Author: tkfst235

Posted on

Objectified

Tori Flick

Designing For New Media

Objectified

 

It is astonishing to think that from the moment you wake up, almost everything you interact with within your day has been designed, and has been designed specifically for a purpose. Even things you wouldn’t think to have any sort of relevance or significance such as a post-it note, someone designed a post-it note with a specific function in mind.

One thing one of the designers said that I did not 100% agree with was that no concerns for an individual person are to be taken. Details surrounded who they are were not to be accounted for, but instead the “extremes” must be taken into consideration and those extremes, whether it be something like slow and fast, those are the details that matter; everything in the middle are not as significant.

One of the designers spoke of the goal to redesign tools and objects to better fit the needs and functions of everyone, looking at things such as garden shears or even pliers and measuring how they feel and if there are any small details to improve upon. The goal is to redesign things, with people not always realizing that it has been redesigned for a specific reason. This surprised me in a good way, because out of all of the things I interact with daily I never stop to think about how it was intentionally crafted to meet a certain need or purpose.

A key point I was highly in agreeance with emphasized the importance of recognizing and noticing a product for its attributes and form, so that the inevitable design of the product makes sense, and is not just shapes and things, but instead, in a way seems undesigned because of how natural the form seems.

Another thing to consider in design is that not everything lasts forever, so what will become of your designed object once it has served its purpose and no longer functions to standard? Some products may be made with environmentally-friendly and biodegradable materials, whereas some products may have been built to last and will not be capable of doing the same. This must also be considered by the designer.

Design is comprehensibly just a search for form. The form of how something should look to still achieve the same effect and functionality needs to be understood fully and processed. Design cannot exist without a form of some sort being taken, so the priority then becomes what is the most sensible and constructive form to take? It depends object to object what form is necessary, and what form will work for everyone, not just the medium margin. If a handle of something is designed too thin and someone suffering from arthritis can’t use the handle, then a redesign must take place to include that “group” as well. Design is all inclusive, and specifically a practice to make the lives of everyone a little easier, even if the users themselves are unaware.

Posted on

Chapters 3, 4, & 5

Ethnographic tools give developers guidelines for improving their technology and service. For example on an online banking website, ethnographic tools will observe the details and maintenance of their site, providing thorough analysis of any problem areas as well as an areas that in general could use improvement, just so that a user has a seamless experience trying to use their online banking.

 

Design is meant to be desirable and beautiful and elegant and appropriate. Almost everything we interact with in our day to day lives is the product of design. A design is never complete until the needs of both form and function are met. An object should meet its purpose, (eg: A chair should hold the weight of a sitting person) while simultaneously making the object easy and comfortable to use while looking aesthetically appealing.

 

My favorite cereal being Lucky Charms, I can only eat it at certain times or when I’m in the right mood because Lucky Charms has been branded as a fun and enjoyable cereal to eat for kids specifically that are “magically delicious.” By associating the cereal with fun, I tend to want to eat Lucky Charms if I am not quite in a good mood, with the goal that the cereal will cheer me up.

 

Posted on

Syllabus Week Questions

  1. One of the goals behind the Apple’s website is to make the navigation and use of the website concise and simple for consumer use. Another goal for the Apple Website is to further advertise their products in a manner that reflects both the product itself and the simplicity and sleek design of it. Over the majority of the website different products were flashed across the screen with very minimal typographical descriptions; this layout shows the consumer how simple and easy their products would be to use. For new users of their products as well as old, there are several options for support. There are tabs specifically dividing the different apple products such as iphones, itunes, or ipads, so if a new user was in the need of looking up his first MacBook he could narrow down his search beginning there. Also readily accessible in Apple’s website is a search bar at the top of the webpage that allows a user to specify whatever problem they may be experiencing. The entire website is designed to market to new users of apple products as well as returning users.
  2. When initially logging into Facebook, the page is organized so that the largest column you see is the recent feeds from all of the people you are friends with as well as the content that you have chosen to follow. On the left there is a clear navigation bar of short cuts, exploration tabs and options to create new pages and things. At the top of the page there is a navigation tab that can bounce you from notifications to your own feed to the general feed as well. Facebook is set up to be a social media device and to reach and connect as many people as possible, using as many tools as possible.
  3. The four architectural approaches to information structures are hierarchy, matrix, organic, sequential. The first organizational structure, hierarchy, is commonly used as an organizational method in websites like an artist’s website where there’s a homepage and navigation bar for different pages. The next organization structure is the matrix which would be used in a website selling cars where you can preference make and model of the car as well as many other things at the same time. The Sequential organizational structure is one most commonly understood, such as Pandora, a site for listening to music, where you must listen to one song and then move onto another song. The last organizational structure is Organic, a structure that doesn’t contain any particular rule or pattern. An example of this would be wikipedia, a search engine that is a strictly contextually based search based off of key words.
  4. I would say The Huffington Post index is split nearly 50/50% of navigation and content as a news post. Google would be about 75% navigation if not more, and 25% content as google merely navigates to other sources. Wikipedia is comprised of nearly the same with 60% navigation and 40% content. Etsy would also be primarily comprised of content at almost 75% with only 25% navigation as it is purely a content based outlet.
  5. Landor.com does a good job of guiding the reader’s eye to important information using bright yellow for headline elements and overlaying white text across it. The way that the home page is designed, a user will most likely navigate down the page until the end, and how the website is set up it begins with content and then ends with an about page and contacts. Important points are highlighted with images and bold headlines surrounded by a lot of negative space.