Oct 21, 2015
Data Visulization
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Data Visulization
assign 1 - class feedback
overlays, images/textures?
too realistic? not abstract enough?
similar to wire art
represent qualities using design characteristics rather than representation
convey content through design elements
paling with negative space and emptiness
glasses are an artifact, maybe zoom in on them so it's not totally clear but still identifiable
assign 1 - brainstorming
Characterizations of ourselves we want to depict:
what makes us, us
“transformer” like composition of self
emotional energy shown through difference of lines
color blocking instead of relying on tonality to create form and shape… depiction of color, color and meaning… ADD COLOR AT ALL?
no iconic representation = can’t be a visual representation of your likeness
don’t want to just capture physical attributes
Assignment One: Topic – Critical Design
The book ‘Inclusive Design – Design for the whole population’ by John Clarkson, Roger Coleman, Simeon Keates and Cherie Lebbon discusses the concept of inclusive or ‘universal’ design. It seeks to demonstrate the ways in which the design industry, commercial enterprises and scientific research must collaborate in order to make changes to the way designers and businessmen design for the general population. Inclusive design’s main focus is designing for the elderly and physically or mentally impaired and its authors have backgrounds in academic research, commerce and of course design. The book is divided into sections which each address different perspectives of the argument for and against working towards creating more inclusive design. Critical design has a strong role to play in these changes as it helps us understand the way design is currently focused on consumerism and exclusively ‘average people’ as opposed to seeking to create products and services that cater for the minorities or the ‘broader average’ as well as majority groups.
I think the book’s argument had a strong sense of purpose and ‘Inclusive design’ strengthened it’s case by being rich in testimonials and thoughts of established and respected figures of the various fields in which it engages. While it is a valuable and well informed piece of writing, it’s purpose drives the way it informs and persuades the reader. ‘Inclusive design’ is clearly bias in the way it has chosen information to present as it discusses what they consider businesses and the design industry are doing wrong and explores the changes that need to be made rather than discussing whether or not these changes are attainable and necessary. ”Delivering an inclusive society requires that a consideration of the needs of older and disabled people, along with other groups marginalised by changing patterns of working and living, and by technological developments, becomes part of the mainstream of design thinking and practice.” (Coleman, Lebbon, Clarkson, Keates, 2003). This text focuses strongly on the needs of the physically impaired and the elderly and fails to address the issues around the plausibility of designing for minority groups as a business model.
While its intentions are good, I think the book reacts very emotionally to these issues and could be more balanced by including more thoughtful analysis of how the various participants in creating more ‘inclusive design’ benefit from the changes and whether or not it is in their best interest. It does however argue a strong point that while these groups are minorities, they are vast in numbers and the book fails to highlight the way in which this business model is not only financially plausible but also ethically responsible. The text could have examined more closely the way in which the moral outlook and drive of a business affects it’s overall success. It is useful in that it contributes an in depth analysis of a particular aspect of critical design (that is design for minority groups) but I feel the text failed to join in on the general discussion of Critical Design which in my opinion would have made it more varied in it’s sources.
Overall I found the text to be worthwhile and thoughtful but it could have addressed other important issues which would have strengthened it’s case.
References:
Clarkson, J., Coleman, R., Keates, S., Lebbon, C., 2003, Inclusive Design – Design for the whole population, London: Springer
CCDN 271 Assignment 1
Assessing and critiquing Sources:
The Everyday.
Alastair Nicholas(Nick) Holder, 300245359
The Resourcefulness of Everyday Design.
Ron Wakkary:
School of Interactive Arts and Technology
Simon Fraser University
Leah Maestri:
School of Interactive Arts and Technology
Simon Fraser University
The Resourcefulness of Everyday Design is a study that looks at family members role as designers in their own homes. The study was conducted over a 5-month period with 350 hours of observation of 3 families made up of married couples with young children. The study looked at “the design actions of the family members to be creative, as evidenced by the resourceful appropriation of artefacts and surroundings, the ongoing adaptation of systems and routines through design-in-use that allows emergent properties to arise and addresses individual needs, and how implicit understanding and explicit tests occur for judging quality.” This is interesting when considering current technology design as a lot of products today are focussed on static, finalised products that don’t allow for human manipulation or multiple uses. By looking at humans interaction with objects in their homes, the study shows how humans ‘design’ their own environments.
The study aims to contribute a description of every day design by looking at a few key aspects of daily family life, such as, their relationship with their products, their systems and also creativity. The observations of human actions have been grouped into 3 groups, resourcefulness, adaptation and quality.
An example of resourcefulness from the study is a chair being used as a coat rack. The chair has now become a personalised artefact, which is viable to use for short-term purposes but wouldn’t really suffice for long-term use. This shows how people appropriate their surroundings due to qualities of the products implying alternative uses. It also shows how peoples everyday design reflects their current situation and what they believe will happen in their coming future. These adaptations can also lead to new systems and routines being formed within the home.
The next area of importance looked at during the study is how families change each other’s systems and how resourcefulness allows systems to adapt. This idea becomes apparent when looking at how people store their belongings. One of the mothers in the study buys her son tin containers to store his Warhammer toys. Her idea is to have the toys packed away neatly after use. This seems practical but is not a system that suits the son. He would rather leave the toys scattered around his room, giving him easy access to his belongings. This shows how people design their own systems, which adhere to their own personal needs and can negatively impact on other members of their family.
The final area of the study looks at how people decide wether or not their personalised systems suit their needs. One method used in the homes was testing systems through use. Families tried out chalkboards to try and coordinate everybody’s differing schedules. To test wether this system would work one of the mothers hung the chalkboard on the wall to see if anyone would star using it. The pattern was named ‘testing the chalkboard’.
This study has shown us the importance of a family members daily role as a designer of their environment. It has used observation and critical analysis of human behaviour to collect valuable information for designers today. The study shows us that objects shouldn’t just be designed for one static use, but should allow personal adaptation. This will allow families to evolve systems that work for them and also express their own unique forms of creativity.
References:
Wakkary, R., & Maestri, L. (2007). The resourcefulness of everyday design. In Proceedings of ACM Creativity and Cognition 2007 (pp. 163–172). New York: ACM Press.
Assignment one: Assessing and Critiquing Sources
Boundaries? What Boundaries? The Crisis of Design in a Post-Professional Era. Atkinson, Paul
This article from ‘The Design Journal’ looks at DIY design. In particular, it examines how the divide between professional and amateur design has become blurred due to the user and consumer of a product being able to have input into the creation of a product resulting in a crisis of design (Atkinson, 2010).
The article’s focus is how technology has enabled would-be consumers “to produce ‘professional’ results” themselves (Atkinson, 2010) and Heller is quoted as saying “[b]y making our work so easy to do, we are devaluing our profession” (online debate, as cited in Beegan and Atkinson, 2008, by Atkinson, 2010). Atkinson expands on this by detailing how professional designers have claimed their work is being “undermined” by amateurs, however, he counters that the role of designers may just be set to undergo change; he says, “it is not so much a crisis for design, merely a crisis for the design profession” (Atkinson, 2010). This is a noteworthy interpretation and puts the “crisis” into perspective.
The article includes the example of the ‘RepRap’ self-replicating rapid prototyping machine (http://reprap.org), demonstrating how technology is gradually reducing the input needed by professionals to create new objects. The design for this particular machine is free, and it can reproduce itself – an example of huge relevance to today’s world which links to a bigger picture of other advances in technology. The article does make the assumption that other machines of this caliber are not beyond the budget of consumers. However, this assumption is valid, given that, historically, expensive technology gradually reduces in price as time goes by.
Atkinson uses firm supporting evidence such as Heller’s online debate to show that professional members of the design industry are worried by the changes looming in a time of fast-paced technological and social development. However, he also quotes Pacey’s view on the future of the design industry, “a future along these lines need not be a future without professional designers”, instead that they help the amateur be involved in design (1992, as cited in Atkinson, 2010). He gives both sides of the argument to establish a fair, convincing point that the design industry is revolutionizing, potentially for the better.
This article is particularly useful in that Atkinson raises a valid issue for the design industry to consider – whether it might reduce the number of jobs available, or merely change the focus or area of these jobs. It is somewhat ironic that the very products designers and engineers have created in the past are now progressing so fast and far that their, and future designers’, jobs may now be under threat.
In summary, Atkinson reflects on the position of designers in a profession he considers is about to undergo radical change. His article convincingly details both positive and negative published opinions on the topic, and presents the information with supporting examples in a way that is relevant to today’s world.
Citations
Atkinson, P. (2010). Boundaries? What Boundaries? The Crisis of Design in a Post-Professional Era. The Design Journal, 13(2), 137-155(19). doi:10.2752/175470710X12735884220817
Data Visualisation – Sense of Patterns
Making invisible things visible is a well known attribute of magicians. But most recent developments in technology allow us to do exactly the same.
Book author and blogger Fabian Neuhaus made many publications regarding urbanization within the last decade. In 2011 he stumbled upon a project of Mahir M. Yavuz (researcher, MIT Media Lab in Boston) and identified the importance of his work.
Due GPS-Tracking and computer-processing, invisible data takes shape in visual understandable data. Therefore public transport, cars and individual commuters got tracked to collect data of the interaction between the structure like roads, sidewalks, buildings and other public spaces in the city. So Yavuz was able to use the open raw dataset of endless numbers and tables by the Austrian Institute of Technology and developed three video animations and six A1-sized posters to visualize the collected data. He called it „Sense of Patterns“ (http://casualdata.com/senseofpatterns/). It shows the behavior of masses and individuals in different public spaces visualized in understandable maps.
When Neuhaus was in Vienna he explored the urbanisation and planing processes in the city. Due Yavuz‘s work he got an incredible interesting insight and was able to understand and analyze the flow and movements in the city. These visualized commuting movement patterns provide us a glimpse of the hustle and bustle of Vienna over 24 hours, wrote Neuhaus on his blog UrbanTick.
But he also mentioned, that a 24 hour tracking doesn‘t provide a final picture of the city‘s patterns, however it shows it‘s characteristics in dimensions and behavior. Furthermore, he raises questions regarding morphology, the navigation of urban structures, use and interpretation for everyday businesses, and questions about the accessibility and interaction of the public with the city. All those questions can be answered by analyzing, interpreting and understanding the visualized data. We get some kind of sense for our own patterns.
When automatic tracking technology becomes better in public spaces and also the willing of self tracking through wearables, smart phones, etc. grows, daily routines, rhythms and structures will become visible and understandable for us. This all points out that such sources will aid urban planners to learn and built better structures in city‘s. However this data is not just usable for urban planners but also for traffic forecasts and congestion messages. Even in other fields we can see that the observation of everyday things like commuting can become very important and when they are visualized in a proper way the best critic in itself.
Assignment 1: Everyday Design
Selle, G. (1984). There Is No Kitsch, There Is Only Design! Design Issues, 1(1), 41-52.
The anonymous design of the everyday has become so much a part of our lives we cease to notice its existence, when in fact it is one of the most important and relevant forms of design. With a growing focus on consumerism and the constant evolution of mass production, it has become increasingly difficult to determine the good design from the bad and so the question is asked, is there such a thing as a definable good and bad taste, or is it simply all design?
Everyday objects crowd our lives and reflect our personalities, Gert Selle believes that bad taste does not exist and all design stems from already existing everyday ideas and objects. There is No Kitsch, There is Only Design! Is a review of the “Genial Design of the ‘80s: Objects of Desire and Daily Use” exhibition, in which everyday beautiful objects were displayed without condemnation of consumption or indoctrination of the users. He expresses his belief in everyday design for the masses as it portrays “realization of a dream of luxury, beauty, belongingness, shelter, adventure, individuality and cultural identity.” (Selle G. pg.41).
He widely critiques the stigma that surrounds everyday design and the designers who consider it bad taste. He believes that these avant garde designers draw their inspiration from the objects of mass design in an attempt to better already functioning and proven designs, forgetting that the mass consumer deals with these beautiful items not ironically but seriously. Everyday objects can sometimes come to mean the most and to symbolize and portray certain elements of ones personality and routine. His writing is backed up with a variety of photographic sources displaying a variety of somewhat amusing objects and interior layouts which some people would perhaps question the levels of taste.
To Selle it is important to stress that the true meaning of design is the design for all, the design most used, most purchased and most loved, steering away from pretentious design ideals fitted only to a certain small number of people with elevated levels of taste. It shows an evolution of society with everyday design progressing in sync with social change, affected by what is happening the world around us. He gives a concise overview of everyday design with an amusing twist, condemning those who look down on everyday designers.
Since the publishing of this article in 1984, everyday design has continued to rapidly evolve and become more and more personal, they are the objects designed so well that we do not view them as design but a necessary foundation in our lives, something that we do not notice until it has changed or is no longer there. Taste and design, like beauty, is perhaps better referred to as in the eye of the beholder as peoples’ everyday and sometimes mundane items, are in a way an extension of themselves.