Andrew Wirtanen

Bill Gates on innovating to zero CO2 emissions

Andrew Wirtanen — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:14:09 +0000

TED 2010 was held on February 9th-13th this year. To attend TED, you have to fill out an application and be invited for the privilege to pay and $6000 to spare (a tax-deductible donation, but a heavy one). Luckily for us normal people, all of the talks from the conference are posted online.

For the past two years, I’ve enjoyed watching Bill Gates. His keynote talks for Microsoft were always pretty boring, but his TED talks are informative and inspiring. Last year, he famously released mosquitoes into the audience. This year, he released fireflies (they didn’t quite leave the jar though). His speech was on why it’s important for us to innovate in energy production, whether you believe in climate change or not.

“If you gave me only one wish for the next 50 years… I can pick who’s president, I can pick a vaccine–which is something I love, or I could pick that this thing that’s half the cost with no CO2 gets invented, this is the wish I would pick. This is the one with the greatest impact.” – Bill Gates

Click here to view the embedded video.

[via TED.com]

Krispy Kreme Challenge Oh Ten

Andrew Wirtanen — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:52:44 +0000

On Saturday, February 6th at 8:30am I was at the NC State Memorial Bell Tower at the starting line of the Krispy Kreme Challenge (KKC). An hour and a few donuts later, I crossed the finish line with my box of leftover donuts. I didn’t complete the Challenge as it was designed, but let’s face it: It’s crazy. After running the first two miles, a box of donuts was the last thing I wanted. I debated whether I should even grab one. I struggled to open the box and eat three donuts before giving up and running the final two miles.

The Krispy Kreme Challenge is perhaps one of the most unique things in Raleigh, and I plan on participating again next year. It was my first road race since I started running last summer (with the help of Couch-to-5k). I ran at a nice, casual pace (finishing at 1:01:28 according to the official results) and paused while looking for friends at the halfway point. Next year, I’m not going to look… and maybe I’ll eat more donuts at the halfway point. I just don’t know if it’s physically possible.

Check out my full set of photos from the KKC.

72-Hour Survival Kit

Andrew Wirtanen — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:09:08 +0000

The Haiti Earthquake and this article on Make got me thinking again about emergency survival kits. Thankfully, I don’t have to worry much about earthquakes and hurricanes in Raleigh. But we do have the threat of tornadoes, and there was a touchdown in 1988 not far from where I live. It turns out that 72 hours is the magic number for being rescued after an impact. Here’s a handy guide if you want to build your own kit (it’s very comprehensive).

There’s also a nice 72-hour kit you can buy from 4 Survival To Go for $99 (pictured). They’re donating 20% of online sales ~~before February 5th~~ for the entire months of January and February to Haiti. If you buy it, make sure to rotate out the Aqua Blox every five years and check the food. 4 Survival recommends you have one in the home, office, and car ($300 per person!). This does look like a very handy kit for the car though, since there’s no way I could carefully fit everything in a compact bag.

Experience Is The Product

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:53:44 +0000

Peter Merholz (Adaptive Path) posted on his blog this week that his slidecast “Experience Is The Product” hit 400,000 views. Peter gave the talk at dConstruct 2007 in Brighton, UK. The presentation argues for focusing on the experience rather than technology and features. It’s a great talk that uses examples of good user experience design that we still use today, three years later (e.g. Nintendo Wii, iPhone, iPod, Tivo, etc.).

By the way. Slideshare doesn’t give you valid XHTML for embedding, but I found this tutorial that shows you how to embed valid slidecasts.

The Fable of the User-Centered Designer

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:42:13 +0000

It’s hard to explain what I do, and workers in my field have many different titles. I am a Human Factors Specialist, but I could just as easily be a User-Centered Designer, User Experience (UX) Designer, or Usability Specialist.

David Travis from Userfocus authored a simple and easy-to-follow short story called The Fable of the User-Centered Designer that follows one man as he attempts to learn what User-Centered Design is. It’s a free PDF that’s a quick read on the computer screen, but a printed copy is only $14.80 on Blurb, with all proceeds going to Room to Read.

[The Fable of the User-Centered Designer via Usability News]

Waving Goodbye to 2009

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 18:33:03 +0000

Year-end video recaps are special because they make you realize just how long the year was. Whirled Interactive took a stab at it with this great video made with the help of Google Wave:

Click here to view the embedded video.

What are my memories from 2009? Well, off the top of my head:

Getting snowed in and working from home while watching the inauguration of our first black president.
Flying home abruptly in January because my grandmother passed away.
Experiencing my first economic downturn as a full-time employee. It wasn’t much fun.
Glen Wesley Night at the RBC Center on Feburary 17. The Bruins won.
Being a part of the Triangle Red Sox Nation green softball team (there are three teams, and green was new in ‘09). We didn’t win much, but we had a lot of fun in the spring/summer and fall.
Hanging out with Triangle Red Sox Nation while we watched the PawSox defeat the Durham Bulls from under the famous snorting bull in left field (as seen in Bull Durham).
Playing golf for the first time at Knight’s Play Golf Center in Apex. Someday I’ll get better.
CHI 2009 in Boston, April 5th-9th. I ran into a lot of old friends.
Our gesture research at HumanCentric. Will data analysis ever end? I hope so.
Discovering Bonobos. Well-designed pants with an unlimited return policy. I used to hate wearing anything but jeans.
Visiting Charlotesville, VA for Rebecca’s cousin’s wedding. The downtown pedestrian mall and Monticello are must-sees.
Visiting the Outer Banks and staying at a great bed-and-breakfast, the Cypress House Inn. Enjoyed going up Currituck Beach Lighthouse, watching an Outer Banks Daredevils game, grabbing a quick dinner (with a beer) at the Outer Banks Brewing Station, and a more low-key dinner at The Colington Cafe.
Summer vacation on Cape Cod. Enjoyed watching the rain-shortened 2009 CCBL All-Star game at Fenway from the covered grandstand behind home, and showing Rebecca around Cape.
Running. I used to think only bionic humans ran more than 1/2 mile. Now I’m running 5K with ease, but there are no marathons in my future.
Labor Day weekend in Equality, Alabama. I consider this my first introduction to the deep south and lakeside living. Trivia fact: Patriots LB Adalius Thomas was born in Equality.
Islamorada and Key West, Florida in late October. It was my first time in the southernmost state. I think about the great Cuban food at El Meson de Pepe every now and then.
I worked over 100 hours in a week with a trip to Chicago. It was tiring, but oddly fun at times.
Rebecca and I took a quick weekend trip to Oak Island, NC before Thanksgiving. I’m looking forward to exploring the Wilmington area more.
I spent another Thanksgiving in Georgia with Rebecca’s family, but this time we ate at a buffet restaurant near Helen, GA. The food wasn’t great, but the reunion part was interesting. Cirque de la Symphonie in Atlanta was amazing.
Christmas festivities in Raleigh, including two parties in one night and watching The Nutracker by the Carolina Ballet.
Another Christmas on Cape Cod, but this time there was snow on the ground! I used some fake gift boxes again, but only had a 25% success rate this year instead of last year’s miraculous 80% success rate. Oh well.
And, finally, I’ll be headed back to Raleigh before the year-end to host a New Year’s Eve house party with Rebecca.

Magic Highway USA

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:08:00 +0000

What did we think the highways of the future would look like? Here’s a video from a 1958 episode of Disneyland TV. Surprisingly the first couple minutes are focused on human factors and safety concerns. For example, the video shows much larger, dynamic, and higher contrast highway signs. The rest of the video enters Jetsons territory, but it’s still an amusing vision with some good ideas.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[via Neatorama]

Video: The Decade in Seven Minutes

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:11:18 +0000

Transitioning online from printed journalism isn’t easy. Most companies saw this coming 30 years ago, so recent newspaper circulation trends weren’t exactly a surprise. Some companies have figured out how to survive in the age of digital journalism. One that I really enjoy is Time Video (see my previous post on Ze Frank’s video series featured on Time’s website).

This week, the Time video “The Decade in Seven Minutes” went viral. Check it out!

Making Recycling Fun

Andrew Wirtanen — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:20:32 +0000

World Usability Day is this week and the theme is “Designing for a Sustainable World”. In North Carolina, I’ll be attending an evening event hosted by Tri-UPA and Carolina HFES. My company has been hard at work redesigning recycle bins for the annual design challenge. Last year, we took a stab at redesigning bus stops.

Technology used to be the driver of new products; it determined the industrial design and components. Now, the size of devices is no longer determined by the size of the computer chip. For example, the iPod Classic sports the same basic design from 2004. The iPod does its job well and the only thing that could (and probably should) be changed include improvements in software and components.

We are living in a period of re-emergence of design. We are realizing that we need to start developing products that are not going to end up in a landfill after 2 years. We also need to design products that will encourage sustainability. Here’s a great example from Volkswagen that makes a game out of recycling:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Volkswagen also created two other videos (Piano Staircase and The World’s Deepest Bin). They created them as demonstration videos for The Fun Theory contest. The contest encourages designs that change people’s behavior for the better. Pretty cool.

The end of handheld GPS devices: Google will practically shut down Garmin and TomTom

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:28:26 +0000

This week Google released Google Maps Navigation for Android. It’s only a matter of time before it’s available for other phones.

Gizmodo was quick to look at both Garmin and TomTom’s stocks on the day of the announcement:

When I bought my Garmin nuvi 660, I saw this coming. My digital camera is already collecting dust, since my iPhone 3GS’s camera is good enough for most purposes. There are GPS applications for my iPhone, but I still pull out my Garmin just because it is already paid for (and the iPhone GPS applications are not).

What’s the future for Garmin and TomTom? Well, Garmin attempted to create an iPhone killer called the nuvifone. It was a good idea, but very poorly executed. TomTom handled things a little smarter, and were the first company to announce a turn-by-turn GPS application for the iPhone (though not the first to release one). TomTom even managed to realize that they could make a little money on hardware by selling accessories (including the suction cup).

Garmin’s nuvifone will undoubtedly bomb, and the company’s future is uncertain. TomTom will probably scrape by, but they need to somehow stay on top of Google.