Design with Intent | 2006 December

culminate // 2006

By Dan Lockton ⋅ December 30, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

This’ll probably be my last post of 2006, so I’d like to thank everyone who’s read the blog (and commented, or suggested stories) over the year. 2006 has seen this blog, and the awareness of the ‘architectures of control’ concept, grow substantially – it’s pleasing to have so many regular readers and contributors, if a [...]

Digital control round-up

By Dan Lockton ⋅ December 30, 2006 ⋅ One comment

Some developments in – and commentary on – digital architectures of control to end 2006:
Peter Gutmann’s ‘A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection’ (via Bruce Schneier) looks very lucidly at the effects that Vista’s DRM and measures to ‘protect’ content will have – on users themselves, and knock-on effects elsewhere. The more one reads, [...]

Limiting frequency of cigarette use

By Dan Lockton ⋅ December 30, 2006 ⋅ 9 comments

Images from nicostopper.com and Popgadget
Nicostopper is an electronic dispenser which holds up to 10 cigarettes, and releases them one at a time at programmed intervals, to help pace and restrict the smoker. The screen “will also flash “self-help” messages each time to make you feel guilty as well” (Popgadget). It’s styled fairly discreetly to look [...]

Some more architectures of control for traffic management

By Dan Lockton ⋅ December 22, 2006 ⋅ 5 comments

Many of the ‘built environment’ examples discussed here over the last year-and-a-bit have been intended to control (or “manage”) traffic in some way, e.g to slow drivers down, force them to take an alternative route, or force them to stop. I thought it would be worth mentioning a couple of other methods, the rationales behind [...]

Partial vs full feeds

By Dan Lockton ⋅ December 16, 2006 ⋅ 6 comments

Fullfeeds.com is “a petition against intentionally disabled feeds”:
Isn’t RSS about convenience? Wouldn’t you prefer to see entire texts in your feeds, rather than just summaries? Support the cause, sign the petition below.
While I’ve signed the petition, I’m not sure to what extent partial feeds are really deliberately used to drive subscribers to view the full [...]

Projected images designed to scare an enemy

By Dan Lockton ⋅ December 14, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

The figure of a Martian devil looms over London*: from Quatermass & The Pit, 1958, written by the late Nigel Kneale
A couple of years ago, after seeing a programme by Jon Ronson, I was reading about the First Earth Battalion and came across a link to an apparently real document, Nonlethal Weapons: Terms and References, [...]

A couple of stories from the Consumerist

By Dan Lockton ⋅ December 14, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

“Is Sylvester Stallone Taking Over Your TV?” – anecdotal suggestion that some digital video recorders may be attempting to ‘push’ certain movie franchises in the run-up to release by recording (unrequested) previous titles in a series, or with the same actors.
Well, this is totally impossible to confirm, but we just got a complaint from a [...]

How much are bored eyeballs really worth?

By Dan Lockton ⋅ December 13, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

We’ve discussed deliberately splitting up articles to increase page views before – inspired by Jason Kottke – with some very insightful comments, but the technique used by the free file-hosting site Putfile goes way beyond simply inconveniencing the user.
Most free hosting sites require multiple clicks, or a minute’s wait before you can actually download the [...]

No sliding

By Dan Lockton ⋅ December 13, 2006 ⋅ 6 comments

These spikes are embedded every couple of feet in the hand-rails of a staircase at Highbury & Islington station in London, presumably to prevent kids (or adults) sliding down them. They’re not especially sharp, but would bruise someone pretty badly.
Note that there are also additional stainless steel hand-rails – this staircase may have replaced an [...]

The fight back: loyalty card subversion

By Dan Lockton ⋅ December 10, 2006 ⋅ 11 comments

It’s inevitable that for every attempt to cajole or impose control on users, there will be some people who seek to avoid or circumvent it. As Crosbie Fitch put it in a recent comment, “humans are designed to explore the parameters of their environment and to adapt to them”.
Supermarket loyalty cards are an interesting example [...]

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Archive for December, 2006