Wolfgang Maehr

So, finally. The last deliverable (before the thesis) is delivered. Was a rather exhausting week since last wednesday (went to Dancehall Explosion then – best going out here in Sweden so far. Great music, great people, reminded me of K5 in Zurich). The weekend I mostly tried to motivate myself for working on the last two reports. Now it is done and I’m in summer holidays. Has been a while since I had like a month with no fixed plans. Even if I do not know how they will exactly end – I assume in teh beginning of August, but nothing is fixed yet. So I can spend some time working up my ToDo-list and READING (tons of books I wanna read!) and hopefully working a bit (have some web-dev stuff for me, please let me know!) and travelling and enjoying the nature. This means that I hope that the pace of interesting entries will raise a bit again. — read more ›

Critical design is a technique used by Anthony Dunne (cp. Dunne 2000) that should teach (interaction) designers to be aware of their impact on society and to be critical to the environment and effects of a design solution. Gaver and Martin use in their paper Alternatives (Gaver and Martin, 2000) a technique called value fiction to perform this task. There they present design solutions that would fit to a society with similar technology but different values as our society. These designs are intended for other (interaction) designers to cast a spotlight on problematic topics and provoke thoughts. — read more ›

…so, right now I’m sitting in a lot of boring project presentations within UCD – how interesting is it to listen to shallow analyses of unknown companies’ development process?!? So I’ll rather give a short newsflash. :) — read more ›

This is an essay I wrote for a course in user centered design. It can also be downloaded as PDF here. Comments are welcome! — read more ›

Just like last year around the same time, also this year my emotional and motivational valley has come. After nicely finishing the project and only its reporting left, running a semi-maraton in a good time and writing the second attempt of the written Swedish exam, I feel confused and demotivated again. We (Gustaf and me) were intended to just go for watching the Champions League final, but since the pub could not show the match, we were talking a bit. For both of us the new MacBook was haning over us, with a nicely pulsing halo screaming for attention and desire. Since my current machine still works fine *knock, knock, knock* I feel tempted but will be able to resist these nice machines for a while still. However did the whole story make me think a bit and while I do not feel like a gadget-nerd, I do feel like there is this huge demand of new toys/entertainment, just like in a 5-year old kid. Have something, play around with it, need something new. Sometimes as notorious that I manually check for software updates hoping to get some new parts to my machine. New, new, new, new… ocurring periodically.
While this behaviour seems to be normal for most Apple nerds, it also seems to be normal for many other people that drown themselves in consumerism. Since I always found experiences to be very intriguing, I never really saw myself as a real consumer. On the other hand made my fanatism for new Apple stuff me think, that obviously there is something still missing in my life. The first guess was spirituality, but after discussing that with Gustaf (he really surprised me there), we decided that it probably is something else. Meaning. Even though religion is trying to give that to peoples’ lives, it is not the only way. For quite a while ago I felt like trying to get this meaning into my life by trying to fullfill myself. That was one reason to study Interaction Design. The other one was that I felt that I can have a better impact on the world doing IxD than Software Engineering. While I am really satisfied with the first point, I obviously still lack a bit of satisfaction regarding the second point.
So what I ask myself now is if I really have to register at the geekcorps, or join a company in the third world as an Interaction Designer, or go off to Greenpeace or the United Nations in order to fullfill my inner burning. Right now I do not feel ready for a life with the traditional steps of studying, working, making a family, retiring, dying… it feels so selfish. On the other hand I do not feel like anything meaningful to fight for has come near enough for me to grab it and use all my energies. Perfectionistic as I am it obviously has to be something big and give me some outlook of success rather quickly.
So somehow I wonder where to go from here… If I should run out to find this beast to wrestle down, or be a good person waiting for the beast to find me? Or is this whole thing just a small burn-out after a hard but intersting year of studying? Is it just fear of getting old and having to live a normal life without being a young and weird student anymore? Is it a premature mid-life crisis? Are kids the proper way to give your life a meaning?
It is just good that my aunt comes to visit me here on Saturday so I might ask her some of these questions. But for now I guess I will lean back and try to do my job and let the beast find me, if it doesn’t I probably will go out and search for it in a couple of (or less) years….I guess….or so…
I think I will give the whole issue a bit of more thoughts still in the next times. So maybe I will post some new insights or thoughts. — read more ›

So I got my standard letter from the Swedish imigration office granting me a residence permit… until May 30. Wow, a full three weeks. Yay. If only I applied a couple of days ago, but no, I applied in January. I even applied for a year, which actually should be granted in my case of being a student. However these nice people in the office decided that they prefer me applying for a extension in the next week again, with the same papers that I already sent them last time. If it was not my time and stamps being used for that I would laugh about it. — read more ›

Now the lazy weekend is over – unfortunately. Before next weeks stress and hard work I was luckily enough able to enjoy a lazy weekend with BBQing, playing soccer and throwing the disc, watching films, having walks and runs, attending parades, parties and dinners with friends. It was probably the best official-beginning-of-spring-weekend-with valborg-and-first-of-may. — read more ›