August 18th, 2008 ethereal
i made my first post to the Arizona Digital Media Investigations journal that he created as a conversation space for those taking place in his rapidly approaching show. i was a bit nervous to speak, unsure of what a moderator’s role was in this context. so i looked for the conversation commonalities and tried to pull them together into a dialogue reflection. here is what i came up with:
http://arizonadigitalmedia.org/?p=48
excerpt: “Returning to this group of artists and designers, the place where we work in the virtual is mysterious. The tools we use are digital and the experience of using them is somewhat ubiquitous: clicking keys, clicking mice, or movement of a stylus across a board. The products we produce are tangible, for the most part, and produce memories in those who view them that will be associated with sensory cues based on their environment, but not in the same way as something with a singular manifestation such as a painting in the Louvre. …”
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July 20th, 2008 ethereal
I have been reading over the new online design journal “re-public.gr/en” The content is thought provoking and interesting, and especially poignant for me as I search for what to do next with my newly minted degree and abundance of idealistic enthusiasm for design’s potential application to environmental policy, services and products.
Here is a quote from Dori Tunstall’s contribution to the writing on the site in her article The future of politics: Distributed creativity and DIY policy design:
“On a recent government project of mine, the creative director did not
want the team to ask people to evaluate whether the type was too big or
too small on a brochure. The argument was that people always say that
it is too small and that they don’t understand all the reasons why
something may be easy or difficult to read. My counter argument was
that while designers are the experts in design, the people are the
experts in their experiences with designed artifacts. The desire to not
solicit certain types of design feedback from people has to do with the
designer’s need to maintain control over the expert domain of design,
with lowercase d.”
Definitions to note before continuing (per Dori):
design with a lowercase d: “…design, with lowercase d, is its complement – tangible,
improvisational, reality creations that is the mostly professionalized
and within the intellectual domains of design, communication, and
usability.”
Design with an uppercase D: “Design, with an uppercase D, is the processes of abstract, strategic,
ideal creation that is open to everyone. In the context of policy, it
is often the intellectual domain of the political science and
economics.”
I want to call attention to the following statement and make a note on it:
“My counter argument was
that while designers are the experts in design, the people are the
experts in their experiences with designed artifacts.”
This statement falls neatly into messy business that my graduate class at NCSU was trying to tackle and provoke discussion around in our symposium OptionShiftControl last fall. I agree that the end user must have control of the design project outcome in that it suits the needs of the group that the project was created to address. However, the people may be experts in their experiences with the artifact, but are they cognizant of the reasons that they find them acceptable or unacceptable? Habit forms a strong bond with comfort and sometimes an experience that registers as “right” is an unexamined opportunity to make a significant change for the better in the people’s lifestyle. Doing things the way they are done because it is the way that it has always been done is a common and seemingly human way to live through daily tasks. I do believe that when partnered with other disciplines that specialize in Observation, designers can offer ideas to the people that they may have rejected on the notion that it is not the way that things have always been done, but are not recognizing that comfort may be a cause in marking or discarding an idea. Involve, observe, offer and interject with the people. Heck, designers ARE the people in most cases. However, have we nothing to offer as experts in awareness of the experience and the ability to deconstruct it and see opportunity in places that the people don’t, not that they cannot, but maybe they just do not have the time nor energy to do so.
The article is not all about this statement, my rant spawned from the singular sentence but does not reflect the overall theme of the piece. The rest of the writing, especially the five aspects of policy design, was insightful and interesting. I would like to take one of the five and pick it apart further and find out what its principles were.
But that, my readers, is a rant for another time.
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July 3rd, 2008 ethereal
ok, there has to be a story behind this “exception” in the greyhound freight shipping policy:
“Animal Heads, consisting of decapitated animals for the purpose of
medical testing only will be permitted when properly containerized and
not in conflict with bio-hazardous materials handling policy.”
under most circumstances, animal heads are apparently not allowed. unless … as specified. interesting.
also, how many phrases were tested before settling on the following as the description for smelly things in the “prohibited” category:
Materials Having a Disagreeable Odor
does this mean i can ship candles that smell like jelly donuts and cut grass? men like that smell, right? who decides what disagreeable is? i know this writer had a tough job to do … but its still funny.
in case you have need, here’s the whole policy.
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