A specialist in interface design, Tokyo-based Yugo Nakamura has been stretching the possibilities of interaction over the web since the late 1990s.With a background in engineering and architecture, his work appears to be inspired by two of the unique characteristics of a computer: the potential for interactivity and an environment where calculations can be made on a massive scale. Yugo’s work attempts to express something from within the computer’s own environment – working for the computer rather than with the computer.
This has led to a body of work that is intriguing and often delightful. In Yugo’s hands the interface becomes an immersive and engaging environment – an experience in itself.
His long-running site MONO*crafts was a forum for his experiments in this area. As you might expect, usability isn’t necessarily the name of the game here – in fact it gets about as far from Jacob Neilson’s usability orthodoxy as you can imagine. Usability isn’t necessarily the point – after all, if you stick to the strictest standards of derived from human-computer interaction research then you are likely to lose some of the magic and wonder that the interactive environment can offer.
Yugo’s best work is more about an interface as an experience. As he puts it:
“There’s usability… but there’s also joy … there’s that simple fun of being able to touch and feel, that can draw you deeper into a web experience.”