Its good to see a bit of design that uses its own form to lead its users to do the right thing. That makes real good design, but requires a truly holistic view that we should, as designers, be aspiring to.

In this case, it is a requirement on this Virgin Trains loo that the seat be down when its flushed. (I’m not sure what the consequences would be if it were not, but I am sure that I’d rather not be there!). So how does the design assure that? In this case by hiding a control so that when the control is visible and able to be used, the artifact is in a state when it can be used. In straight terms, the flush button is behind the seat. So, you got to put the seat down to flush.

This use of the form to define the use has an unfortunate side effect, though. It means that the flush button has to be signposted as it is not immediately visible. Unfortunate, or consequential? Whatever, the seat being down would have to be mandated in some way, I guess a less farsighted designer might just put up a sign stating the fact, but this would be poor and would not 100% determine the final state of the loo, so I can live with it as consequential.

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I wrote a little bit ago about VOIP (in the vernacular, telephone calls by internet), and characterised it as a ‘disruptive technology’ as it breaks many of the communication models we now think of as set in stone.

At the time I was bullish about Skype as a provider, but the main problem with Skype then (and this is only a few months ago) was that calls between Skype users were free BUT you couldn’t get out of the internet. So you could call your techie mate with Skype, but not your Gran with BT. And, practically, you could only do this sat with your headset on at your PC, not on your sofa with a glass of wine.

Well lets face it, I thought, this technology must have a long way to go. Because what you need is a phone, something that you can handle and take with you, not an IM clone rooting you to the PC spot however ‘unwired’ you are. And you need to be able to phone your Gran. And what happens when the PC gets turned off? Whatever the technology underpinning the service, the disruptiveness I talked about is to infrastructure not culture, and, at least initially, what we know and use easily now has to be retained to be able to evolve.

So, along comes Gossiptel. You get a 0870 number that people can call and you can use your broadband connection to phone ‘out’ of the internet for prices cheaper then BT. Wow, so we have escaped the internet then! And you can get a ‘SIP’ adapter for less than ?100 that you plug into your broadband connection directly. So its always on. And you buy a DECT phone and plug it into that. So its portable, and wireless. And theres lots of other voicemail caller ID stuff etc.

I’m testing this now, still with a PC softphone, but first impressions have been very good. All being well I shall get the adaptor in a couple of weeks. But, lets face it, you early adopters, it’s a phone, it’s connected, it’s pay as you go, it’s better quality, it has more features and it’s VOIP, so it does appear that the future is upon us… so get signed up and we can talk for free!

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I got my freeview box about four or five months ago. Its a Humax and as well as the freeview thing it also has a hard disk that it records onto. I was very interested to see how the whole PVR thing (personal video recorder … hard disk recorder) would change how I watched tele. (My kids were interested in cbeebies but thats another matter…).

Well, it didn’t change how I watched tele at all. It just made the process of recording easier. You don’t have to remember to put a tape in, rewinding is easier, weekly scheduling is nice … but no real quantum here.
Then the EPG (Electronic Program Guide) came along. That has changed things. You go through the guide … press OK … it gets recorded. No entering times and dates for me anymore, just browse through and click. I love my EPG. It signals the end for broadcast, you just get programs when you want to watch them.

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Indirection. That’s doing something apparently irrelevant to achieve a goal. For example, you want to record, say, Wayne Hemmingways classic appearance on the Art Show about branded home furnishings (the Versace Teapot? Really?… but I digress). You want to record the Art Show, right? But to do this you have to input the TIMES of the Art Show … starts at 20.00 ends at 20.30. Thats indirection that has been required because of the nature of the artifact - the recorder that works in time.

“When is the next train to East Didsbury?” is another question that I often have. Previously I had to be ‘indirected’ to find out what line the East Didsbury train ran on. I had to go find the timetable. If East Didsbury wasn’t the final destination for the train (which it never is) I might have to struggle to interpret the time. So I’m well pleased with the new Board at Manchester Station. I want to find the time of the train? No timetable indirection, no interpretation, not hard. The board lists the places trains go to from Manchester and the times that they go next. No messing, no indirection: This is Good!

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I think that Wayne Hemingway is really one of our top designers. The new Bug radio from Pure allows you to ‘rewind’ radio and get the most from the digital distribution of a traditional analogue medium.

Uptake of hard drive PVRs like Sky is producing just hasn’t caught on yet. I don’t quite know why, but it may be that people just dont get the fact that it is possible, nay even concievable that you can ’stop’ and ’start’ tele. Just doesn’t seem right. But radio might just steal a march on the TV. The conceptual model of analogue audio tape might allow for the mass market to ‘get’ this digital concept quicker.

And to Mr Hemingway… I am sure he would be quite flattered that I consider him to be the William Morris of this generation. With his work concentrating on good and affordable design with the likes of Wimpy Homes and others, he makes the other designers who are focussing on high end and unaffordable look a trifle sad. This is design for the rest of us, and I’m glad someone is doing it, and being digital to boot.

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