ASIS&T;
Since 1937, ASIS&T; has been the society for information professionals leading the search for new and better theories, techniques, and technologies to improve access to information.
Design with Time in Mind
From Stonehenge’s summer solstice to medieval genealogical charts and from grandfather to atomic clocks, Europe has a long history of building tools to keep track of and organise time. With the rise of social networks and the always-online capability of mobile phones, tracking and organising time plays a bigger role than ever. Facebook and Twitter pull us more and more away from the past and the future into a continuous present. Should we stay in the eternal now or do we need new tools for a longer time perspective?
How to successfully design for organising time is the question I will answer in my presentation. I will do this first by understanding the different ways people perceive time, second by analysing the different design solutions available for organising time, and finally by discussing the case study of Lanyrd, a London-based event website that successfully addresses past, present and future.
Time perspective People experience time in different ways, some live surrounded by memories of the past, others are obsessed by accomplishing goals in the future. I will address some interesting findings from the field of time psychology, specifically, the time perspective inventory developed by psychologist Philip Zimbardo. His way of organising our attitudes to time around six variables is a great framework for a time-centred design project.
Time design Over the last three millennia many useful ways of measuring and representing time have been developed. I will present a framework for understanding these different tools as design patterns. I will then demonstrate their practical uses for designing with time.
Case study To show how an understanding of time perspective and design patterns can be used to structure and design a project, I will discuss a case study of Lanyrd based on interviews with their designers.
Sjors Timmer
Sjors Timmer is a freelance Interaction Designer interested in the role of time perception in design. He holds an MA in Digital Media from Goldsmiths, University of London. He is actively involved in the design community, where he co-organises UXcamp London and organised UXDO, a series of practical workshops for designers. He has written for well-known blogs and has been featured in .Net magazine. He has given a number of presentations on a broad range of design subjects for diverse audiences of professionals, including a presentation on the design process of Rem Koolhaas at LondonIA and an invited presentation on Social Networks at the University of Utrecht.
