Off Book: Video Games

Video games are important. They are a storytelling medium, a place for self-expression, a sandbox for the human imagination, and an extension of an ages old tradition of gaming. We play out some of the most essential aspects of our culture in games, and we learn more about ourselves and the world around us in the process. From the powerful cinematic experiences of mainstream gaming, to the hyper-personal environments of indie games, we are in the midst of an explosion of gaming activity that, as some predict, will continue to define the way we live and interact with information, and each other, far into the future.

Will Wright makes toys that make worlds

In a friendly, high-speed presentation, Will Wright demos his newest game, Spore, which promises to dazzle users even more than his previous masterpieces.

BlindSide: The Audio Adventure Video Game

Blindside is a video game with no graphics, played entirely using audio. It is an audio adventure, set in a fully 3D world that you’ll never see.

This is not a social game, this is not an MMO, this is not a game designed to make money. This is a game designed to be fun, to be hard, and to push the boundaries of what players expect video games to be. This is a game designed to challenge us the way Zork and Super Mario Brothers have. This is a game designed to reward those who persist and overcome it, the way you might have felt after completing The Dig or Half-Life. But most of all, this is a game designed to thrill its players in brand new ways.

Sesame Street - What is a computer?

From an episode of Sesame Street, c. 1984: Schoolkids asked to define the word “computer.”

Online Checkout - In Real Life

Great video from Google Analytics illustrating how shopping online is meant to be easy.

The 10 principles of interaction design

Chad Vavra, interaction design director at The Barbarian Group, rounds up 10 key rules that make good interaction designs and designers and that you need to understand before you can break them.

via NetMagazine

The Spectrum of User Experience

"As we all perfectly know, designers are narcissists; programmers are nerds, and whoever wears a tie must be a clueless jerk. Designers, programmers and business people love to hate each other. That’s why we keep them separated"

via http://www.flickr.com/photos/formforce/3663684287/
and http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/the-spectrum-of-user-experience-1/

Tablets of Our Dreams

Sci-fi doesn't imagine computers like the one you're probably staring at right now, it imagines them looking like the one we might see next week. Here is a tour of great tablets and even greater interfaces.