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I transferred colleges and am now a comdes major. I will be posting all of my Comdes and Imaging projects on this account along with my other art, hope you enjoy! Here are some WIP captures from our first project, Content In Form. I had so much fun with the process on this one! 🤩
Human Centered Design
In the 21st century, most aspects of our lives are digitized and using technology is ingrained into our day to day lives. Websites and apps are used practically everyday and are redesigned consistently for user friendliness, especially web design for online grocery service Instacart. Instacart’s website is well known for its design tailored for the visually impaired and is an excellent example of human centred design.
The founders of Instacart noticed that the blind and visually impaired favored using their service so their website was redesigned to better accommodate their consumer. Within each grocery department, product options are well defined for readability. Increasing product quantities is present in the main interface instead of the cart for ease of use. The interface has a strategic color selection and utilizes color contrast to better help those with visual impairments.
I found this article interesting as I didn't know that those with visual impairments were taken into account when designing a website. I also researched what features of a website could better help those with visual impairments which include: contrast, color choice, and using enlarged text. I also think that human centered design is one of the most important aspects to designing because everything we make is meant to be consumed by people. So, having the end user in mind and taking into consideration how the consumer with receive and utilize the product is an important factor to designing.
Human centered design requires out of the box thinking that leads to creative solutions that wouldn’t come about through traditional design methods. Design involves solving a problem and having the end user in mind helps to better solve that problem. When the end user is kept in mind, products are designed better and companies that utilize human centered design flourish more than their counterparts.
IDEO is a design firm well known for its human centered design tactics and they have even created their own process for design. They begin their processes by observing the user to understand how they product gets used by the public and to better design a product. Then, they try to understand the end user experience. Both sets of information are used to create solutions and better design for others in a six step process: observation, ideation, rapid prototyping, user feedback, iteration and implementation. Human-centered design is all about building empathy with the people you’re designing for, generating tons of ideas; building prototypes, and sharing what you’ve made with the people you’re designing for.
From their “Field Guide to Human Centered Design” the IDEO team stated “When you understand the people you’re trying to reach—and then design from their perspective—not only will you arrive at unexpected answers, but you’ll come up with ideas that they’ll embrace.” That is the main idea of human centered design. IDEO understands that if they can experience what the user experiences they can use that to fuel design solutions. Good design doesn’t always have to involve the best ideas or best technology but as the most helpful to others.
Human–Centered Design
When researching human centered design and the thought of creative origination, I came across David Kelley’s belief that creativity lies within anyone and everyone. Kelley is the founder of IDEO, a community of designers, entrepreneurs, engineers, teachers, researchers, and more. In his younger years, he went to a psychologist (Dr. Bandura) at Stanford where he discovered the thought process behind phobias and the confidence to overcome them. Bandura presented a concept to Kelley known as “self–efficacy”: “the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations." In other words, self–efficacy is a person’s belief in his or her ability to succeed in a particular situation. Bandura described these beliefs as determinants of how people think, behave, and feel.
For wanting to work in a creative environment surrounded by people he liked, Kelley created IDEO, and made a commitment to making great things happen in the world. His passion is to “help unlock creative confidence in everyone from students to business executives.” He is a jack-of-all-trades; he received his masters in engineering as well as product design, and was awarded an honorary recognition that “distinguishes contribution to design education.”
After reading articles about Kelley and his accomplishments, his ideas about design thinking and human-centered design cannot go unnoticed. His communities of designers in multiple places around the world focus on helping their clients and partners at the individual, organizational, and societal level. They assist clients by building their creative capacity and ability to grow, adapt, and routinely innovate. Human–centered design is a large contributor to the process of innovative advancements in our modern world, and a quote from IDEO’s website that draws my attention is that “you can move forward faster if you take a look back.” Meaning, we advance in the design world by looking back at previous concepts and constantly push the idea that they can always be evolved into something better than before.
As humans, we always want more, or the next big thing—this is where the designers come into play and reflect on whether something needs to be revisited. As the technology of the modern world continues to be ever-advancing, human needs seem to accelerate. Therefore, complex problems are best solved collaboratively. “Even as our methods evolve in response to new, complex challenges, we’re always designing solutions for people first. We’re building to learn, and learning as we build, through inspiration, ideation, collaboration and implementation.” Nevertheless, we must not forget how important the past is helping us shape the intention for the future.
Kelley, David, and Tom Kelley. “Creative Confidence.” IDEO Is a Global Design and Innovation Company., Oct. 2013, www.ideo.com/post/creative-confidence.
Tillman, Ashley, and Chelsea Takamine. “Open Reflections: Looking Back on a Year of Impact.” OpenIDEO, 2017, www.openideo.com/content/open-reflections-2017.
Cherry, Kendra. “How Self Efficacy Helps You Achieve Your Goals.” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 7 Oct. 2019, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-self-efficacy-2795954.
IDEO. “About IDEO.” Our Story, Who We Are, How We Work, 2019, www.ideo.com/about.
Creative Thinking
“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
-Jack London, American Novelist
How does a creative person arrive at a “Eureka!” moment? Are some people just more in tune with the right side, the creative side, of their brain than others? Are we supposed to wait around until inspiration strikes? According to psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, scientific director of The Imagination Institute in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, the neuroscience behind the creative process is much more complicated and is largely comprised of four basic stages which engage both the creative right side and analytical left side of the brain. The four stages of the creative thinking process are as follows: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification.
Preparation is square one of the creative thinking process, it begins by identifying a problem, a specific need, or an otherwise area where a solution is needed. In this phase, you must focus on collecting as much information and doing as much research as possible. Immerse yourself in the subject. This will serve as the foundation and planning stage by which the additional three phases are built on, so being as thorough here as possible is advisable. Ultimately, this is the phase where you are putting every observation and idea on paper, nothing is too silly to be off limits.
Once you have a gained a thorough understanding of the subject and sufficient research has been completed, the incubation phase will begin. In this phase, the information you have gathered will spend some time in your subconscious allowing you to form more complex opinions and create new connections with the subject matter. Use this time to look over all the information gathered and begin narrowing it down while also remaining open to forming new thoughts. Allow your subconscious mind to digest and consider everything you’ve learned, this is often the stage by which creative ideas strike, often unexpectedly. The incubation period can be short or it can be long.
Eureka! Sometime during the incubation period, when all of the information is circulating through your subconscious, you’ll finally have an light bulb moment. This phase is appropriately named the illumination stage, this critical moment generally appears very suddenly and is normally accompanied by a feeling of certainty. You will feel as if a missing puzzle has been put into place. This finally brings us to the the final stage of the creative thinking process, called verification, in which you will test and evaluate your idea to determine if it will work. If it works, you must polish and refine the idea as well as figure out how to appropriately package the idea so the message comes across to your audience. In some cases, an idea may not work out, and the creative process must begin anew.
The creative process, just like everything else, is something that requires practice before you can become skilled at it. There is not an exact formula behind being creative, but this process can provide a tried and true framework to generate and refine creative ideas. Use this as a general approach to creative problem solving, and over time, tweak it to better serve your specific needs.
Works Cited
Sharp, Callum. “The 5 stages of the creative process.” The Writing Cooperative, Nov. 2019, https://writingcooperative.com/the-5-stages-of-the-creative-process-4f8037b7119f
“Creative Thinking Process” The Peak Performance Center, Nov. 2019, http://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/thinking/types-of-thinking-2/creative-thinking-process/
Stillman, Jessica. “The 4 Stages of Creativity” Inc.com, Nov. 2019, https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/the-4-stages-of-creativity.html
Human-Centered Design
Human-centered design, from what I have researched, is “another creative approach to problem-solving that starts with people and ends with innovative solutions tailored to meet their needs.” It is basically how and what you think, and then what you can produce from those thoughts. From the source I found, Design Kit, they say that the process consists of 3 phases: inspiration, ideation, and implementation. In the first phase, inspiration, you will gather as much information as you can directly from your client or the people you are designing for while digging deep into their lives in order to meet their creative needs. In the second phase, ideation, you will begin to understand what you have learned, curate possible designs/roughs, and prototype potential solutions. In the third phase, implementation, you will make the final product, bringing it to life, and up for market. The way you would know if your final product is a success or not, is if you were able to adhere to every need and detail as requested by your client and were diligent and patient throughout the entire process.
This process seems very logical to me. It is a step-by-step guide to how you should go about every project that requires the creative process, especially if you are dealing with a client with a specific vision and already has detailed ideas of what they want. It is especially helpful that this process is broken down into 3 phases. I have used this process of design before without even knowing it. I have had a few friends come to me in the past requesting that I help them out with a certain project of theirs. Of course, I would oblige and help them out in any way I could. In fact, a friend of mine just recently asked if I could help him out with a logo design for him and his friend’s latest short film. Not going to lie, it is hard trying to maintain your creativeness while also adhering the requests of your clients. I had to make several designs before my friend was finally satisfied with a logo he liked, and there is still a few things I have to tweak since it was only a “prototype.” So, in the end, it is definitely a great learning process, especially for me since this is basically what I want to do as my career. From now on, when I have “clients” ask for my help with any project that requires creative assistance, I will think about these 3 phases and make sure they leave 100% satisfied.
The theme chosen for this project was predatory fish of the Amazon river, with the chosen fish being a Red Tailed Catfish, a Payara, a Piranha and an Arapaima. Many of these fish are known more for their head shape/teeth, with the acceptation being the arapaima who is known less for their head and more for their tail shape. So the best position for the fish would be a pose that displays both their heads and tails, and creates a balance of positive and negative space shown in each pictogram. Which is turn would help create a cohesive style among all the fish, as they are very distinct from each other in body shape.
Human-Centered Design
The concept of human centered design is a form of creating a solution that is specifically made with a human perspective and caters the needs of an individual. This allows the human and the design to have a friendly interaction between each other. Human centered design is carefully processed through conceptualizing, researching, and different ways of brainstorming in order to find the needs to be met. This concept is like being in someone else’s shoes. In order to fully understand the situation, deep immersion to the situation is needed. Through the consistent observation and critical analysis of the human needs, this method of creating a solution provides a result that has safety, compatibility, comfort, and efficiency. This form of solution is essential into creating a design that is seeking to provide an effective product that will help humans because it allows them to see their needs in all angles.
The Tolerance Project is about a collection that showcases over 133 different posters that has the theme of tolerance. Mirko Ilic, a New York-based designer, is the one who organized this whole project that was inspired from an earlier project he did for a fundraising effort at the House of Tolerance in Slovenia. The Tolerance Project is held in different nations and each nation has designers and artists invited to participate in the project and create a poster that will be showcased. The main purpose of the project is to send a message about social acceptance within the nation that its being held at. The artists that are invited are only given instructions about the dimensions of the poster and that it should have the word “tolerance” in their own language. The project received a lot of negative responses from the viewers and have been through hardships because of the different cultures that it encounters. Some cultures lack in tolerance because of how much hate they put into that posters that are being posted. Difficulties with the production is also a problem that they faced because of the limited resources that nation provides.
This is a great example of human centered design because it uses not only different individuals but also different people groups. Human centered design has a specific target and this project succeeded because it allows different artists from that nation to show what tolerance mean in their country. By having a person that is familiar with their own culture and norms, the perspective of tolerance is achieved much greater because the designer is much more immersed. Either with a negative or a positive response from the viewers, the project was still successful because it targeted the heart of the issue of tolerance.
The human centered design is basically being mindful of what the audience is going to be, who will be interacting with the design, and how will the viewers receive it. The Tolerance Project showed the human centeredness because of how each nation had artists from their own nation. Artists that knows about the issues happening in their country. The viewers reacted according to what the designers are expecting them to be. Either their hearts were touched because of the truth or they are offended because of the subject of tolerance. This design solution is very effective because it gathers information about the certain people group and uses it to relate to them.
-Riego
Article from Design Observer: https://www.designobserver.com/feature/tolerance-spreading-the-word/40121
Human-Centered Design within The D Word: Psy Ops by Steven Heller
This write up will be based upon the topic of human-centered design. One of many ways designers tackle a problem is by putting the human perspective first into play when designing and problem-solving. This method is important because it helps designers truly understand their audience and know what works when trying to relay a message or project an idea clearly and efficiently to their target audience. As a designer, this may seem simple as we are human and think that we understand what a human-centered design may seem like, but each life/ situation is different and composing an idea based on your targeted human will be the challenge. This idea can be seen in an article by Steven Heller called “The D Word: Design Ops,” published on Design Observer. Heller’s article discusses the United States Army’s tactic in helping strengthen a soldier's morale and psychological aptitude. The Army did this by designing pamphlets that “undermine(d) a battle-weary soldiers morale.” It was believed that a soldier was more susceptible to “doubt and despair” rather than to their own rational thought in times of battle. As a result, the US Army believed that designing these pamphlets would help the soldiers resist these thoughts of doubt and despair and help their psychological resistance to fight back. The article states that these pamphlets were mainly made around the 1950s and 60s in the midst of the Cold War. It states that the Defense Department’s Psychological Division would “produce enemy simulated leaflets” which were moved around field maneuvers to hopefully expose soldiers to what they could potentially experience on the battlefield. These simulations of sorts were enacted to help improve the deteriorating mental state of soldiers and to make sure that they were psychologically strong for when the real threat came knocking on their doorstep. This article relates to human-centered design in the way that the United States Army personally designed these pamphlets with their own soldiers in mind. They specifically took into account the mental state of their soldiers and how they could make some kind of propaganda that would benefit their soldiers by installing an almost fear-like sense into them in order to strengthen them for the future. From the pictures of the article, Heller includes images of the pamphlets and they created. The designs of them appear to depict images of loved ones and the enemy. Again, the military was targeting the mental psyche of the soldiers. They achieved this through human fear and human compassion by including these images throughout the propaganda. In the article, Heller also talks about how the pamphlets were “Crudely printed on rough paper” and how the “typography is competent but undistinguished.” This shows that the Army wanted the flyers to seem hostile/ unfriendly and uninviting to the reader to set the theme of an enemy. In Conclusion, Human-centered design is important in helping solidify a strong connection between human accessibility and understanding of a message or purpose. While the US Army’s efforts might have seemed like an “Anti Human-Centered Design,” it was what they thought would hit home for the soldiers best and help with the war effort by strengthening the psychological stability of all in service.
-Walker
Article: https://designobserver.com/feature/the-d-word-psy-ops/39275
