Many of us here at Invo have been using the Arduino quite a bit. From making claws for costumes to retail environment behavior to coffee electronics – it is incredible what you can do with these microcontrollers. However, there still is not a straightforward way of getting data out of your Arduino, onto the internet and accessible via a web app.

The personal project I've been working on has been tracking physical activity not covered by pedometers (vague, I know) and then having a web app to display that historical data. Coming from a design background with a light technical bend (some C++ and ActionScript) I am in familiar territory... but its been a while.

For Immediate Release
BOSTON, MA – April 29, 2013 – Bytes and Atoms, a micro conference exploring the Internet of Things and the interaction between the physical and digital, today announced the speakers for its inaugural program.

Organized by software and emerging technologies design firm Involution Studios and agile development consulting firm Pivotal Labs, and sponsored by O'Reilly Media and IxDA Boston, Bytes and Atoms is a one-of-a-kind event exploring the next great shift in interaction design and celebrating the region's groundbreaking technological accomplishments.

We're celebrating the 50th episode of Involution's podcast The Digital Life with a re-designed and re-imagined Web site — featuring complete transcripts of all the new episodes and back catalog and previous contributor search. The new Digital Life is live — ready to inform, entertain, and engage the digital design community worldwide.

The Digital Life online radio program — which made its debut in 2010 — explores important and pertinent topics in the world of digital design and technology. Co-hosted by Jon Follett, Principal of Involution Studios, and Erik Dahl, Involution’s Director of Design Strategy, the Digital Life explores a wide range of thought-provoking topics, from design for developing markets to the boundaries of digital privacy to the future of design education. The Digital Life began as the brainchild of Involution co-founder, Dirk Knemeyer, who, in 2010, saw a need for an online radio show covering the digital design world. In the current instantiation of the show, Dirk continues to bring his sharp and insightful commentary to the podcast, with The Human Factor segment, that focuses on the human element in digital design.

Under a provision in Governor Deval Patrick’s fiscal 2014 plan for the state, a "modern products" Massachusetts sales tax of 4.5% will be levied on the design and engineering services that create the digital world. Massachusetts is filled with software development companies — with verticals from mobile to healthcare to enterprise. It's a key innovation sector that drives the growth of our state economy and keeps our employment — which has consistently been better than that of the nation as a whole — at a healthy rate.

So, what will the consequences of this new tax be? For every $1 million in revenue, under the Governor's proposal, a software shop will pay an additional $45,000 — on top of the payroll, property, real estate, business and any other taxes it already pays. Consider this: For every $2 million in revenue, that's $90,000 in taxes, which could cover the salary of an entry-level software engineer including benefits. The 2011 Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy, indicates that software and computer services accounted for $31 billion of Massachusetts economic output. If, for the sake of argument, we consider just half of the economic output as taxable software design and development services, that would result in about $695 million in tax revenue, or roughly the equivalent of 7,750 entry-level software engineering jobs. Will this new proposed tax eliminate the creation of 7,750 high-quality jobs in Massachusetts? I'm not eager to find out. Now, to be fair, the Governor's budget estimates show a figure of just a quarter billion dollars in revenue to be realized from this tax, but the true consequences, like the law itself, remain unclear. The law is vague enough that the sales tax could cover all kinds of software, from mobile apps to even Web sites.

Involution's hGraph, an open source health metrics visualization, was recently featured in Wired Magazine online, highlighted in the article, “How Restyling the Mundane Medical Record Could Improve Health Care.” The Wired spot discusses hGraph’s strong social component: By tracking the data for entire families hGraph illustrates how some conditions, like obesity and heart disease, can be affected by collective health choices.

Health IT Buzz, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services innovation blog, also mentioned hGraph as a notable entry to the Patient Health Record Graphic Design Contest, where it inspired the judges and challenged the status quo. The article notes that Involution designers “weren’t afraid to think outside the box.” A simple-to-use tool like hGraph has the potential to improve patient care, prevent medication errors, and supply clear health metrics. By making health records usable and interactive, this software can empower doctors, caregivers, and patients to make better health decisions and save lives.

Dominic Flask, Editor of The Designer’s Review of Books, recently reviewed Involution’s Design Axioms deck, created by Juhan Sonin, along with Luke Wroblewski, Andrei Herasimchuk, and Dirk Knemeyer. The deck features striking graphics, detailing sixteen foundational principles that outline the essential rules of interface design.

The Design Axioms deck serves as a recommended pathway for UI designers, telling you where to spend your energy and where not to, when it comes to interface design.

Flask writes, “Overall, Design Axioms is an excellent reference deck for the beginning interface designer and provides a good set of principles to start building an educational foundation upon.” The deck is organized into four sections: "Let Data Scream", "Prototype Like Crazy", "What Interface?", and "Know Thy Code". To complement the bold imagery, the writing is direct and commanding. For example, take this excerpt from Real Data is Truth:

Shortcuts make design more efficient. Sometimes, they also make it worse. Injecting Lorem Ipsum and other dummy data into design during the creation process sucks. Dummy data leads to dummy design. […] Great design surfaces Truth, and real data is Truth.

As Flask notes Design Axioms won’t make you a master of interface design in a single day — after all, the Design Axioms are not about cutting corners — but you “would be in pretty good shape if you started that day by flipping through the Design Axioms deck.” If you’re serious about design and coding, the Design Axioms deck is a great weapon to have in your arsenal. If nothing more, it will provide you with an assertive, creative guide toward becoming the best software designer you can be. And for UX teams, the Design Axioms are a great resource for inspiration, brainstorming, and critique sessions.

Involution client uTest has launched Applause, an analytics tool that offers clear, explicit data about what users truly feel about mobile apps. Applause enables app-owners to see how each version of their app measures up and the ability to compare their app to those of their competitors. Applause features sleek multi-version app graphs and a revolutionary rating scheme, with user interface design and development by Involution.

“Wake Up!” the poster created by Involution illustrator Sarah Kaiser and Creative Director Juhan Sonin is currently on display at MassArt’s Paine gallery. The exhibit, entitled "Graphic Advocacy: International Posters for the Digital Age 2001-2012", has over 122 posters from artists in 32 countries. Each piece is ideological, political, and, as Mark Feeney writes in his Boston Globe review, “replete with the excitement that comes of passionate commitment.”

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), challenged designers across the United States to re-imagine the presentation of the medical record in order to create a better patient experience. The objective of the Health Design Challenge was to create a usable, beautiful medical record enabling patients to more easily manage their health, and health professionals and caregivers to more effectively understand and use patients’ health information. On January 15, from the over 230 submissions, Involution Studios entry — a dynamic, system view of your health — was selected for the online showcase, featuring the most innovative designs that challenged the status quo. There’s no doubt that a well-designed medical record has the potential to provide many positive outcomes, including improved care coordination, prevention of medication errors, and quick, on demand access to critical health information in emergency situations.

hRecord and hGraph
Involution has long been involved with the design of open source solutions for the healthcare industry. We’re sharing a sample of our hRecord designs here, including versions for iPad and iPhone. You can also view our complete Health Design Challenge submission.

The way in which patients and doctors make healthcare decisions — from choosing therapies to evaluating possible side-effects — is changing rapidly based on newly available genetic testing and analysis. Involution client GeneInsight, a subsidiary of Partners HealthCare is on the forefront of this revolution in personalized medicine.

Last week, Partners HealthCare was featured in a Boston Globe article detailing its ground-breaking technology in whole genome sequencing. The innovative work in this space is being done by Partners HealthCare Center for Personalized Genetic Medicine (PCPGM), which is dedicated to making people’s lives healthier and better by transforming the practice of medicine through increased personalization — based on the accelerated integration of genetic knowledge into clinical care.