The non action

An ioio XPS inspired me to think about not doing things. It was a talk about colonialism in design and how not trying to solve something for someone can be more helpful. We as designers have to step back at times and acknowledge that we might not always know the best answer. At times the user knows best. I guess this is also the basis for user centric design as opposed for genius based design, and maybe the basis for IxD at MAU.

The absent action is our theme now. We will work with cancelling, regretting and uncertainty. They feel very related but stand apart a bit. The uncertainty opens up for cancelling but can also be a fulfilled action in the end. If you just take a simplistic view of it it's just a fulfilled action that is carried out slowly but I think there is a quality that is getting missed in that view. THere is something in the hesitation that is interesting.

When you decide not to fulfill the move, we call this a cancelled move. Cancelling is easier to identify for the mover and the observer but it may be hard the machine view. If the object we are to pick up is the one sensing it will never see an action if it has no sense of the room.

Regreting is similar to cancelling but you first fulfill and then return it. I think observing it is similar to a cancelled move where you have to have a context to understand it. You can see it as two fulfilled actions, picking up and putting down, but we argue that when you see it as a whole it is different.

This is the space we chose to work within the last week and I think it is an interesting one. It is far from where we started and a stretch in the topic but Jens seems to be fine with it, even excited.