Posts tagged “push”

Out and About: Steve in Barcelona (2 of 2)

More observations from the trip to Barcelona. See part 1 here (and the complete set on Flickr).


Graffiti scarification. At Park Guell, people mark the cactus so future tourists can see that they were there and they were douchebags.



I’m sure I’ve never seen a sign for a detective agency before. But within days of seeing this, I come across a New Yorker article excerpting Mavis Gallant’s diary from Spain, in 1952. She mentions the ubiquity of signs for detective agencies in Barcelona! Who knew?


Gaudi’s Casa Batll??.







Delicious pinxtos.


Recycling depot with a book-exchange rack and a used-clothing-for-charity collection box.


The presentation and form factor of the Jam??n ibérico is sufficiently iconic that you can buy an inflatable non-meat version.


Gestural guidance.

Get our latest article: Everbody’s Talkin’ At Me

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My second interactions column, Everbody’s Talkin’ At Me, has just been published. I offer some thoughts on the crucial but undervalued activity of listening within the context of storytelling.

Get a PDF of the article here. As the interactions website only has a teaser, we’d like to offer a copy of the article. Send an email to steve AT portigal DOT com and (if you haven’t given us this info before) tell us your name, organization, and title. We’ll send you a PDF.
Other articles

Sliding Doors

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Public bathroom doorway, Karuizawa, Japan, January 2008

Before we hiked up the nearby mountain I wanted to use the bathroom. I was very frustrated to find the door locked. I pushed and pulled and saw the keyhole for the deadbolt and figured I was out of luck. Then I saw someone enter the adjacent women’s room – by sliding the door. I wouldn’t expect a bathroom door to slide, and I didn’t interpret any of the cues (or affordances) about how this door works to suggest sliding was a possibility.

Shine a light

Just over a year ago I blogged about the push approach that Wal-Mart was taking to drive adoption of energy-efficient fluorescent lighting, spending money on persuasive marketing rather than addressing the known barriers to adoption. A year later, it seems to be okay to acknowledge the problems with the bulbs. The New York Times recently looked at the problems that people have with the quality of light created by those bulbs (nothing new, of course, but the fact that the angle of the story has changed is thought-provoking). Most recently, they offered up this this interview with a Sylvania technologist who speaks to the ongoing work to improve the quality of the light that people experience.

Of course the efforts to improve the bulbs were always ongoing. I’m intrigued by the cultural story that was created by marketing and the media, spending money to force a behavior under the guise of “educating” people.

Make a better light bulb, already. One that is energy efficient and doesn’t make us feel (and look) like crap in our own homes. We’ll beat a path to your door.

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