open design, and the like.

open design, co design, design, and health...

[mrdexter]

Dear Matt, Very inspired by your work, was checking out your AIR site. Hows things going at the minute? Was wondering if you have any advice for someone looking to get started in open design in general? Any helpful web support, forums and so on? -H

HI Harry… thanks for your message!

I'm glad you like the site… it's in limbo at the minute while I finish my PhD. I'm hoping to get it started up once I'm done, and maybe find an industrial partner or something.

I'm afraid I can't offer you a route 'into' Open Design, as it's currently a rapidly developing field, but I can totally share what I've learnt. After all, that's what open source is all about. My thesis is currently being edited, and it'll be ready at the end of the month. I can share some stuff from my Open Design chapter if you're interested- but I suppose the biggest thing I can advise is to make stuff… make stuff you're interested in, and then share share share. Talk with other people who are interested in the same thing, then gradually a community forms. A 'niche network' rather than a broad 'social network'.

Really, you can make what you want- I chose to use Open Design to help people who can't be part of a Participatory Design workshop to be included in collaboratively designing medical products for themselves. This meant a deep focus on collaborating with other people and making stuff that the community wanted; perhaps a good place to start might be looking at Ronen Kadushen's work… he's an Open Designer who makes furniture.

There are some really interesting smartphone projects using Open Design at the minute too, that you've probably heard of:

Motorola Project ARA

Fairphone

Phonebloks

IndiePhone

Fairphone is an interesting one, as their CEO Bas van Abel also co-edited the book Open Design Now - which you can read for free online. Their design strategy is 'Smart Design', and they're currently working it out internally. I spoke at their Design Bootcamp last year, and along with Vodafone's head of handset sustainability (a really cool Dutch guy called Casper) we worked out a 'Fairphone Roadmap', that outlines a business plan for an open-source smartphone. Have a look on the Waag Sociaety's website here.

Sorry for the wall of text reply! I hope that's answered your question (although it probably hasn't). Are you based in the UK pal?

[mrdexter]

NOW OPEN

AIR is a research project- open design for medical products. Do you have Cystic Fibrosis? Do you live with someone who has Cystic Fibrosis? Do you enjoy making / designing things, and want to participate in creating some things with other people?

Then consider this your invite to sign up for free at http://airdesignspace.ning.com

This project is about people being able to suggest ideas for medical products that either don't currently exist, or modifications to existing medical products. You can comment on stuff that's already there, or post new ideas for other people to work on.

If you want to know a bit more, email me via tumblr for information!

[mrdexter]

97% Open?

This week has involved a lot of reading, and mental wrangling.

I'm still trying to understand or fathom whether an open and closed workstream can be realistically combined when talking about open source hardware. For instance, could you have a company that necessarily had to produce a 'black box' piece of technology, but that obeyed certain 'standards' (e.g, had physical anchor points at definite dimensions, or documented electrical connectors going in/out) which meant it could form the basis of another's open source design?

This black box aspect is looking more and more likely (at least in the short term) for medical product design. I still haven't come to a definite conclusion on this (as that could take years of testing, making and evaluating a business case), but at least where I am now it's looking likely.

This then raises the question of how open is open 'enough'?

This week, the innovation company 100% Open posted a great blog post, which they also tweeted:

93% Open? From the blog: bit.ly/Wgb0X4 - how open is too open?

— 100%Open (@100open) October 3, 2012

I still have to think more on this subject; but for now, I'm content to see what people think. Could the 'black box' form part of the open design work in a community... for people to design around/adapt into their lives?

[mrdexter]

At the beginning of the month I was fortunate to attend the 'International Committee for Design History and Design Studies' (ICDHS) 2012 conference. This was in São Paulo- the first time I've ever gone to the southern hemisphere.

The conference was a real hit- easily the most relevant I think I've attended to date for my PhD, since there were loads of people there interested in open design; and other related stuff like making, hacking and coding (all with an interest or slant on design activity).

I took a trip to Embu Das Artes too; where loads of artists and craftspeople hang out. Have to say, Brazil was a great trip. Brazilians are pretty cool.

[mrdexter]

Summer has largely been a blur.

It's been a period of frantic writing, reading and travelling- and while I definitely don't want to sound like I don't appreciate it all, It's good to be back home with the fam and, well, just being able to knuckle-down to some graft.

The photos here are from the first big conference that I went to; Participatory Design Conference, in Roskilde, Denmark. The photos are all from the Gala dinner, held at Sagnlandet Lejre. The place is amazing- the archaeologists recreate as best they can the houses and social spaces of the vikings throughout the ages, and then live in them. Then, with this lived experience, they can get a better picture of the lives of these people.

So, aside from an almost limitless supply of flame-roased boar, Dexter cattle (seriously!), Salmon, and traditional fire-baked viking bread, beer, wine & mead; there were also some most excellent people and a Viking folkcore band.

Pretty incredible for a work gig, eh?

[mrdexter]

Do you have Cystic Fibrosis?

I want to invite you to a project I'm running as part of my PhD. I'm looking at how people can be better included in the design of medical products, and because of a connection through work I'm asking people who have Cystic Fibrosis if they would like to help.

The idea is to put together a small community of people in a web space, and upload ideas, or comment on other people's ideas. As a designer, it's my job to help people prototype those ideas and make them real; it most certainly is not my job to tell you what you want. As a person who has Cystic Fibrosis this is your chance to say 'You know what sucks about __________?' or, 'What about one of these?'. 

As this project is being run out of Sheffield Hallam University here in the UK, there is access to lots of excellent workshops for Wood, Metal, Plastics, Fashion... and wherever possible the ideas that people come up with will be made and then distributed to other people in the community, for them to comment on, and improve (also, it's open to anyone from all over the world!).

The theory is, that by sharing ideas, and working on them together then the ideas will be better, and have a more positive impact on the lives of the people who would have to use them.

See here for more information.

Please get in touch if you'd like any more information!

Matt

[mrdexter]

This minute, just completed the first design session in my PhD case study! So excited. Nothing like a bit of late afternoon co-design to make for an excellent start to the evening!

The project is a community for people with cystic fibrosis, using open design to allow people to come up with their own products, based on their own lived experience. At the minute, it's in it's very early stages. Alpha, if you like. Although, based on tonight's test (with someone 1,800 miles away), Beta isn't far off...

[mrdexter]

Lecture, paper, website- repeat.

It's been an age since I updated this blog.

In fact, I need to be much better at keeping this blog up to date, and also blog about the 'original content' that I'm creating as part of my PhD. This month has seen loads of work go on. I've written a conference paper with Chris Jackson for ICDHS 2012 (in Brazil!) about the future of collaborative tools and spaces for open design. We took a reflective tone with some of it, talking about the how E.F. Schumacher and Ivan Illich wrote about what tech / institutions / spaces needed to be available for a more 'convivial' society... less about monopolistic and hierarchical institutions, and more social, human tech suitable for 'fully satisfying work'. 3D printing, and other domestic high-quality fabrication tools help enable this, but so too do spaces like Fab Labs. Anyway, although it was great to collaborate on the paper with Chris, I'm glad the writing is over.

I also had a great opportunity to deliver a lecture to the second year product design students on open design- I also took in my MakerBot Replicator, which they loved. I'm glad none of them went all-Luddite on me and smashed it up because they see it as a threat to their sovereignty as designers... I was pretty provocative in asking them what their role as designers is if people traditionally labelled merely as 'consumers' can conceive and produce their own stuff. There was some great discussion after.

Also, I'm really pleased to be talking to a community representative of a large Cystic Fibrosis community tomorrow night - we're going to do some co-designing to fill my PhD case study site with some content for more people to interact with. Really looking forward to it! I shouldn't say more yet, because I'm not sure it'd be 100% appropriate. We'll see though, I'm hoping it'll take off and I can invite anyone who wants to design take part!

If you're interested, you can check out the info site for my first case study.

Also, really hoping I can make it to the Open Design Symposium in Linz later this month!

[mrdexter]

IT HAS BEEN A WHILE.

Although, I've not spent the time being idle. Since the Christmas break, I've put together a social network (branded as AIR) to invite people with Cystic Fibrosis to have the opportunity to design products for themselves... after all there are moral and pragmatic rasons for opening the design process...

"The moral proposition is that users have a right to be directly included in the process of design. The second is the pragmatic proposition that the people who will need to adopt, and perhaps to adapt to an artefact or other outcome of design, should be included in the design process..."

Carroll & Rosson 2007 (emphasis mine)

Hence, in order to mean those people who want to participate are best equipped to do so, I've made the welcome packs / toolkits to enable those people to do so. The theory is, that if I put a little love into making something beautiful for people to use, then they'll feel valued.

[fastcompany]

Star Wars Uncut is a Frankensteined love letter of absurdities—and that’s just how mastermind Casey Pugh wanted it. Warning—once you start, you can’t stop watching. Co.Create got a behind-the-scenes look at how the ultimate crowdsourced film was produced.

Read all about it->

[mrdexter]

This is a beautiful example of crowdsourced creativity - a real testimony to the ideas outlined in We Think.

[fastcompany]

3-D Printing And Pirate Bay Usher In the Era of Pirated Physical Goods with “Physibles.”

“the idea of encoding an industrial design as a pirate-able torrent does open up intriguing variations on traditional copyright infringement and corporate espionage.”

Read on->

[mrdexter]

This has long been an interesting topic - and the subject of a few works of fiction. This reminds me of the controversy surrounding the CAD model of an AR-15 Lower Receiver that appeared on Thingiverse. You can check it out here.

I have to say though that I'm pretty thrilled about TPB opening up this discussion, since TPB has a vast reach- this could really provide great momentum for the idea of sharing your own creations.

[mrdexter]

A letter to Apple.

I think I might write to Apple. A proper, physical letter.

Not because I expect a reply, or even that I expect them to care what a single customer thinks, but because I am in a quandary over the fact that I own 2 Macs, and an iPhone, and how I square that against the my ethics- particularly in light of the recent New York Times article about labour conditions in China.

Of course, this is not a new story - people have been exploited in the production of goods for centuries, and Apple is not new to stories circulating about it's suppliers Foxconn, Wintek and others. This is without even acknowledging the appalling atrocities committed in the DRC in search of Rare Earth materials, touching a whole host of products beyond those of one producer.

I suppose my attitude in the past has been fatalistic- if it is impossible to avoid companies that produce artefacts using such practices, why not at least choose one that acknowledges the problem?

The issue with this line of reasoning is that it favours the status quo- if we do not hold that we can change the world (or are led into that tacit assumption), then the world will not change. Interesting that I have applied this in other areas of my life (like shopping locally, buying fair trade produce) and yet the question of where the technology I buy has been glanced over.

Ivan Illich, and E. F. Schumacher both write about how a change might be bought about (or at least highlight the conditions required), and it's interesting to see that these conditions are starting to appear. For instance, the open source movement- and how this could have an impact on hardware; not just creating outstanding software solutions, but how about the hardware to run it on? For instance, the very powerful, diminutive Raspberry Pi.

Open design has a lot to add here - take the local production methods outlined by Schumacher. Instead now, we can share plans and best practice across the whole globe, not simply our own physical location. 3D printers might not be able to print to a fine enough resolution (or in comparable materials like Aluminium) at the minute, but with the right development and with other community initiatives like Fab Labs and Hackerspaces it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that I (or my son, when he's a bit older) could make my own phone.

Many will raise the valid counterpoint that some people have neither the inclination or talent to successfully produce their own hardware, in the same way that many currently lack the inclination or talent to produce their own software. This is true, but with advances in the manufacturing techniques mentioned above, it would be possible to produce artefacts in the country of origin from locally-sourced and available materials; which might even be a catalyst to see more heterogeneous products that refer to the culture of their origin. See Don Norman's excellent article in Core 77.

So this takes me back to the opening line of this post.

Why write to Apple? Well, for one thing it'll get my concerns off my chest. Secondly though, I do not believe that we are incapable of making a difference- I'm not arrogant enough to think that my sole contribution will persuade Apple to crusade on behalf of a fair deal for Chinese workers - but collectively, we can make a difference.

[mrdexter]

"Users have heightened expectations that not only services and products, including medical devices, that they buy will meet their particular needs, but that they should also have had a major role in their development (Poolton and Ismail, 2000)"

This is a great quote - it seems common sense that those who will be affected most deeply by a product should have a hand in how it is designed. The photo is part of a stroke rehab device that I helped redesign- with people who had suffered a stroke. How much more could open design benefit those who can't meet together to participate in more traditional co-design workshops?

Poolton, J. and Ismail, H. (2000) 'New developments in innovation', Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 15, No. 8, pp. 795‐811

[mrdexter]

3D Prototyping in design, using Minecraft?

Some of the biggest questions I need to answer in my PhD are questions surrounding the tools that I give to people in order to facilitate their creative work. For instance, I fully expect, and indeed will encourage, people to produce their own 3D models to be made on a MakerBot. This means people who participate in the research will be able to see their ideas come to life in 3D... of course that's the theory, but the actual process of making a 3D object on a computer is much tougher.

Most people don't know how to use CAD software, and even though there are free and open-source CAD programs out there, these still don't have a very shallow learning curve. Sketchup might be easier than AutoCAD to learn, but Sketchup is still more daunting from a cold start than say, MS Paint. Both allow for free expression in a medium, and both are capable of impressive results (e.g. 2D & 3D)- in my experience of running collaborative design workshops, handing someone a blank piece of paper and inviting them to draw some ideas can be very daunting. How could the creation of something as complex as a 3D model be made simple, and very much less daunting?

Cody Sumter & Jason Boggess of the MIT Media Lab have written a script that works with the really popular game Minecraft, called Minecraft.print(). Minecraft is a game with a deceptively simple premise; you build things from materials found within the game. There are 2 different modes:

The first is about survival; the player must survive in the game environment by building a shelter before nightfall (when monsters appear), and then collect resources to build more things and harvest food (this mode has 2 difficulty settings, normal and hardcore. Hardcore will only allow one death; if you die, the game world (and therefore everything one has built) is lost.

The second is an open environment, free from danger (and where the player can fly) which is open for the player to build whatever they can imagine from an unlimited supply of resources.

Minecraft.print() works by allowing a player to define an area of the game environment and then export that as an STL file. This is similar to the Mineways product, however it appears that a person has more control over what they export using Minecraft.print().

More information about Minecraft.Print() can be found at the website, as well as videos of the script in action and some models that have been created using it. Check it out here.

This has meant that I have spent a happy couple of hours playing Minecraft for the first time, so I can make sure it'll actually work in practice! I have to say though, that I haven't learnt any coding or programming languages, so I am struggling to run the Python code. I have emailed Cody & Jason to see if there is a more, er, user-friendly package that they have created to get the job done. If there is, then it'll be great to try this method out with people in design workshops!

[mrdexter]

RF2... over & out

Since my last post I have actually delivered that important presentation, and it went really well. I have lots o reflect on- the questions & discussion lasted for about an hour & a half, and a lot of this centred on my definition o the outcomes for the project. I'm really eager to get started now though- the plan has changed somewhat. I'll now be recruiting one person, and building a community to design with from there. First, more stupid writing. Journal paper, then amendments to PhD, then DESIGN PRACTICE

[mrdexter]

RF2

Tomorrow is a very big day in my PhD. It's the 1 year milestone, and I have to present my reflection and reading to this point. It's a funny sort of time, because I've been reading, thinking and writing but not doing a whole lot of sketching, making or producing... It seems the culture of PhD's varies so radically between institutions. Here at Sheffield Hallam, I've found the focus very much being one of wandering and learning.

Anyway, it was July last year that I finally nailed a focal point- open design in health, and since then (and after becoming a dad in July too) I've been reading and focussing on this. So tomorrow is when I defend my methods and such to a panel, much like a mock viva. A 40-60 minute presentation and another hour for open questions, from a panel that includes Prof Paul Chamberlain, Prof Sue Mawson & Dr Leon Cruickshank. As well as my director of studies (Dr Paul Atkinson) and supervisor (Prof Andy Dearden).

To say that I'm nervous is an understatement. I've put together a plan of what I'll be doing, but as is always the case before I have to deliver a presentation or deliver a well-reasoned & researched piece, I find myself under a black cloud. I suppose it's just the nerves, I always feel like I'm not working hard enough, so I suppose I should look back and see what this report and presentation show about my work. I'm one third of the way through; it's time to create something on the foundation I've built.

[mrdexter]

Ducks are unreliable.

At the RepRap forum on Saturday, I met a guy called Andy Kirby who had a really interesting problem... that he solved (or, is currently solving) using Arduino boards, an old servo from an RC car, and some Aluminium sheet.

Andy keeps Ducks, and as loveable as they are they're impressively thick. So thick in fact, that they're pretty bad at incubating the eggs that they lay. Andy wanted to breed some Ducks, and so he built a contraption to heat, and move the eggs in a way that a mother Duck should.

I was struck by Andy's solution- it's really simple, while being really useful. Plus, I love that it fills in the gaps that a stupid/unreliable Duck leaves in rearing it's own ducklings...

Incidentally, this might be right up Rob Phillip's alley...