.

Price
I have just checked the prices in the UK and with plans starting at £35 with unlimited internet access this mobile is not going to be more expensive than my previous one.

I am waiting for the Apple iPhone release in Germany!

In June we heard about a release date on September 2007. OK, September is here an we don’t have news. More or less… We know there are gonna be multiple carriers in Europe: T-Mobile in Germany, O2 in the UK and Orange in France.

Last news say that on 13 September some kind of integration between the iPhone and the new series of BMW cars will be announce at the Frankfurt Auto Show. But what kind of integration? nobody knows. But I would like to hear an iPhone release date for Europe coming from the Auto Show.

So far we can have a look at the iPhone at Gravis stores in Germany, or at least at the one in Munich (Tal 38, Muenchen). But don’t get too excited, they have it inside a glass box, you can not touch it shaaaame.

The German Trains (Deutsche Bahn) is looking for test users for a new system that will allow users to travel without a paper ticket. The idea is really cool (although is neither revolutionary nor new, people have been using this system in Japan for some time).

How it will work?
Pass your mobile phone through “Touchpoints” before taking the train, pass it again when your are at your destination and get the invoice later. The system will recognize your mobile thanks to a chip your telephone has (or will have).

Picture from Die Bahn AG

Touch and Trick?
I wonder if it would be possible to check prices before traveling. What if the price changes? What if I want to use a regional ticket? (those tickets with discount). Now I can buy a ticket to go to the Alps, come back to Munich and use the same ticket for the city transport. Would that be possible? Will the system choose the cheapest option for me? mmm…

Although I have my doubts about this system I think it might be worth to have a try. And if it works fine it could promote the use of mobile applications, yeah! I would love to try it but unfortunately is available only in north Germany… shame…

More info: http://www.touchandtravel.de