Category: ARTM2220 Designing for New Media

The movie “Objectified” was really eye opening for me. Before watching this movie, I did not really think about any of the things tat were talked about in the video. I didn’t think about how every little thing we use everyday has been designed specifically for a purpose and to try and make the use of the object as easy and as comfortable as they can for us. In the movie, on of the designers said, “ It should feel almost undesigned so that people think, ‘Why would you want it any other way?’”. I think this statement is so true about the products we work with everyday. The user would never even think to have it be any other way, but in actuality, there were hundreds or even thousands of other ways made before that one way was chosen. Nobody ever thinks of that part of the process when they are using it, besides the people who actually went through the process of making it. I also agree with the designer who stated that designers have to understand what people need even more than the people do themselves. If this were not true in the designers today, I do not believe that the products made would be successful. If the designers didn’t put as much thought into the products they make I believe that the users would not buy as much of the products because they would think that they could make something better for them then what is available. I know I think like this with some of the products I own because of their poor design. There were many things that some of the designers said that really made me think about how I actually thought of design before the movie. One of the designers said a quote from Henry Ford. The quote stated, Every object tells a story, you just have to know how to read it”. I believe that this can be applied to design and how easy designers make products for their user. Products should be simple so that even the least knowledgable person can figure it out. If a product has a bunch of different parts that have to attach a certain way of can only work ing a certain order and the instructions to use this object aren’t as clear as possible, the user will not be able to use it. In one of my other classes, I learned that a person who has a good experience with a product will usually tell 3-5 people about it. A person who has a bad experience with a product will tell at least nine people about their experience. If this word of mouth spreads far enough, the entire product could go under because no one will buy it. Another thing one of the designers said was that is is a designers job to look into the future, not what has happened, but what will happen. This sentence changed the way I had been thinking about designing. Even since I was little, I had been looking at things and trying to see how i could make it better. Although this is still a way that designers look at products, It is not the complete way that I should have been thinking about designing. I should have been looking to see how I can make a product last. Designers have to be able to make a product be able to stand the test of time and not just end up in a landfill in a few years or even a few months. I believe that this element will be key in our future to be able to minimize our carbon footprint and in making our world and products more eco-friendly. Lastly, each designer gave their own definition of designing. These ranged from everything from a puzzle to honesty. Before this movie, my definition of design was simple. It was the way in which you made a product with the features of additions that would work best for the user. I have drastically changed my definition of design after watching this video, because these designers really know what they are talking about and how to make their designs work for everyone. I believe that my definition of design now would be something like an ongoing and ever-changing process in which designers create products that will be long living, eco-friendly, and functional for the user that gives solutions to even the littlest problems.

Objectified presents a number of intriguing ways of looking at design as a whole and the thought that goes behind it, as told by a variety of designers themselves.  It highlights a number of simple truths about the way the world around us is constructed and why it was constructed in that way.  One designer points out that people generally do not consider the fact that everyday objects such as Post-It Notes were designed by someone.  When one realizes this, it becomes fascinating to consider the thought behind objects that are not necessarily considered by many to be significant triumphs in design.  Perhaps such objects that are not thought of in this way truly are the greatest triumphs, for their designs simply seem natural.

By examining the way people behave, designers can best judge the ways to reach them in terms of their design needs.  I agree with what one designer had to say about the design process: essentially, tending to both extremes in people will cover the majority who fall somewhere between those two extremes.  Grouping people into categories based on their need-level ensures that everyone’s needs have been considered and addressed.  I also agree with treating design as ways to improve daily life.  Design is a complex process of trial and error that is seemingly never finished because perfecting the process takes time, especially as the definition of what is “perfect” evolves.

The idea that if a component of a design is not necessary, it should not be there changed the way I view design.  Although this perhaps seems obvious, I realized that my own designs could have been improved by incorporating only what was essential and had an assigned purpose.  Understanding what was referred to in the documentary as “design hierarchy” aids in deliberate and thoughtful design, rather than design that cannot necessarily be explained because not every component is essential.

Many of the designers discussed the importance of an understanding of how and why people behave the ways that they do even more than they themselves do in crafting a successful design.  This awareness of natural instincts and basic behaviors ultimately provides the foundation for design.  As a designer, one wants to be able to predict how people will react and adjust to different factors based on how they have dealt with previous ones.  Creating parallels between other interactions people have with their surroundings and everyday objects and the experience with a new design ultimately allows for a smoother result.

Ultimately, design is the thoughtful craft of creating something with a designated purpose.  In the case of specifically interaction design, it is imperative to design with people in mind, and people must be conscious of the way that something has been designed and know that a poor design is to blame for problems in interacting with it, rather than the people themselves.  Designers must find the best ways to reach and serve people; it is a crucial part of the design process.  This definition has changed in that I now fully realize the designer’s accountability for how his or her design is perceived by others.  Poor design does not help anyone, but everyone has the potential to be impacted by good design, which is why the better something has been designed, the less bumps along the way in life.

• What information can ethnographic tools give you to improve the interactivity of an online banking website? (pp. 48-54)

Knowing the norms of a certain culture or cultures can help create a more welcoming website, meaning that if the online services look reliable and secure because the designer understood what is accepted from cultures than people are more likely to interact with it and come back to use the services again. It creates a more holistic website experience for the user.

• At what point is a design finished? What makes it a success? What is its purpose? (pp. 54-62)

I think a design is finished when the designer is happy with what the product has done for people, and that is also when it is considered a success. Even if the product does something the designer did not originally foresee, if the user finds a way to use it effectively then the designer should feel accomplished. The purpose of the design should just be to help something or someone in a positive way.

• Identify a product family you use regularly (can be anything from technology to consumables except for coffee). How has its branding effected your use, relationship and experience with the product? (pp. 78-84)

I think Apple has influenced the way I look at certain things. When I was looking for a new phone recently I found myself tied to the iPhone because of familiarity. They make all their products so intertwined that when I go out for a new product I think about the connectivity to my current Apple products and how they will tie in. This is why Apple has such a great user experience for me.

What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?

Interaction design is made up of many things. Companies designing objects for consumer use, artists making an object’s interface more appealing, a designer making an object more approachable. All of these can be examples of interaction design.  There are many challenges facing the industry. One of which is designers figuring out what the user wants and needs. These wants and needs change fast and it can be difficult to keep up.

What is interaction design, how it is evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?

In a general sense, it is the way an object is used by the user. It’s objective is to make the consumer’s life easier while still being appealing to the eye. It is the creation of a dialogue between a person and a product. It evolves with the desires of its users. It can draw knowledge from many fields, from art to science and technology. Anything to make a product easier to use and more appealing.

Interaction design is the mix of industrial design, engineering psychology, business strategy, and art. Some problems that face interaction designers include, different types of people needing different things, the merging of look with function and user experience, the latter can be difficult for those who go to school for a degree in fine arts. Another problem is the outsourcing of industrial designers to cheaper workers who are just as qualified but will get a product to market for less. Innovation in the relatively new field of software design is a key part of the new interaction designer, and an importance on user experience will decide whether a software is successful. Another part of interaction design is the physiological aspect, trying to shape what people do and how they think, or don’t think about their actions.

1.What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry challenges?

On page 31, Kolko describes interaction design,”Divergent and convergent thinking requires a mixture of analytical skills (logic, engineering, and the development of “appropriate solutions”) and creative skills (drawing, mapping, “blue sky thinking”). This mixture is a rare but required duality that must exist in a successful designer. … The constraints placed on the design are a mix of human, technical, and aesthetic boundaries. The difficulty lies in discerning the hidden constraints, which the process itself helps uncover, and balancing these with the more explicit constraints, often defined by a client or business executive. … A common misconception is that formal methods can only be used with very well- established ideas.” Interaction design is made up of “innovated new ideas and challenging traditional ways of considering a product and doing business.”(30-31).

2.What is interaction design, how its evolving, what fields does it draw knowledge from?

“Interaction Design is the creation of a dialogue between a person and a product, service, or system. This dialogue is usually nearly invisible and found in the minutiae of daily life — the way someone may hold his knife and fork while cutting into a steak or the way another person may automatically switch windows to check her Facebook wall every few minutes or so. Structuring this form of ethereal dialogue is difficult, as it occurs in a fourth dimension- over time. To design for behavior requires an understanding of the fluidity of natural dialogue, which is both for reactionary and anticipatory at the same time.” (13). Interaction Design is evolving as people change their needs and expectations of a product or service. It draws knowledge from what has already been done and what needs to be improved or ways to make life easier.

What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?

A interaticion designer used to be responsible for images and text on a computer but in today’s world there responsibilities have grown. A designer is responsible for every aspect of the computer. Any functioning piece is a part of the interaction design realm. Some of the challenges of the industry are that it is not a growing industry but rather a shrinking one. It is becoming more and more of a branding “thing” rather than a functionality.

What is interaction design, how its evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?

Interaction design is a interaction between technology and people and technology to technology. Through these medias, in good design, is a clear path, message and objective. It is important for a good design to be successful that it is clear and concise. It draws knowledge from a lot of different fields. You can’t point to one field for recruitment of a quality interaction designer. It pulls from just about every media arts field. You need graphic designers, web designers, fine arts, and marketing people. Each one of these people adds a different view to the product to enhance the user experience. A lack of diversity would tailor the item or product to a very specific demographic which would not be productive or lucrative.

• What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?

Some challenges include selling to your boss that it is going to take several weeks to write something, not having a budget for discovery, expertise makes it hard to remember what a novice feels like, finally, creating deep designs with the fourth dimension in mind.

• What is interaction design, how its evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?

Interactive design draws from the written word, but it’s also bringing in information from so many other places to evolve. Designers use ethnography tools to figure out why people do things. They are similar to marketers because both are interested in human behavior. Interactive design also pulls from storytelling.

The book states that Interaction Design is a creative process focused on people.  Interaction Designs are created through a process with various steps.  These steps are called different things based on where you read but in this book the steps are define, discover, synthesize, construct, refine, and reflect.   First, the designer must have a problem or definition that they must define and figure our a strategy to go forth with.    Then, they must discover the wants and needs of the potential users. After all, the end result must be user friendly so the designer must research deeply into this section of the process.   After this, the designer must figure out a focus for their research. This leads to the construction of the project and testing it.  After being tested, the flaws are assessed and fixed.  Throughout all of these steps, the main focus must be on the users and how it will affect them because this is the main purpose of Interaction design as a whole.  One major challenge in this industry is point of view.  The book says that everyone has a point of view and they both reveal and conceal.  I believe that this means that some people are set ing their ways and it is hard to make them change their mind and try new things.  Although, the book also says that if you are too openminded and approach things with a clean slate, it can be hard to accomplish anything because you don’t have any focus.  Another challenge in the industry is when you have to use focus groups. Focus groups are needed because the design that the designer is making is ultimately going to be used by people so they have to know how people will respond to the design.  In focus groups,  conversation is key in sharing individuals opinions and getting points across, but if there is too big of a difference in personalities in a focus group, the whole thing can be compromised.

As stated at the beginning, Interaction design is a creative process focused on people, but what does that really mean?  During this process interaction designers try to construct a visualization between people and what they are creating. one goal in interaction design is to assist people through a path as they used the product.   Interaction design is evolving just like our world is evolving.  With new technologies being produced rapidly,  interaction designers change their works to go along with that.  Interaction designers use data and information  to understand digital-spactial relations in a complicated system.  Interaction designers use the fields of Information technology and  Knowledge management.  these two fieldS analyze the path that users take to take data to information to knowledge and lastly to wisdom.

What are the goals of Apple’s website? How does Apple’s website address the needs of a user who has just purchased their first MacBook? (pp. 41-56)

The goals of Apple’s website are to provide users with a comprehensive look at what they have to offer and to offer useful information and support to customers when they need it.  Its simple, sleek design allows for easy navigation to ensure a smooth experience that minimizes time wasted in finding what the user is looking for on the website.  This design is particularly useful to someone who has just purchased their first MacBook in that a first glance at the homepage leads users to information dedicated to specifics for the MacBook that first-time users would find useful in addition to easy access to the support section of the website for unique needs not addressed on other parts of the website.

What are the functional specifications of Facebook’s wall? If you are not on Facebook what are the specs for the signup page? (pp. 72-75)

The Facebook signup page in designed to quickly and efficiently sign someone up for a Facebook account by entering some basic information.  The goal is to allow one to create an account without having to leave the home page.  Information to the left of the data entry fields tells users of the benefits of signing up, with the intention of both signing up new users and signing in old ones upon one’s arrival at the home page.

What are four architectural approaches to information structure? Find one example of each. (pp. 94-106)

Four architectural approaches to information structure are hierarchical structures, matrix structures, organic structures, and sequential structures.  Hierarchical structures have nodes that have parent/child relationships with other related nodes (example: apple.com).  Matrix structures allow the user to move from node to node along two or more dimensions (example: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_fsl_cat_softlines_brand_ban_sa?rh=i%3Aaps%2Cn%3A7141123011%2Cn%3A10445813011%2Ck%3Apurse&bbn=10445813011&keywords=purse&ie=UTF8&qid=1453089849).  Organic structures do not follow a consistent pattern, and nodes are connected together on a case-by-case basis (example: http://www.eonline.com/).  Sequential structures flow naturally from node to node in a sequential fashion (example: http://news.yahoo.com/us-pay-iran-1-7-bn-debt-interest-160942074.html).

What percentage of The Huffington Post index page is navigation, and what percentage is content? What about Google, Wikipedia, and Etsy? (pp. 116-134)

The Huffington Post index page is approximately 95% navigation and 5% content.  Google is approximately 100% navigation and 0% content.  Wikipedia is approximately 100% navigation and 0% content.  Etsy is approximately 94% navigation and 6% content.

How does http://www.landor.com guide the readers’ eyes and focus their attention on what is important? (pp. 144-155 )

This website guides the readers’ eyes and focuses their attention on what is important by first presenting them with large, shifting images bursting with color that serve as the background for perhaps the most important aspect of the site, the firm’s purpose.  Immediately upon opening the site, one is aware of what the most essential part of the firm is before scrolling down to uncover more information or using the navigation bar.  Ultimately, organizing the website in this way reminds the user of the ultimate purpose of anything to be found on the website in a visually appealing way before guiding him or her to a more expansive view of it.  Additionally, its limited text does not clutter its appearance and focuses on what is most important.  The images also inform in the same way the text does.

Apple’s website is build in a way that is tailored to the user, but their own goals are clear as well. From looking at their site their goals appear to be selling their product, supporting their buyers, matching their design and branded standards, and promote use of their services and products. As far as the users needs after purchase, the site allows easy access to a page related to each of their many products and includes links to content related to starting use, and issues with a wide variety of topics.

Facebook, being a site that has changed a lot since its creation, has many functions on the feed alone. The site shows posts that are up to date from my “friends”. It allows users to search for people or pages. It has a chat system in place for users to talk.  The site notifies users of events, birthdays, and messages. Navigation is also allowed through menus.

Hierarchical structure starts with a home page and branches off based on sub sections. rmu.edu

Matrix allows users to move from page to page by defining search criteria. amazon.com

Organic is free form and does not have clear paths from one page to another, and is based on user decision. wikipedia.org

Sequential can only be seen in one order, usually to tell a story or guide user through sections. Logging in to many sites follows this.

The Huffington Post’s homepage features very little actual content, maybe an 80% navigation to 20% content. It may appear to be mostly content, with photos and articles appearing over all the page, but these are just content snippets which function as Navigation to the actual content. This trend carries over to etsy, the site’s homepage focus is on getting the user to a page of content using snippets, as opposed to having full content on the home page. Google’s homepage has only the google logo as content, and the rest is navigation to other places. Wikipedia is similar to google in that it does not have any more content than its own logo on the homepage, with navigation to elsewhere.

Landor uses many elements of art to guide the user throught their site. Color plays a big part in eye movement on the web, in this case it pops against a white backdrop to instantly pull the eye towards the colors. Color also helps distinguish between different pages and ideas. Motion is also a huge part of the site, there is a want to move down by scrolling, then options to move to the side by small arrows, which are used over and over to create continuity.

Apples websites goals are to sell apples stuff mainly.  Also, Apples goal is to support its customers and make their experience easy and memorable.  Apples site helps a first time mac buyer because it has technical support online, in-store, or by phone.  this means that new people can easily find answers to all the questions they have about their purchased product.

Facebook has specific parts of its website that helps users to create a unique looking page customized to their info and pictures.  Also, Facebook has things like sharing posts, commenting, chatting, and liking posts that creates a connection between people over the internet.

The four structures that the book talks about are hierarchical, organic, sequential, and matrix.  Hierarchical shows items in most important to least important and an example of this would be Apples website.  Organic means that there is no set order to which things are organized.  this is shown in Wikipedias site.  Sequential structure is when there is one specific order in which information is organized.  This is shown in books and movies.  Lastly, the matrix structure is one that any page can be navigated to from any other page on the site.  This is shown on Amazons website.

I think that practically 90% of the Huffington Post index page is strictly navigational and about 10% is content, but when you get to articles and things like that the pages completely flip on navigation vs. content.  I think that google is about 90% navigation and 10% content too because once you get to more content you aren’t on googles site anymore.  I think that wikipedia is split about 50/50 on navigation to content and Etsy is about split too because they are both focused on finding what you want and informing you on that when you get there.

Landor does a great job of showing you what is important because of the colors and the minimalistic layout.  Also, it does a great job of guiding your eyes though its content by having only one content on the screen at a time.

Apple most likely had quite a few goals when planning the strategy of their website. One of which would be to develop branding. Apple wants to have it’s own “look.” Another goal would be to sell product. This ultimately leads to the user’s needs. When a user purchases their first Macbook, clearly they would have needs. The user would need information on the product, a shopping cart, and it all must be easy to navigate. Apple’s website does fulfill all of these needs by having a shopping cart system and a simplistic design.

Facebook’s wall is a main feature of the site. It relies heavily on user created content, but the site gives the user the tools he/she needs to create that content. There is a text box for posting written messages and a place to upload pictures and videos. When you are not a user, Facebook shows you the signup page. This page shows a number of text boxes that the user can fill out in order to make a profile. Everything that is filled out is a requirement. Emails and phone numbers are needed to identify a user, passwords are necessary to keep the user’s information safe, and a date of birth ensures that the user is of appropriate age.

The hierarchical structure consists of a tree-like structure where one node can lead to multiple nodes and each of those nodes can lead to even more nodes. Huffington Post’s website is an example of this because different paths open up based on which page you visit. There is also the matrix structure. This structure allows a user to move through two or more dimensions. Amazon uses this structure when the user seems to be searching for something somewhat specific. Another structure is the organic structure. This structure is not consistent. Every user could have a different experience and follow a different path. Wikipedia is a good example of this. Finally, the sequential structure is the simplest of the four. Here, the user moves from node to node in a predetermined order. There is no way of going from the first to the last without going through every other step. When purchasing from a site like Amazon, this structure comes into play.

A lot of The Huffington Post’s homepage is content. There is navigation in the sense that that content is linked to a page with more information about said content. There are also places on the site used for searching for more specific content. Google on the other hand is all navigation until you start searching or clicking on google’s apps. Wikipedia and Etsy are kind of the same way. The user doesn’t find much content until they start using these sites to find what they are looking for.

Landor seems to use large text to direct the user’s eyes to content that it thinks is the most important. Pictures and bright colors also come into play.