Re: Fwd: Email
So I'm working on a website for my thesis project: Re: Fwd: Email. The majority of thesis-related posts will happen there from now on. I'm not entirely sure, now, what to do with this section. It doesn't even really need to be an archive since I just ported my blog from here to there. Perhaps I will devote this page to cute pictures of animals. Or something. (Probably not).3.24.2010 // 0 Comments // READ FULL POST...
Prototype: inbox Magazine
Coming back from my week-long email vacation last year, I realized I had not missed anything important and that checking my email once a week would probably suffice. To that end, I started thinking about email as a weekly publication instead of an always on application. I took all of my emails from that week of December 1, 2009 through December 7, 2009, organized them and laid them out as a set of magazines.
The primary magazine contains the bulk of the emails and the addendum contains a handful of extremely long emails that would not fit into the page count of the first volume. This prototype demonstrates email in a completely different, more readable, less urgent context and although it’s not practical for mass consumption, it does highlight the one-directional, informational nature of many email messages.
Prototype: Bloom
This piece involves moving an emergent function of email—task management—out of the inbox and into a physical object external to the computer. Drawing on the ideas of ubiquitous computing, this project focuses on combining an existing behavior, starring items in an inbox, with a familiar metaphor, the desktop plant.By endowing an everyday object with computing intelligence, this prototype tests the theory that moving seamlessly from the periphery to the center of attention eases technological overload. It also provides a calm, less judgemental display of task management. Ideally this would be a physically tactile and tangible plant, but in the face of the current constraints of botany, the task plant, Bloom, is presented as a digital prototype programmed in Processing and displayed on a touchscreen submonitor.
Bloom prototype in action. I am using a set of my own email for the week of December 1 - December 7.
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