design / inclusive train information terminal / 2007

photo: fredrik nilsson

the inclusive train information terminal is a project carried out in collaboration with the swedish railroad administration. the brief was to provide ideas, construct prototypes, and lay down general principles for the design of train information terminals accessible for the widest target group possible. our primary objective throughout the project, from our pre-study to the finalized, fully functional prototype, has been to allow people with various kinds of disabilities access to the service of public transport, following the ideals of inclusive design. throughout our user-centered design process, we have worked in close collaboration with a number of disability organizations and real users have been active in all phases of the projects. the resulting prototype has also been subject to thorough testing and evaluation in situ at orebro train station. we are quite excited that no later than 2010, the results of this project will be found in all train stations throughout sweden. this is a project carried out in umea design research group (team: me, linda bogren, catharina henje, fredrik nilbrink)

design / audioindex / 2007

photo: fredrik nilsson

the audioindex system gives disabled library visitors the possibility to independently browse for books, get guidance, and access various kinds of information. the system allows visually impaired users to browse for audio books by pointing directly with their index fingers on the spine of the audio book as it stands in the shelf. the system then recognizes which audio book it is and quickly provides the user with information about the author, the title, and a summary of the contents of that particular book in the form of synthesized speech. users are also able to point at other objects in the library, such as bookshelf, to find out what kinds of books are to be found in that particular shelf. the fully functinoal audioindex prototype system is partly the result of an european union-funded project that focused on accessibility to libraries for all visitors, run by the public libraries in the umea region. the main target group has been visually impaired visitors and the entire project was carried out in close collaboration with end users and disability organizations. this prototype has been subject to long-term public evaluation at umea city library, and is now a commercial product audioindex is a project carried out in umea design research group (team: me, kent lindbergh, oskar fjellström, lars johansson) more / link to audioindex, the company

design / the abb powerwall / 2005

in this project, we designed a collaborative interface for highly automated, industrial environments. the resulting system, the abb powerwall, consists of large, shared interactive displays and several personal mobile information technology devices. on-site service technicians can seamlessly move information back and forth from their mobile devices to the shared display. the system supports various kinds of collaborative work, including making annotations; browsing for information; and visualizing blueprints and three-dimensional representations of objects and torrents. the design vision has been to provide end users with an unobtrusive way of sharing information, discussing problems and issues with others in front of a large collaborative screen, and the chance of socializing and learning from each other. located strategically in the specific environment for which it has been designed, the abb powerwall is intended to become a natural gathering point that increases interaction, afford gathering, discussions, collaboration, small talk, socializing, and community-making. (team: me, mike kruzeniski, mattias andersson) more / abb powerwall, video demonstration (youtube)

photography / phenomenology of mobile interaction / nov 2003

for a project called phenomenology of mobile interaction, i needed some product shots of a couple of mobile information technology devices to go with a lot of text. rather than simply paying someone with a reputation in this area for the real stuff, i saw this as a good opportunity to do some amateur photography on my own and to get to know our camera better. it's an olympus camedia e-10. the lens it has cannot really cope with close-ups like this, i guess, but it was sort of a fun experiment anyway. other than the camera, i used two very bright stage-style lights and a poor man's studio background setup consisting of a couple of large sheets of white paper. it was all done on a regular office desk. to get the blur-into-horizon effect, the aperture was set to as low as you can get with this camera: 2,2. while the photos look ok in smaller sizes, the are a way too grainy in full size. more pictures / t68i full size, ipaq full size

physical prototype design / the slide scroller / 2002-2003

this is a project in which we needed to design a physical prototype to be able to implement and test a new interaction style. information about the interaction style can be found elsewhere. the physical design had some initial requirements. first, it needed to be a casing to host various circuitry and batteries. second, it needed to be shaped in such a way that when lying on for instance a table, the pda's screen should be facing upwards while an optical mouse sensor should be facing downwards. third, we wanted the prototype to be appealing and useful for its interactional purpose. in this, we assumed that as the prototype would not incorporate any additional buttons, knobs, or any other interactional means other than the downwards-facing sensor, the physical design would benefit from being small and anonymous; not aiming to be the center of attention. the actual physical design, using a minimal budget, was carried out by me during the winter break of 2002-2003. a standard compaq expansion jacket, originally intended to allow two pc-cards to be attached to the ipaq, was taken to pieces. its plastic casing was then used as the basis for the physical design. two custom made electronics circuits, including an infrared beamer, the circuitry containing the optical mouse sensor, and four battery holders were then attached to piece of plastic panel. the original flipside of the expansion jacket was cut off and replaced by this plastic panel. To connect the infrared beamer with the pda, a small vacuum formed plastic hood was designed and attached to the top of the prototype. this hood, other than aesthetically somwhat pleasant, holds a small mirror which reflects the infrared beamer's signal into the pda's infrared eye. finally, the whole of the physical prototype was painted. (team: me, mikael wiberg, andreas lund, bjorn yttergren) more pictures / slide scroller's intestines, hood half-way off

design / the abb mobile service technician / 2002-2003

based on the findings of a fieldwork study using ethnographic techniques at two vehicle manufacturing companies, the team designed and implemented a mobile support system for service technicians. the system is arm-worn as opposed to traditionally handheld. users may interact with physical objects by pointing at them in the factory environment. the graphical user interface is context-dependent and navigated by tilt and finger gestures. (team: me, niklas andersson, staffan eriksson, bjorn yttergren) more pictures / the prototype system in use

graphical user interface / the abb mobile service technician / 2002-2003

here's a screenshot of the graphical user interface i did for a research project i was conducting in collaboration with swedish industrial company abb (see above). the user scrolls between these two screens by tilt. all selection is done by finger-tapping the screen, hence the seemingly oversized controls. the gui is intended to look good on a compaq ipaq screen, because of which the colors look a bit odd on most other screens. this gui was made in photoshop, and consists, other than the text, of a number of bmp images (with one color representing transparency). the font is myriad pro (regular, italics, bold italics). the gui was implemented using ms embedded visual c++ 3.0 and gapitools.

design / the reality helmet / 2002

the reality helmet is a wearable device providing a novel form of interactive experience, in which the user's vision and hearing is completely shielded off from the world. video and sounds are sampled by the reality helmet from the surrounding environment, but through computer processing sounds are presented to the wearer as vision and sights are turned into a soundscape. the result is a radical transformation of the nature of being in the world (pretentiously put, i agree); an unusual, first-person experience of artificial synaesthesia. the reality helmet leads its wearer to question the relationship between what is out there and what is sensed; it is a very unusual kind of experience. (team: me, staffan eriksson, kalle jalkanen, john waterworth, jonas westling) more stuff / video presentation, user wearing the helmet

poster / the penguin: spell by the web / 2002

this is the poster i made for the chi 2002 conference, as a presentation of the penguin application (below). the poster featured cut-out penguins (see this picture of the poster in action at the conference for reference) but which are missing on the screenshot (i'll fix it soon). the penguins produce a neat 3d effect in rl. the pdf files from the indesign original are available here (for the screen optimized version) and here (for the 9 mb full-size version). as noted, the poster was made in indesign 2, while the pictures, which are screenshots, where converted to cmyk and edited in photoshop. the poster text is based on myriad pro (regular, italics, bold, bold italics), but there are some instances of myriad wild family as well: for the headings and the preamble i used myriad tilt, while the black outline of the large 'the penguin' heading is myriad sketch. the poster was printed at the local printshop nra. the 3d penguins where cut out from the printout (see pdf layout for reference) and glued onto cardboard, which where then in turn glued onto yet another small piece of cardboard before we attached the whole thing to the poster using two-sided sticky tape. more pictures / poster cutout, the poster in action at chi, penguin icon looking up

graphical user interface / the penguin: spell by the web / 2001-2002

this is a ms visual c++ application that i designed and implemented during 2001. if you want to know more about this project, it has its own homepage. the gui comes in three different flavors; the compare mode, the settings mode, and the tray mode. i feel somewhat content with the penguins and the iceberg in this design. the former move around on the iceberg according to query results. more pictures / full screen tray mode, tray mode with ms word

website / department of informatics, umea university / 1999-2000

i redesigned a new look and feel for the department's homepage in 1999-2000. i could do pretty much whatever i wanted, but on the other hand, it had to pass people that were still questioning the use of images on web pages, referring to all the 14.4-ers out there. so, in retrospect, it is possible to see some 'restrained design choices'. anyway, the whole site is still highly active -- and probably will for some time. the image on the front page is a random pick, which was about as much fun i was allowed to have. i think that the color scheme is not too outdated yet, even by web standards. the graphics for this site was almost entirely done in a previous version of macromedia fireworks. the font is gill sans (roman, light, bold italics). pictures / one, two, three

website / greenland whale fisheries / 1996

although it is clear that this design, not to mention the whole structure and idea of the site, wouldn't quite pass by today's standards, the frames (all over), the menu as an image map (left), the animated gifs (in blue, which the stills spare you from), and the guestbook (see picture 3) were actually high fashion in 1995 and 1996 when i designed, implemented, and kept after this site. i still think the menu map is quite cool, though. the 'recycled' style paper was part of our branding; we used that kind of paper for all our posters. for archaeological purposes, the site is still up; feel free to check it out [update: apparently it's gone now, too bad]. pictures / one, two, three