Gamification: different uses of the leaf game by Ford and Fitbit

I rented a Ford C-MAX the other day. It's Ford answers to the Prius, but with much more power and much lower fuel economy. It's a very nice vehicle, although I much prefer the simple and sparse aesthetic of the dashboard of the Prius. One feature of the Ford is an almost photo-realistic graphic of leaves, a feature that the user can chose to display to the right of the speedometer. As you drive more efficiently this "Efficiency Leaves" game will add leaves to the picture. As you drive less efficiently, leaves will gradually drop away. The challenge with this attempt to graphically show your efficiency is that in choosing a realistic image of a branch, Ford also kept to the random appearance of a natural tree. Consequently, it is very hard to understand at a glance how well you're doing. It's not obvious whether your tree is full of leaves, and therefore that you're winning the efficiency game, or whether your tree is sparse.

Contrast this with the Fitbit which uses a less realistic image to represent progress. After a few minutes of use, it's quite clear how large you're growing your plant and therefore how much progress you've made.

a little bit of Braun in this Pentax

This new camera design for Pentax by Marc Newson is a welcome move away from the recent spate of retro-classics.
But retro isn't entirely absent. The design still reflects the influence of Dieter Rams and his Braun products, specifically in the top of the camera.

quick question on mass production and personal modifications

There's something nice about modifying a computer in even the slightest way. I just yanked off the silly little cover to the headset jack and USB port on my ThinkPad X1. It was put there by the designers so the down-angled sides of the box would be flush, hiding the cutout for the jack and port. Now I'm happier with the machine and it's mine. Earlier I undid the keyboard and put a mSATA drive into the guts of the machine. You could argue that neither of these things would have been necessary if I'd bought the perfectly designed MacBook. True. But I wonder if setting up a computer so that it can be modified isn't a better design. I'm not suggesting such intentionality was present in the design of this laptop, but I wonder, what examples are out there of mass produced, personal products like computers and cars that are specifically designed with mods in mind? Some cars, certainly, like Jeep Wranglers. What else?

elegant little counter-tech device for pencils

A friend (from Microsoft no less) gave me this elegant little counter-tech device.

Downside of Apple design: dongles galore!

I use a Lenovo but have tremendous respect and love for Apple design. However, the number of dongles they've come out with to connect a notebook to an external monitor or projector is insane!

Gorgeous Honda Super Cub

Gorgeous Honda Super Cub at night on the streets of San Francisco. Among the very top designs of all time (perhaps along with the BlackBerry 7200 series!).

Old Design vs. New(er) Design (BlackBerry)

My BlackBerry 8830 (the one on the right, below) started crashing a few days ago, so while I'm waiting for its replacement from Verizon I've been using my old BlackBerry 7250. It's been a pleasure to remember the good elements of this design that were lost when RIM made choices in favor of other priorities.

This device came out over four years ago, perhaps even more than five years ago. I found a review from April 2004 but couldn't easily find when the 7200 series was first announced.

First, it's amazing that the new release of the GMail for BlackBerry application works perfectly on the old machine. Certainly it's slower, but it's still perfectly functional. Isn't it wonderful that a device from almost five years ago can run one of the newest of applications?

Second, design of the old machine has a classic simplicity that I miss. It's simple black and silver. Its round shape fits well into my hand in a way that the newer BlackBerrys don't. (Admittedly my hands--and those of my wife who still uses her 7200 series--are relatively large and so smaller hands would find it less attractive.) It's lacking the SEND and END buttons that RIM added to BlackBerrys with models that followed (added so that they could appeal to a broader audience who were switching over from traditional mobile phones). Finally, its keyboard is designed for typing. Look at how much more closely spaced the keys are on the newer models. The 7200 series is a great example of elegant, purpose driven design in which form follows function to the benefit of both form and function. The 7200 series reminds me of Bang and Olufsen stereos or some of the classic designs from Braun.

I wish RIM would launch a special edition of the 7200 series, with the case and keyboard of the 7200 and the speed and screen of the 8830--or better yet, the new Bold. That would be a special device. Of course they never will. I wish I had time, skills and money on my hands to do a real mashup of the two. That would one worthwhile mod.

The perfect pen for a ThinkPad user

It's a TomBow Zoom 707