Wayfinding
Wow last presentation of the year! Omar Gina and Jessica did this particular presentation and regrettably I missed the first half due to SF awesome parking situation that has only been accentuated by the 3 block radius of construction going on around the school. That being said I have always found way finding an interesting topic. So often we use the example of tourists trying to find their way around a foreign city to do touristy things and that is a perfectly legit scenario. What I think is really cool or really infuriating is how way finding is used for a population that is not visiting. Think of how many times you've missed an exit or made a wrong turn going to say an Airport. I know that google maps has a ll but alleviated these problems but in a lot of ways that is a little disturbing. I find myself often not sure of where to go because I have become so dependent on GPS. I have also found how frustrating it is to be in the middle of the city without GPS (because the buildings are so tall) and having NO idea how to get to where I am going. In that situation your GPS becomes people, start asking strangers where to go and hope they don't lead you astray. The really interesting part of it to me is how can you implement a great way finding system without it becoming overwhelming for people? It's not fair to smaller businesses to cater to the mega stores but we can't put all the information at every point. It is an interesting problem and I am curious how it will be solved in the future. My guess is with AR, It makes the most sense as far as detangling the massive amounts of way finding information that we have to deal with when going out and about in this big ass world we call home.
As for the exercise we had in class I think that most people had the same kinds of ideas. Maps, brochures, icons, kiosks, etc. Those have been the way we have done it for thousands of years, look for the big rock that looks like a wolf, then head towards the giant tree, then follow the rising sun for 3 days and you'll find what you are looking for. I guess the biggest question is will we ever find a system that is as good as that (for humans that is) or will we one day find something better that isn't based on visual interpretation?
As for the exercise we had in class I think that most people had the same kinds of ideas. Maps, brochures, icons, kiosks, etc. Those have been the way we have done it for thousands of years, look for the big rock that looks like a wolf, then head towards the giant tree, then follow the rising sun for 3 days and you'll find what you are looking for. I guess the biggest question is will we ever find a system that is as good as that (for humans that is) or will we one day find something better that isn't based on visual interpretation?
Sustainability
Jaime, Tara, Jieying, and Tash did a very thought provoking presentation on sustainability. More specifically what we contribute to the production of carbon through electronics. That was the biggest take away for me at least. I think that we as a society just kind of forget that electricity has to be produced somehow. I mean there are certain things that we just take for granted in our lives and I think that electricity and water are two of those things. Almost everywhere we go we have access to those two things it's just a given. They may be in various stages of quality but we always have them. They must be produced and delivered, that does not happen by magic. While the numbers that they gave us seemed relatively small when you add up everybody's usage those numbers get big really quickly. For those whose careers are in the digital realm it is something to consider. We may ride our bikes to work, not own a car, yada, yada, yada, but if we don't take into account our digital carbon footprint we are doing everyone a disservice.
Another staggering statistic they gave us was that there are more digital devices than humans on the planet....WTF?! How, why, and does't that seem rather excessive? Then to pile onto that there are 46 different elements in a iPhone. Which means many of those elements need to mined, that is a lot of mining. In a way I feel as though some of these elements are the new oil. There is no slowing down the production and consumption of electronic devices and many of them are not recycled, at least that is what my commute to school tells me. I see at least two or three phones that have been run over or are simply smashed on the divider. So where is all this new material coming from? How are acquiring it? Who is getting exploited to make it affordable for the masses? These are the things that keep me up at night. This is where systems start to come into play, I bet that the system map for the acquisition of elements for a smartphone would be IMPRESSIVE!
Another staggering statistic they gave us was that there are more digital devices than humans on the planet....WTF?! How, why, and does't that seem rather excessive? Then to pile onto that there are 46 different elements in a iPhone. Which means many of those elements need to mined, that is a lot of mining. In a way I feel as though some of these elements are the new oil. There is no slowing down the production and consumption of electronic devices and many of them are not recycled, at least that is what my commute to school tells me. I see at least two or three phones that have been run over or are simply smashed on the divider. So where is all this new material coming from? How are acquiring it? Who is getting exploited to make it affordable for the masses? These are the things that keep me up at night. This is where systems start to come into play, I bet that the system map for the acquisition of elements for a smartphone would be IMPRESSIVE!
Sound
Eugina, Kendra, and Heather had a fun and informative presentation on sound and it's integration in design and marketing. The sounds that we associate with everyday devices and services often go unrecognized but are deeply ingrained in our memories and psyche's. One of the best examples they gave was how we have a shared experience with a friend, then we don't talk to them for years, but when we hear the song again we not only remember the experience but we remember them and why we loved them. This is so powerful. While it may take us an entire song to encapsulate the entire experience with our friend, we don't need much to make simple associations. Most devices that we have use sound to help notify or signify something so that we know to pay attention to something. From a conformation sound to a, "MMRRRrr" you did something wrong we are inundated with these sounds every day. The tone, pitch, and decay all play a part in how we perceive the audio message and what it is supposed to convey. Like most other things in design choosing how to implement these sounds can make the design and experience better or worse.
Skeuomorphic...say it with me Skew-O-mor-fic. Skeuomorphic try finding that on the internet when you don't know how to spell it...one of the few times the internet has told me "I have no idea what you are looking for. I don't even have a suggestion." So what does it actually mean it is used to describe interface objects that mimic their real-world counterparts in how they appear and/or how the user can interact with them. So when we turn the page on our Kindle book and it make the page turning sound, Skeuomorphic. This got me thinking of how we choose there notification sounds and why there always seems to be a variety of animals or insect sounds included in our choices. With so many sounds do we choose certain sounds for their uniqueness? Do people who live in urban more prone to choose animal sounds because those sounds are uniquely absent from their everyday life and therefore seemingly more unique to them? I have no idea but just how I think I guess. The main thing that I took away from the presentation was that sound can be a power conveyer of messages and association with your product, if used properly.
The workshop was super fun as well. We got into groups of 3 and each group got very short video clip. The clips had no sound and we had to add the sounds that we thought would work the best with our assigned clip. This is a process called Foley and is used in movie production. It is basically sound effects, we added sound effects to to a video clip. Each group had to get up in front of the class and make the sounds the corresponded to the video. Luckily we are interaction designers and not sound engineers or sound effects majors. Overall we did pretty good though.
N.U.I. -- Natural User Interface
The time that we have spent at CCA has given us an opportunity to work in the team dynamic many times. Sometimes these groups don't quite work out the way we hope. Bad communication, someone not pulling their weight, or people not being open to explore ideas, the point is that you quickly learn what a good group is and what a bad group is. I can honestly say that I totally enjoyed our group. We all seemed to be excited to work together and were great at actually working together. As far as our work flow went we decided to set up a random google slide presentation and each week everyone had to add something to it. This way everyone could work independently and we just started to stack information. Then we met a couple of times to filter through the information that we had gathered. This way we could see what related to what and how we wanted to organize the presentation. That was the easiest part of the process. The workshop was a little more challenging but since our group is awesome that part wasn't as difficult as we thought it would be. We just started bouncing ideas off one another and then Frankensteined it together. It really is amazing how easy work can be if you are in a good group! Personally I thought that the work shop was a success. The fact that people were engaged, laughing, and eggar to share tells me that we did something right. I hope that we gave people some insight on how difficult NUI can be in certain contexts but also how valuable it can be if used properly. I know that we should have pictures of us working up to our final presentation and how we came up with our workshop but everything happened so fast and smooth that I honestly don't think we took any pictures.
The only thing that I would do differently would be to have had everything completely done a week before so that we could have practiced more but that is just my own neurosis. I would tell other teams to make sure to document their workshop and the reactions that people had to it. If nobody is engaged then you did something wrong. Try to figure out what missed the mark so you can make it better in the future. Try to get people engaged. The best way to get people to remember things is to get them emotionally invested somehow. Bonding with other people, laughing, or letting their guard down to be vulnerable with others. It gives people a bond to the information that you have presented on a deeper level.
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Mental Health
Natalia Girling, Will Liang, Tai Chen, Rita Lei did a pretty cool report on Mental Health that helped show some common misperceptions about it. I can't say I got a whole lot out of the presentation. Not because it wasn't informative or entertaining but rather because I married a psychologist. During the presentation I can remember knowing some of the symptoms and how to alleviate them. Then this weird thing happened. I started to think of why I knew those things. Had my wife and I sat down and talked about? Had I read it somewhere before?...on a tangent of an internet search that leaves you asking yourself, "how did I get from heirloom tomatoes to mental health?" It turns out that the more I thought about it, the more I realized my wife and I had talked about it. Not that we had sat down and officially discussed it. Rather it had happened piece by piece, over and over, ever since her employment in the prison system as a Clinical Psychologist. What I realized was that I had heard the same pieces, of the same fragmented story, enough times to start to catalogue the information away. I had started making my own story about mental health. Based on our everyday conversations over the years. What I realized from this little epiphany was that there is more than one way to effectively introduce a story or even a narrative. Obviously it depends on how quickly you need that narrative to be told. If you have time you can simply introduce the information enough times, in enough ways and a person will start to build it for themselves (I don't think that was my wife's intent. If it was, then good on her for using that little trick for good.) It got me thinking about if there are other ways to introduce or implement a selected narrative. I think I mentioned before the the whole, "heirloom tomatoes to mental health" thing. I am probably going to need to set some time aside for this particular one.
What I like most about these presentations is that some of them are informative and I get to learn new stuff. Some of them are entertaining and its a good way to start the day. If I already know about the subject, it allows me to dwell in a very interesting place. I get to wonder within the constraints of the given topic for 30-40 minutes, just floating around with no expectations. It is rare that you are able to do this in everyday life. It is a really interesting state of being. I don't know if I have ever been able to experience that state before. So far I feel like I have gotten something important out of each of the presentations, in one way or another. Hopefully our group can provide one these states for the class next week.
What I like most about these presentations is that some of them are informative and I get to learn new stuff. Some of them are entertaining and its a good way to start the day. If I already know about the subject, it allows me to dwell in a very interesting place. I get to wonder within the constraints of the given topic for 30-40 minutes, just floating around with no expectations. It is rare that you are able to do this in everyday life. It is a really interesting state of being. I don't know if I have ever been able to experience that state before. So far I feel like I have gotten something important out of each of the presentations, in one way or another. Hopefully our group can provide one these states for the class next week.
Virtual Reality
Jackie, Yuan, Hridae, Ruitao did a super presentation on Virtual Reality that was a great soft introduction to the technology. The presentation was engaging and informative especially for those who have not been exposed to it before. I think they did a bang up job over all.
Alright straight up this shit scares me. I have played with it in a limited capacity and I get why people love it. I was lucky enough to hang out with Hridae before the presentation and he let me play with it a little bit. I spent almost 35 minutes playing a dumb game and thought that I was in for maybe 15 minutes. The emersion is fantastic. You lose all sense of time and relation to the real world. I find it scary because of how easily I acclimated to it. Hridae even said that he was surprised that I didn't have any problems. Usually it takes people a bit to get used to not being able to have depth perception or peripheral vision. They get dizzy or stumble around. I had zero of those problems and picked up the whole thing very quickly. The game that I was playing was super simple, not graphically intense, or heavy in plot and yet 35 minutes later I took the headset off and was like WTF. While I can see the infinite possibilities for using the technology for good there is a part of it that could be unrelentingly addictive. It is a genuine escape from the real world and as the tech gets better there will be no end to what a person can experience. Those experiences could very easily become commodities. Want to be president? $19.95. Want to kill the president? $29.95 Want to have sex with the boy/girl that made fun of you in high school? $24.95. The possibilities are endless. The same thing can be said for learning though. Having a virtual run through of everything that you can learn on Youtube would be amazing! I think that this technology is in its infancy and much like AI needs to really be looked at before it is "unleashed" the world. It is amazing in so many ways but could be used negatively to the detriment of many generations to come if not properly thought out.
Alright straight up this shit scares me. I have played with it in a limited capacity and I get why people love it. I was lucky enough to hang out with Hridae before the presentation and he let me play with it a little bit. I spent almost 35 minutes playing a dumb game and thought that I was in for maybe 15 minutes. The emersion is fantastic. You lose all sense of time and relation to the real world. I find it scary because of how easily I acclimated to it. Hridae even said that he was surprised that I didn't have any problems. Usually it takes people a bit to get used to not being able to have depth perception or peripheral vision. They get dizzy or stumble around. I had zero of those problems and picked up the whole thing very quickly. The game that I was playing was super simple, not graphically intense, or heavy in plot and yet 35 minutes later I took the headset off and was like WTF. While I can see the infinite possibilities for using the technology for good there is a part of it that could be unrelentingly addictive. It is a genuine escape from the real world and as the tech gets better there will be no end to what a person can experience. Those experiences could very easily become commodities. Want to be president? $19.95. Want to kill the president? $29.95 Want to have sex with the boy/girl that made fun of you in high school? $24.95. The possibilities are endless. The same thing can be said for learning though. Having a virtual run through of everything that you can learn on Youtube would be amazing! I think that this technology is in its infancy and much like AI needs to really be looked at before it is "unleashed" the world. It is amazing in so many ways but could be used negatively to the detriment of many generations to come if not properly thought out.
Education
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Asher Ran, Anchi Hsin, Jay Wang, Claire Zhou gave a short presentation on education and a interesting workshop for us last Friday. What I found interesting about the workshop was that it gave us a little bit of insight into what are strengths are and what we actually found interesting and educational at CCA. It may have been more interesting had I not already done a similar exercise before. I think that they could have given us a bit more on how people learn and how we learn as individuals. I am not saying they did a bad job by any stretch, only that aforementioned is interesting to me. If we can learn how we learn, what our style for acquiring knowledge is, maybe we can become better individual learners within a system that is not made for everyone to excel. I have recently been listening to Blink on my way to school in the mornings and the research they have done with standardized testing is mind boggling. Simply by priming people before a test with the proper positive or negative language test scores varied by as much as 27%! I think that it is impossible to format a national education system to be able to cater to every learning style and need, so to a large extent it is on the student to understand how they learn so they can get the most out of the resources available to them. It is not enough to simply teach people to read and write the landscape is so much broader and vast now. I think that eventually we are going to have to think about education in a different way to get to peoples full potential.
I think what the group did was good in that they helped people to see some of their strengths and weaknesses and what other people they gravitate towards and who is different from them. |
Games
Sherrie, Alvin, Tiger, and Tia gave a great presentation on what gamification was, where it has been used, and how we as designers may be able to implement it in our own designs. While I don't think that I will be able to implement any of these principles in my own project I can see how they can be very effective in the right places. How might they be effective? I guess what I got from their presentation was that gamification basically is a way to exploit human tendencies for a desired effect. To a large extent people are competitive maybe not athletically but in some way. Most people like to show off in some way or be proud of an accomplishment. Gamification simple gives people a way of expressing these tendencies. Leader boards and badges are great examples of this. Being the best at something gives us a sense of pride and accomplishment and so does acquiring a rare or seemingly unattainable things, like badges for collecting 5 million mushrooms? What I found to be the most interesting is how quickly people will become engaged if they are playing a game with friends and how quickly everyone becomes competitive, basically wanting to win. Being competitive is not a bad thing at all it just some people think it is even though they are at some level. It was also helpful to be shown that gamification can not be used all the time and is down right detrimental in some situations.
I thought the group did a good job with the activities. Starting with a game (rock, paper, scissors, rockstar) that is almost universal was a great way to make sure people can participate and feel comfortable and it was really cool to see how quickly people got behind the winners and started to chant their names. Kinda of reminds me of professional sports and how quickly people forget their own failing at any given sport and cheer for those that have either beaten them or are better than them. I liked the second came that was derived from Mad Libs another approachable fun game to get people engaged. I think that is one of the most powerful things about gamification is its ability to engage people.
I thought the group did a good job with the activities. Starting with a game (rock, paper, scissors, rockstar) that is almost universal was a great way to make sure people can participate and feel comfortable and it was really cool to see how quickly people got behind the winners and started to chant their names. Kinda of reminds me of professional sports and how quickly people forget their own failing at any given sport and cheer for those that have either beaten them or are better than them. I liked the second came that was derived from Mad Libs another approachable fun game to get people engaged. I think that is one of the most powerful things about gamification is its ability to engage people.
