Harrison's Design Journal

Harrison Short ~ INB182 - Introducing Design ~ Bachelor of Games and Interactive Entertainment

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Navigation

Throughout the semester, as I have updated this Design Journal, I have tagged every post with relevant tags. This was for navigation purposes. If you wish to view Lecture specific posts, click HERE. If you wish to view Design Project 1 (Flow) specific posts, click HERE. If you wish to view Design Project 2 (Future Echoes) specific posts, click HERE.

Also, please note that tumblr's system causes the most recent post to be listed first, so scrolling to the bottom the page should direct you to posts created at the beginning of the semester.

Otherwise, feel free to browse my Design Journal as you see fit!

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INB182 Lecture 10: Reflection of entire unit

The final lecture was presented entirely online as Michael Docherty was sick the week that it was meant to be on. Listening through the lecture audio multiple times, it has become evident that perhaps my experience in INB182 was somewhat ignorant of several aspects of the design process, despite there being no one set design process. The lecture focused on summarizing all the points made throughout the nine weeks beforehand. 

In particular, I feel as if the divergent stage of design was only implemented in my team's design projects because it had to be. If the team could have stuck to one idea, instead of being required to have three before narrowing down to one, they would have chosen to do so. This is most evident in the second design project, as there was little conversation as to what idea we should choose, because we all had the idea of the Messiah fully-fleshed out in our minds, or didn't wish to think further on the issue. For the first design project, we explored each idea more, but we only really had two ideas, with the third being a completely non-viable option that had little thought put into it. We also would likely not have reached that three idea mark if I hadn't individually created an artifact to put forth to the team, some of which did not bother with the idea and instead were happy to go along with an idea that had not been thought about in any depth, which was especially demonstrated in our presentation.

Reflecting upon INB182, I enjoyed some aspects of the unit. I found the content easy to understand and somewhat engaging, as I learned about design thinking, new and interesting designs, and I found my own tutors to be very knowledgeable and helpful when it came to building on designs. However, I ultimately did not enjoy the unit due to the people I was surrounded with and the reliance that I had to have on those people. I am fine working in groups, but when an entire group of people decide not to respond to emails, spend whole studio sessions talking about unrelated subjects and are happy to cruise through thirteen weeks while other people pick up the slack for them, I will build an extreme disliking to that group, as well as the unit that I have to work with them in.

My suggestion for INB182 is to drop the two project system and create one, ten week long design project. As I am assuming that group work is necessary (due to it's necessity in the real world), this one project format would allow for longer time to be spent conceptualizing an idea, ideating and then converging on the final product. 

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Reflection on Design Project 2: Final

I found that Design Project 2 went far more successfully than the first project. The concept that was taken forward into the development stage from the brainstorming process was well fleshed out and had plenty of potential. I personally understood the range of themes and ideas that were presented in the final product and believed that they successfully addressed the key criteria of the task, presenting a view of the world 20 years from now and making a key point, as well as going the extra mile and provoking thought within the viewing audience of the piece. From the viewing audience, the main point of criticism was the usage of Christianity as the Messiah's religion, which seemed to be quite alienating for some. The initial thought process with the Messiah being Christian wasn't particularly to make a statement about Christians in general, but to rather create an air of familiarity for the viewers. Additionally, as the conflict in the video was an escalation and exaggeration of current religious vs. non-religious conflicts, of which Christians are generally at the forefront of, it felt like a natural choice. Another factor of the choice is the prominence of Christianity in western culture, where it would not make sense for the Messiah to introduce a completely new religion and have the majority of the population follow him. As I've already stated in previous posts, I had a fair few issues with the video as well, although these aren't particularly ones that were presented, but instead just post-production . While more evidence of the film's theme and ideas could have been present (but were cut due to time restraints and other issues), I am rather happy with the audience's understanding of the deeper meaning. In conclusion, I felt that Design Project 2 went very well, especially in comparison to the first design project, and that it was a vastly more enjoyable task than creating an artifact which demonstrated "flow".

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Reflection on Design Project 2: Other Groups

Again, as part of the reflection process for this design project, I will express my thoughts of the presentations from three or more other teams.  Group 20: The first presentation we saw was a very stylized video about an almost post-apocalyptic future, in which the remaining people of the world live in an "eco-dome", which presumably protects them from the threats of the outside world. The protagonist, who expresses his disdain for the current world, makes note that his best friends were lost in the war, and spends the video attempting to escape this dome, eventually succeeding. If I could describe the style of the video, I would definitely say that Japanese RPG dialogue scenes seemed to be a primary inspiration. My major criticism of the video was that, while the visual presentation was excellent, the characters seemed monotone and lifeless, and the sequence of events in the video seemed disjointed. I also didn't know which characters were related to which and in what way, which I believe took away from the overall experience.

Group 18: The second presentation, similarly to the first, had a major focus on war in the future. However, the extent to which this group divulged into this war was far greater than Group 20. This presentation was made to be like a news programme, with clips of rioting and war played whilst a news anchor spoke over the top. However, due to a lack of distinguishable audio, I did not understand the context of these clips. It may have been stated within the dialogue, but I did not understand who was fighting the war (North Korea was seen, although I still don't know if they were the "antagonists") nor do I know why people were rioting in the streets, which was a prominent feature of the video. Furthermore, I found the use of background to be quite distracting, as the aquarium feature in the Cube (P Block, Gardens Point) could be slightly seen whenever the news anchor was on screen.

Group 19: The next video we saw was a fairly humorous take on the implications of what would happen if the Internet went down for any extended period of time 20 years from now. The story of the video followed four characters. The first character, seen browsing facebook when the Internet turns off, attempts to write a birthday card for a friend. He copies the letters off the keyboard of his computer, and rather primitively writes "HAP" before running out of space. The second character is called into work as the Internet is down, and has to ask "where is work" and "how will I get there" as he has not needed to travel to work in the past. The final two characters are seen playing video-games online when the Internet goes down, and decide to play an "analogue" card game - Uno. When the Internet turns back on, they decide to continue to play, as they're enjoying themselves and realize they don't need the Internet to socialize and play. I really thought that this video nailed all the criteria of the task. It wasn't too bad visually, it had a narrative with key characters, it presented an idea of the future to the audience and it made it's point very clear. I think the audio in the last section of the video could have improved, but the fact that I could still understand the point being made (the Internet turned back on and they continued to play offline) is a testament to the execution of their idea.

Group 21: The final presentation I wish to reflect upon was again, styled like a news broadcast. I particularly enjoyed this video as I found a lot of it's predictions of the future to be rather accurate. It's inclusion of chat speak in everyday life, as well as unprofessionalism on the part of the United States President (who dropped multiple F and S-bombs whilst presenting a speech), were amusing and the former seemed to be a prediction that may become true as the trend currently dictates. One thing I could say about the video is the narrative seemed particularly confusing at times. I didn't understand the section where focus was drawn to "Bring Your Parent To School Day", but this may have been misunderstanding on my part. It was also animated very basically, but I can not determine whether this was due to time restraints, laziness or this was the desired effect of the video. Overall, it was fairly enjoyable.

The presentations that I viewed taught me a lot about people's perspectives of the future as well as their different levels of creativity and writing. Viewing other people's ideas was definitely an enjoyable experience, although presenting my team's was not. Still, I should take comfort in the fact that other people may find our presentations enjoyable.

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INB182 Lecture 9: Reflection

Last week, the INB182 lecture saw Deb Polson come in to speak to us about a very unique and interesting form of games: Augmented Reality Games (ARGs). She was incredibly experienced in the field, having set up such games as Zombie Apocalypse and SCOOT. Additionally, she has worked on other projects such as Farm It Right, MiLK and Cipher Cities. Deb Polson made many important points about general design, game design and ARG design. In particular I found the following to be useful:

When designing games (specifically ARGs where people approach the game on the street), it is important to find tropes (e.g. zombies) so that people can easily recognize the concept of your idea without having to explore it too deeply.

It is important to have a deep knowledge of what you are designing, or else it is going to come across in your work that you are not entirely sure what you're doing.

You need to see your work placed amongst the work that you aspire to. Without seeing your work in this spectrum, your work will never meet that standard that you're hoping to achieve, or move past it. This additionally means that you should have knowledge of comparable ideas and you must have confidence in your idea.

As games progress, it is important to integrate game life into every day life. This also means that the social, cultural, spatial, technical and temporal elements of how you present your games should also be considered. With new technologies emerging, this is becoming increasingly possible to toy with while creating new concepts.

Make sure that those people you are collaborating with don't have the same skills as you do, otherwise your ideas or finished products are going to be severely lacking in a certain aspect. For example, if a team has two game designers, one coder and no artistic support is going to be lacking in adequate visuals, and may even lack in concept.

Every time something in a game is created once, and it can be applied to another project, you are saving both time and money.

If you have a solid idea, look to attend conferences to present these ideas and possibly any prototypes created.

As always, it is so important to iterate.

Deb Polson also cited a few inspirations, which I have listed below for future reference, as the stories she told of these were quite interesting:

Capt’n Crunch

Cloud Makers

Pacmanhattan

Ingress

Shadow Cities

Voxel Agents

From last week's lecture, I feel as if I learned a lot of first hand experience from someone who had worked in the creative field for quite a while now. It was definitely a beneficial lecture, and I will definitely put into practice many of the things I learned.

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Thoughts on Design Project 2 (Part 7)

"Future Echoes" At this stage, the editing process for our film is complete, and the video is now on YouTube. Whilst editing, I came across a series of complications that have both lessened the impact of the narrative's point, and the visual and aural presentation of the narrative.  As I pointed out in my last post, the length of the Atheist Leader's section of the film turned out to be too long. To remedy this, I looked to cut certain sentences out of the part, to make that section shorter and thus give more time to the Messiah's section which had become less than the desired length anyway. However, despite taking out sentences considered "less important", this process still diminished the overall effect of the film. Phrases that form a link between the Messiah and the Atheist Leader or strengthen the character's perception to the audience, such as "indoctrinate them" or "call me an extremist", were some of those subject to deletion. In turn, these deletions also make some of the cuts look choppy in both audio and visual, although, as the dialogue and body language in each shot weren't the exact same, this was going to be present whether scenes were shortened/cut or not. Similarly, the Messiah's dialogue had to be cut, losing meaning in his already short speech, as well as leaving some visual elements out of place. Another complication whilst editing was audio levels. With a distinct lack of sound equipment, all sorts of background sounds were present, including birds, trains and vehicles. For many shots, it was necessary to fade audio into each other. Even when some sort of compromise for audio equipment was attempted (an iPhone microphone was placed in the breast pocket of the Messiah's shirt to better record his dialogue), atmospheric audio of, in particular, birds, were still present in the recording. I have a few other personal gripes with the final outcome of the project, but I will leave a final reflection for tomorrow after the video is presented, in addition to my analysis of three other ideas from other groups.

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Thoughts of Design Project 2 (Part 6)

"Future Echoes" The filming for the second Design Project was completed over the weekend (May 11th and 12th). This process went rather smoothly, as all necessary footage was shot and now the video is going through the editing process. At this point, I've noticed a few things that could have been done better, but that cannot be corrected at this point.  While the usage of the same actor for both the Messiah and the Atheist Leader was intentional, as to serve as another way to show further similarities between the two, it was hard to make the two characters distinctly different without making their costumes and personalities too humorous. At one point, sunglasses were intended for use with the Atheist character, but gave too much of a "Matrix"-look when coupled with the character's leather jacket, and the Messiah was intended to have a (fake) beard or moustache, which simply looked like it was intentionally trying to be funny. Furthermore, their voices are rather similar as there was no attempt to alter their voices whilst recording, although the Messiah's voice will go through experimentation with pitch deepening. Another problem is the issue of cutting between shots. For the Atheist leader's speech, there are multiple shots of the same dialogue, for editing use. However, an issue arises when cutting between a shot where the character has his hand outstretched after one sentence, to a shot where he is stationary and beginning the next sentence. While it could be said that as it's meant to be a more amateur video in comparison to the Messiah's, that this works with that amateur theme, it is not exactly a preferred outcome, but is one we have to live with. Finally, and this is the one issue that does have a solution, the length of the Atheist Leader's section is turning out to be longer than what was initially planned (approximately 2 minutes). This means that the Messiah's section will have to be cut down to some degree, which hopefully can be done without losing the meaning of his dialogue. Luckily, the captured footage can support this change quite well, as it is rather one dimensional footage of families and friends getting along. Besides these issues, the project is likely going to be somewhat successful. If some people don't understand the point that the film is trying to make, then I can easily give some more clarity. However, hopefully, the film can achieve it's purpose and we can all achieve a good mark.

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INB182 Lecture 8: Reflection

In regards to my 9th lecture from last week, I had to leave halfway through to attend to a personal matter. This meant I missed around half of the content that Glenn Smith was teaching. The reason I hadn't posted about the lecture sooner is because I was waiting for the lecture audio to go up on Blackboard, but as of typing this, that has not happened yet.  From what I did hear during the lecture, the main focus was Design Practice. In particular, there seemed to be a lot of focus on designing for the customer, which was emphasized as particularly lacking in the current design environment. This does not surprise me, as I have had many experiences with various pieces of software that are not user-friendly and do not seem built for a customer. Despite so much emphasis placed on this however, I felt that a big part of the lecture that stuck with me was the quote presented towards the beginning of the session. "To live a creative life we must loose out fear of being wrong." While I do not remember Glenn Smith's interpretation of this, I felt that firstly, the spelling error "loose" instead of "lose" conveys the fact that we are always going to get some things wrong when being creative and there is no point to dwell on these things, because sometimes, the outcome can still be very powerful. Additionally, I believe that the term "loose" could also mean "loosen", meaning that we don't have to completely get rid of our insecurities about being wrong, but we should consider trying new things, no matter what the outcome. The quote is very powerful no matter what the true reading of it is. If the lecture eventually goes up on Blackboard, I will edit this post further reflecting on the content from the second half or so, which I initially missed.

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Thoughts on Design Project 2 (Part 5)

"Future Echoes" On Sunday afternoon, I shot an email out to the other member's of my team making it clear that we need to get a script written and we need to film our video or else we're going to end up leaving the project until the last second, similarly to Design Project 1, and with this type of assessment, we cannot afford to do so. I offered to write the script of the film, ready for Thursday's Studio session, so that we could plan a time to film. At this stage, while I did not expect everyone from my group to email me back as soon as possible (or to even see the email before the Thursday Studio session), I have received one email, which was a direct reply to my email, but was also sent to the rest of the group. Inside the email was simply: "IMPORTANT! This message is ", followed by an image of Spam. While this could be entirely a joke, the actual subject matter of the email was not addressed in any way, and it has left me entirely distrusting of the group I am in. Hence why, I have already made arrangements to write the script and if need be, film the entirety of the 4 minute video myself, so that it is completed by the due date.  The current concept that I am working with is firstly, the fact that my team believes that the world will not have changed very much in 20 years time, as well as the progression of conflicts between (particularly) Christians and Atheists. With a lot of our current focus being placed upon gay marriage and rights, the Westboro Baptist Church and the rapid increase and progression of science and atheism, I particularly wanted to reflect the escalation of this conflict. Hence why, the first two minutes of the film will be a "cheery" propaganda video, where the self-proclaimed Messiah speaks out on the 10th anniversary of his rise to power, whilst the last part of the video features the leader of an Atheist "Rebellion" speaking directly to the audience and hinting at a possible civil war. The first half of the video will be made up of mostly long shots of people going about their daily life, as well as relaxing in parks and acting as families. A voice-over will address the audience about the achievements of the Messiah alongside the people, but it will also feature a call to arms  against those who wish to threaten Christianity. The first half of the video will end with a single shot of the Messiah reaching out his hand to the camera and asking "what can you Messiah do for you?" The second half of the video will mirror the first to some extent, with the leader of the Atheist group addressing the audience directly (who are, in context, recruit's to the "Atheist cause"), and essentially responding to the Messiah's message. This part will also feature a call to arms, and a message to rally people to fight against the Messiah. Similarly to the Messiah's section of the film, the Atheist leader will motion the grip of a small gun to the camera, and ask "are you on our side?" I'm hoping that the video conveys the futile nature of these types of arguments between religious and non-religious groups, as well as the fact that the world will not be much different in 20 years time, especially if a religious leader goes out of their way to stifle the progression of technology. If I get time, once I complete the script, I will do up some basic storyboards for some of the more important shots. I have already considered several locations where I can film, and I am trying to make the film as minimalism as possible, so that the filming process will go smoothly.

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Thoughts on Design Project 2 (Part 4)

"Future Echoes" In my INB182 Studio session yesterday, our group discussed possible ideas for the second design project. At the beginning of the session, we all discussed any ideas we had over the previous two weeks about what could be the primary plot device or iteration of the future. I presented my ideas and another student presented a range that he had thought of, but ultimately we were the only two who had properly brainstormed individually. The ideas we presented were: War, Utopia, Racial Equality, Daily Life (has not changed), Fusion Power, New Messiah, Space Travel and Major Climate Shift. Using these ideas, we attempted to narrow the ideas down to three key ones to further look at. Some ideas we found to lend little in the way of possible plot and characters, so they were quickly eliminated. We found some ideas could be combined, which also further allowed us to cut down on our extensive list. Finally, we were left with three ideas that we could present to our tutors to get feedback and continue work on the design project.  New Messiah + Utopia The initial concept for the idea regarding a "new messiah" was the rise of someone who claimed to be a messiah for the people and use this faith of the people to ultimately form a "veiled" dictatorship. The concept of Utopia was a united planet Earth - however Earth may not be united for the right reasons. We found these two ideas to be very similar, so we decided to combine them. In the combined idea, a new messiah has effectively taken over a western country and unified it's people under religion. However, this has serious repercussions for many proposals opposed by religious groups, such as gay marriage. This concept got the best reception from our studio tutors and my group is taking this forward into the development stage. Fusion Power The idea for a future involving Fusion Power would explore the consequences of Fusion Power being available around the world for little cost. While our group found this an interesting idea, when speaking to our tutors, we found that we lacked particular knowledge on the topic, and that perhaps it would not be wise to explore the concept further. War This final concept that we discussed with the studio tutors was very similar to my first idea. The concept would address the ramifications of a possible World War III/Second Korean War/war with North Korea. To some extent, we may implement this idea of war into our New Messiah + Utopia idea, as it can deal with some sort of "resistance" against the Messiah. I need to get into contact with my other team members about script-writing and possible filming dates. I already have a solid idea of what the script could be like, but I need to have everyone on board before that. I will write another entry covering my concept at a later date. 

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Thought on Design Project 2 (Part 3)

"Future Echoes" Tomorrow is my first studio session and lecture in two weeks for INB182. Over the past two weeks, I've been brainstorming ideas for the second Design Project, in preparation to present to my group in the session. Brainstorming has been a relatively arduous process, as it is hard to balance ideas with practicality in production (filming, animating, etc.). I've managed to come up with two other ideas for the project, one stemming off the previous idea I had (see: Thought on Design Project 2 (Part 2)), and one directly requiring the usage of Halo 4 and it's machinima capabilities. Idea 1: The first idea stems from the idea I previously had. For this idea, it was initially going to follow the daily life of a regular joe, with slight modifications to technology and other facets of life, as well as references to events that may have happened or may never have happened. With this extended idea, it might be possible to give some more personality to the character as he lives with older technology (thus creating a more practical activity) and seems to dislike the new way of life, even though it is not that different in 2033 than it was in 2013.  Idea 2: The second idea I've had involves the usage of Halo 4's video recording feature and possible machinima. For this, we would use Halo characters to create a video which references a "major breakthrough" around 2033 that resulted in the technological advancements seen in Halo 4's 2557. As we are primarily aspiring game designers, I thought this would be something we would be interested in. However, this is highly impractical as it requires storyboarding, voice acting, recording and perhaps the use of a HD capture card. I also thought that Valve's Source FilmMaker might be a particular avenue to explore (in accordance to a new idea), but it is extremely technical, and in the limited time that we have, unless we have pre-existing skills, it would be hard to use.

Tomorrow I will meet with my group in the studio session and we will discuss our respective ideas, narrowing them down to three to take forward, before narrowing those three down to one. Contact within our group has been somewhat minimal, but I remain hopeful that tomorrow most of my group has something to contribute to discussion.

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INB182 Lecture 7: Reflection

Lecture 7 of INB182 was primarily focused around Participatory Design and Game Design. I believe this was likely to aid Design Project 2, which features some level of design in narrative, which is an aspect of Game Design. After recapping design methods, we were introduced to the first topic, Participatory Design. Participatory Design, shortened to PD and often known as Cooperative Design or Collective Resource Approach, articulates issues and creates solutions in cooperation with potential users of the final produce, with a democratic, humanistic, "bottom-of-the-chain-up" approach. By incorporating potential users into the design team from the initial point of the design process, those users are not treated like a passive subject for the final product to be pushed upon, and can tell the internal design team how the system should work and what is should do. In regards to Game Design, I feel as if PD could only be implemented in some games, specifically those that are not new IPs, such as Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed. This is due to the fact that new installments feature similar game mechanics to their predecessors, so it might be possible for users of previous games in the franchise to give their opinions as to what should stay in the games and what should be taken out. New IPs however, are spawned from someone's initial creative vision, and incorporating a potential userbase from the get-go would be difficult to do. The Game Design section of the lecture began by questioning whether Game Design is unique in comparison to other forms of design. I believe that Game Design is rather unique, as it tends to feature several other forms of design, such as art, sound and narrative. This was further backed by a quote from the lecture: "Game design requires artistic and technical competence as well as narrative skills." Continuing on, some major points regarding video-games in general were made. Firstly, some sort of experience has to be created by the developer for the player, regardless of whether that experience is fun or not. Another point made was that interactivity with the player is the primary focus of video-games, and it is up to the developer to create this engaging interactivity. Finally, an example of a fairly basic Game Design process was introduced. The developer should come up with a basic idea, implement an extremely basic prototype, and after this prototype proves that the idea is both possible and worthwhile, the idea should be revised and every step should be completed until the final outcome. I left the lecture with a heightened sense of what I may implement into my designs over the next few years, particularly in Game Design. I also realized that I should be going on Gamasutra.com at least once a week and reading about industry news and tips, which should strengthen a range of Game Design skills.

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Thoughts on Design Project 2 (Part 2)

"Future Echoes" In our Studio session this week, our group had a rather productive time brainstorming what we thought the world would be like in 20 years time. We considered many facets of our modern world such as economy, travel, religion, racism and information technology. We also considered possible major world events such as war, like I talked about in my previous post regarding Design Project 2. Similarly to my preparation before our session, another student had thought about a possible idea. His idea was based around travel - primarily space travel. He expressed interest in sub-orbital space travel, where people could travel great distances on Earth and he also raised interest in the possibility of the hotel company Hilton putting a hotel in orbit of Earth within 20 years. If this were to be an avenue we took, we would also consider Virgin Galactic and how their enterprise would possibly lead commercial space travel into the future, as well as the implications of this sort of travel, in terms of many aspects like economy, safety and further developments. Another point of discussion was whether we should aim for idealism or realism. In other words, we needed to determine whether our idea should be something that we'd like the future to be, as opposed to a future that we realistically believe will occur. We decided that we shouldn't strictly stick to one particular option, and should record any concepts that do come to mind. At the end of our brainstorming session, we decided that for our next Studio class, we would all separately come up with possible ideas and communicate together via email. As of writing this, I have only come up with one idea. However, if more come to mind, I will create be sure to update my design journal. "The Same" idea: This idea spawns from the general agreement that while we would like an immensely "futuristic" future (in terms of technology, at the least), it is far more likely that most things will stay the same, while we will have some technological advancements. This concept is a possible animation, presentation or film, which follows the regular day of a business worker in the Brisbane City. The presentation will closely mirror the day of a business worker in contemporary Australia, but subtle technological advances will be littered throughout. The main point that the narrative will convey is, like previously mentioned, in 20 years, we believe that not much will have changed.

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Thoughts on Design Project 2 (Part 1)

"Future Echoes" Once again, the theme of the Design Project is rather vague and open-ended. As I stated in my reflection of Lecture 6, each team must speculate about the world 20 years from now. We are required to consider what artifacts from the present day will still be around/remembered, and how technological/societal advances will affect design in general. This perspective needs to be performed or presented in some way, and has to include a plot with characters of some kind. I've only had one solid idea, but I'm not sure if it fits the criteria of the task. With the recent developments in relations between North Korea and the rest of the world, what would the world of 20 years look like in the event of a World War III or a second Korean War? What would be the differences be depending on the victor of the war? And of course, how would design be affected by all this? North Korean victory: In the case that North Korea won this hypothetical war, would North Korea serve as a worldwide dictatorship? Would North Korea stifle freedom of speech in design? Would popular media like music, games and television be forced to be pro-North Korea? Would pockets of resistance create products without this presence, or a distinctly anti-North Korean point-of-view? Allies victory: How would the destruction that comes hand in hand with war influence the world? What kind of media would spawn from the war? Such as war movies and games like Saving Pvt. Ryan and Call of Duty 2, respectively. "History is written by the victor." There are many questions to be asked when developing these ideas, clearly, and I believe bringing the concept into my next Studio session will raise and answer more. Over the next few days, I will think of possible ways to add to these ideas, and I will also try to conjure up some new concepts, as these ones may not particular fit the criteria - and I could come up with something far better and I just don't know it yet. As we have been taught, there is no point to stop at one idea. It is entirely beneficial to look at multiple ones.

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INB182 Lecture 6: Reflection

For Lecture 6 of INB182 - Introducing Design, we were introduced to Design Project 2, as well as Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Based on the requirements for Design Project 2, I don't believe the introduction of HCI is related to the project. Instead, it is simply something that is essential knowledge as video-game and software programmers/designers/producers of the future. Design Project 2 is a fairly open ended task. We are required to speculate on many things about the future of the world 20 years from now (2033). Things such as what designs will have lasted, what will be remembered and how technological and/or societal advances/changes affect design are all facets that we should consider. This needs to be presented/performed in a story-based setting and should demonstrate Imaginative Literature, with multiple characters, ideas and events being told. Elements of narrative such as style, genre, setting and props should also be considered and implemented. Overall, the presentation/performance needs to make a point about the world of 2033. We were shown an example of a "not-too-distant" future in popular media through a scene from the movie Ultraviolet to demonstrate the task to some degree.  As we only have 4 weeks to work on this, and my group's effort during Design Project 1 demonstrated that this is an extremely minimal amount of time to flesh out an idea, I will need to, as a precaution, work extra hard in the case that someone else in the group slacks off. I will also need to be very clear in illustrating the process in my design journal - to an even greater degree than during the first design project. Human Computer Interaction, often shortened to HCI, was introduced to us primarily through statistics that demonstrated how many IT systems fail because of human error, not technical factors. I wasn't exactly shocked that many fail, but I was shocked by the disproportionate stats, with 68% of all systems failing. Many of this 68% were caused by failures by developers in HCI. It was made clear that developers tend to make systems unsafe, complex and at times unusable, primarily because they create programs with their own experience in mind, and not their target user's. The introduction of this has prompted me to pay more attention to the features of certain programs, games and websites that I believe could be improved on, and create solutions in my head as to solve the issues.  Over the next week, I will consider ideas for Design Project 2, in time for the my studio session on Thursday. It will be handy to have a range of ideas going into the session so that my team can quickly get the ball rolling.

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Reflection on Design Project 1: Final

From Design Project 1, I learned a lot. Throughout the course of 5 weeks, my team struggled to come up with ideas because we did not properly brainstorm. We made no attempt to list words that we associated with flow, but instead ended up thinking of a "viable" idea, and then simple "rolling" with it for as long as we could before we realized that it wasn't quite thought-provoking or aesthetically pleasing or even representative of flow as we thought. Without trying to sound as if I was the only one researching in the group (because I am not sure what the other members did in their spare time), I did find that I was the only one who had a grasp of the psychological definition of flow, and that this showed in the concept I presented to the group, which was eventually rejected.  I've learned for future reference that team's cannot just skip the brainstorming and planning processes and hope to see the same kind of success that a team who does take care in these processes does. I've also learned about the importance of regular team communication, which was not present throughout the five weeks we had to work on Design Project 1, and reflects greatly in our final product. It is not optional to work on these things when we begin the process of designing Design Project 2 - these things are absolutely essential. Furthermore, I've discovered that I need to possibly be less judgemental when it comes to working with people I may not necessarily get along with, or whom I think are not quite taking the task at all seriously. In future, if these types of people are assigned to my team, it should be my job as a potential team leader and someone who is intent on achieving a good mark to take on some kind of "focuser" role - someone who can try to stimulate the minds of people to effectively work on task whilst not ruling over them like some dictator. So, in summary, and because I have to use this this horrible pun, I don't feel as if this Design Project quite flowed. We seemed to do less real designing and more "winging" it, and it resulted in a design and presentation that was incredibly inferior to the type of product we could have came up with had we properly bought into the design process. It will hopefully not be a mistake that is repeated within Design Project 2.

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Reflection on Design Project 1: Other Groups

As part of the reflection process of Design Project 1, I have to air my thoughts about three or more designs from other teams in my Studio session. I have chosen to reflect upon the following designs: Serene Spiral, A-Maze-Ing Change and the Asian Garden. Serene Spiral: The first design that was presented to the class was the Serene Spiral. I felt that the key objective of visually representing flow through it's most typical form, water, was achieved quite successfully. While I do not necessarily agree that it creates peace and tranquility, I do think that it will evoke natural awe in children specifically, who would find the spiraling slope and their "command" over the water visually and emotionally stimulating. I also think that the lighting creates a sense of natural awe and helps the artifact stand out in the darkness. However, I am worried that the lack of running water will serve to influence people to  avoid the Serene Spiral, as they may think it's broken and/or not in use. Overall, I think that the artifact does, although in it's most basic form, represent flow. Despite this however, it is not as thought provoking as it could be, although it can be stimulating for children. A-Maze-Ing Change: The next project I chose to reflect on was the A-Maze-Ing Change. The primary angle on this group's design was that their self-proclaimed "interactive piece of art" would represent the flow of change, life discovery and movement. Their idea was quite intriguing  with 37 wooden doors, each with unique and limited swinging movement, that would at all times create a constantly changing mazes. Each of these doors feature images that would relate to the flow of life, thus promoting multiple uses of the maze. I found this aspect somewhat ambiguous, as I wasn't completely sure what these images were (it may have been that I just missed it during the presentation). Judging by this team's presentation, a lot of thought and effort went into the making of their artifact. Not only did the team have diagrams including dimensions for the doors, but they also had 3D models of the artifact. From their presentation, I took away a sense that this group wanted to be there and wanted to do their best and take control of their learning, and I too learned something from them. If I could provide any criticism of their piece, it's that the doors might be dangerous in the case that other people are in the maze. It may be possible for people to be hit by doors if other people are not cautious. However, disregarding this, as long as the images on the doors are fleshed out and thought provoking, I think it would be a legitimately viable choice for the City Botanical Gardens. Asian Garden: The final project that I decided to reflect upon was the Asian Garden. The respective group's main inspiration was their concept  of various Asian cultures and the emphasis of peace and tranquility (which I thought they could have better summarized as "zen"). The Asian Garden was to feature a Torii Gate, which is more commonly known as a Japanese Gate, and a large Yin-Yang themed fountain. Visitors could enter the Garden and feel tranquil within the living space. Additionally, they could take their shoes off and step into the fountain itself.  I had a few complaints with this group's idea. Firstly, the use of the Torii Gate and the Yin-Yang symbol as a fountain confused me, as they're from different cultures, Japanese and Chinese respectively. This is perhaps a more subjective issue, but it felt to some extent they were cheapening other cultures and simply lumping them in together. Secondly, it seemed odd to allow visitors to take their shoes off and enter the shallow fountain, as it raises the question: what do the patrons do with wet feet? Walking through the city with wet, bare feet is both dangerous and extremely unhygienic, and the Botanical Gardens and University are not much better. Lastly, the team seemed to target a demographic of office workers and people who worked day-in, day-out in the city. However, it's extremely unlikely that those people would walk past the Botanical Gardens on any regular basis. Instead, they should be targeting stressed University students. If they did this, the (hypothetical) Asian Garden would get a lot more usage. In the end, I thought there was some basic idea here, but there needed to be more focus, on a specific culture and who they were targeting. I definitely learned a lot by paying attention and reflecting upon the ideas of other groups. Not only did I learn about ideas and how to make them conceivable and valid, but I learned about working hard and the amount of effort that should go into something to communicate a design and surprise a room full of people.