Language, memory and experience
Last week I was in Amsterdam for the Interaction 14 conference. This is a reflection I wrote on the final day of the conference. See my previous conference-related posts on selling ideas and body and design. As Interaction 14 comes to a close, my brain is filled with lots of interesting ideas and I’m thinking about the themes that spoke to me the most over the course of the last 3 days. Here’s a recap of some of my major takeaways. Theme #1: Languages of interaction Verbal As a lover of words, I appreciated Klaus Krippendorf’s deep dive into the theory of language and how it relates to the design practice. He walked through several different philosophies of language, ultimately arguing that dialog is at the core of interaction. It’s worthwhile to understand the implications of this truth. According to Krippendorf, language doesn’t only describe, but also creates realities in conversations and actions. The meaning of the language we use is therefore not fixed, but changes in the process of our conversations. In addition, language constructs social-relational realities that change over time. I liked his point that design should be about accepting dialog over fixed principles. Visual Scott McCloud (of Understanding Comics fame) delivered a really engaging presentation on the principles of visual language. He provided many rich insights, lots of which were reminders of past thinkings and readings I’ve done, and some of which I enjoyed hearing for the first time. One of my favorite moments of his talk was when he described visual communication as a 2-way street – the artist gives the audience some stimuli, and the audience meets her halfway. I also appreciated McCloud’s point that as designers, we shouldn’t think of our medium as pixels or pencil and paper. Rather, our medium is the understanding of our users, and our craft is communicating concepts in the simplest possible ways. I’ve always been fascinated by communication and how visuals and words come together to create meaning, and all of these ideas resonated deeply with the way I think about design. Alternative Is there a body language of design? Irene Au gave a beautiful talk about the connections between the mind and body, the divergences between analytic and empathetic thinking, and how designers might employ yoga and mediation practices to hone both of these skills. For more on this, check out my post on body and design. Bernard Lahousse also gave a fascinating presentation on food as interaction. He explored how taste is informed by the relationships and interactions between different ingredients in a dish, and how all of our senses play a role in the way we experience food. Theme #2: Memory and experience How does an experience differ from an experience remembered? Lucino Santos presented a brief body of research on this topic, with a few highlights that are relevant to consider in the design process. First, research shows that when people think back on an experience, 2 distinct impressions typically have the strongest influence on their perception of the experience – the peak point of intensity and the tail end. This made me think about the importance of designing for emotion. How might each moment in an experience evoke something inside someone? Which touchpoints will be peaks of intense emotion? What kind of lasting impression might someone take with them at the tail end of an experience? These questions are significant not only because they consider how someone might remember an experience we design, but also because that memory will directly impact how the person behaves in the future. Santos also talked about the process of memory retrieval. It’s a reconstructive process – as we remember an experience, we tell ourselves a story about it based on a blur of lasting impressions, some inevitable distortions, and information that just happens to be in our brain at the time of recall. This resonates with my belief that each interaction we design, big or small, has an opportunity to impact people's lasting perceptions in different ways. In a talk called “Choice... Gateway to Engagement,” Brad Nunnally discussed the attention economy and Herbert Simon’s concept of “return on attention.” In an information-overloaded world, this term truly resonates with me. In a way, it reframes the responsibility of designers. We’re not only tasked with getting people’s attention, but more importantly, we need to made sure that the attention we’re commanding leads to a meaningful use of time. I previously reflected on respecting people’s time in my Design with Manners post.