MEX

Dimitrios Stamatis, one of the Brunel designers participating at the next MEX, selected Bret Victor’s ‘A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design‘ as his inspiring piece.

Victor’s essay takes issue with the proliferation of concept designs based on cold, smooth, glassy touchscreens and asks the industry to consider the role of tactility. He goes on to suggest improved understanding of touch and the mechanics of hand movements is essential to better interaction design.

Coincidentally, Victor’s article had also been identified by MEX alumnus Andrew Muir Wood, who led the work on MEX Pathway #9 (Expand mobile interactions with the neglected dimensions of sound and tactility) at MEX in May 2011. Muir Wood returns to the forthcoming MEX to present and facilitate the MEX Pathway #11 team on super local interactions.

Stamatis’ second pick was the Artvertiser project, started in 2008, which trained handheld devices to recognise billboards in major cities and replace them with content selected by the user. The objective was to turn urban spaces from ‘read only’ to ‘read/write environments’

The MEX blog is featuring ideas, images and videos selected by the designers at Brunel University in the build-up to the next MEX event on 30th November/1st December 2011.

Each breakout team at MEX is supported by a pair of Brunel designers, who work with the team’s facilitator to inject new thoughts and help the group to visualise ideas for their final presentation. The involvement of Brunel’s designers continues a thriving partnership between MEX and Brunel, which has seen the students contributing their design skills and fresh creative spirit to several previous MEX events, while building relationships with and learning from the industry pioneers in the MEX community.

The Brunel designers were asked to share a single item which has been inspirational to them, with no limitation on the industry it was sourced from or its subject matter.