Ironically, a typing command user interface to do set-up stuff and manage the Flavonoid device itself. There were enough unknown variables in the design of the device and enough of my own obsession with preferences and configurations and such all, that I spent some time creating a configurable device.
Here at the Near Future Laboratory, Nicolas and I are interested in digital devices that are essentially faceless. Just blank, “blind” devices, like Sascha’s awesome “Blind Camera” project. They are intriguing because of the way they run counter to intuition and thereby raise questions and immediately make their expression curious and unknown, hopefully opening the possibility for accepting new kinds of interaction rituals besides just pressing little plastic squares and such sorts of interactions that we’ve come to expect.
The irony is that there are enough variables for parameterizing the device’s functionality that I needed some way to manipulate them, at least at the start. So, I created this behind-the-scenes interface for adjusting the properties and behaviors of the object. Most of the time you would not access this at all, certainly not while carrying the Flavonoid device with you.