Unique User Interfaces

I've been taking a peek at products which reveal to the user how much of a resource is being used, in a visually appealing, tangible way. A good source for these is MOMA's online exhibit of Design and the Elastic Mind.

This large red cord you see is called Standby, and it's meant to make consumption of energy more visible, as far as I can tell. Perhaps a little more conceptual than we want to go. But perhaps not?

Interaction design

Originally drawn from a discussion on software user-interface design, but much of it is relevent to designing a house that interacts well with it's residents.

"... Interaction should facilitate or even persuade users to learn what underlies the task they are doing. The same is true in situations where interruptions are commonplace and where in the meanwhile mastery of what is underlying a task or domain is desired, or when operations come with a cost and direct solutions without deviations are the aim. In designing our interfaces we ... must design in such a manner that the way users (should) think is optimally supported."

In other words: we need to design for the optimal usage of the house. Good defaults are very important here (In my opinion, the strength of Apple software is the choice of good defaults (and sometimes not giving users the ability to chose))

"We concluded that relieving a user’s memory and making interactions assisted by externalizing information does not have beneficial effects. It makes users count on the interface and gives them (unrightfully so) the feeling that the task and thinking-work is partly done for them, which seduces users in more shallow cognitive behavior."

In other words: It is important to help the user build a good mental representation of how things are working. Preferably this would be similar to the way things actually work, but it can also be an arbitrary metaphore for what is happening.

"Not every task is important enough to teach users the mechanisms that support it. Many interfaces benefit from a level of abstraction or decoupling from the underlying processes. The spirit of this research is to point out that the effort to dumb down can go too far."

Aka: Teaching people how everything works is impossible. Abstraction has it's place, we'll have to find a balance.

Someone's comment:
"When a person is learning how to use 3D modeling software -- like AutoCAD or Revit or Inventor -- they may actually be learning (at least) two things: (1) How to think and draw in 3D space, and (2) How to make this happen in software. I'm not sure what the pedagogical solution to this challenge is, but I suspect that people who learn drafting before learning the software would more quickly learn the software and have greater facility with it over the long term. Just a guess, though. "

Use Cases:

+Laneway of a residential home:
-'Granny/Anita/Student Suite'
The individual(s) in the laneway house are somewhat associated with the host family. Perhaps they are family friends and the tiny house residents are students from out of town. There is some interaction between the two parties, and potentially lots of shared space and resource. Things like meals might be shared, potentially to the point where a full kitchen in the tiny house is not necessary.
-Unrelated residents
Separate lives, separate lifestyles. Focusing on increasing density in urban areas.

+Laneway of a business:
-Owner/proprietor of the business
Shopkeeper/Baker/Technician lives very close to their place of work. The tiny house is for personal life while the store is more public. A good way to differentiate the spaces of one's life.

-Temporary workers
A space used by transient/seasonal workers. Easier to lock up a small house than to reduce the use of a large one? Again this allows easy access to a place of work, and would be beneficial to early or multi-shift location-based work.

+Community of small houses
-Along a back ally (aka. laneway)
There are multiple tiny houses opening up onto a single laneway. They share responsibility for looking after the lane. Shared lifestyles might be appropriate, and there could perhaps be communal cooking or other activities. This communal space could build on the ideas we were discussing about how to break down the barrier between 'indoors' and 'outdoors'... elders sitting on the porch (in the greenhouse) watching children play games up and down the ally anyone?

-All together now
Pack the tiny houses in like sardines in a tin. Perhaps they are even built as a set of tiny apartments. This might help reduce heating costs and building materials. Built for density. Could we make stackable tiny houses?


Todo:
* Can we get some sketchups of the entire lot?

On the wiki: http://www.wikieducator.org/MyHomeYourHome/Elements_of_the_Home#Target_Audience