CDES 102 SOME APPROACHES TO COMMUNICATION & DESIGN

Map Branches

• PROMISES
  • To understand how some of the principles of communication and design can be applied in complex ways that shape and make our environment without precedent in nature, to serve our needs and give meaning to our lives.
• USER CENTERED DESIGN
  • It focuses on the person (user) more than the thing being designed
    • This is a philosophy as much as it is a process
  • TWO KEY COGNITIVE ISSUES IN USER CENTERED DESIGN
    • VISIBILITY (such as)
      • MAPPING
      • FEEDBACK
      • other PERCEIVED AFFORDANCES
    • CONCEPTUAL MODELS
      • How does the user think it works?
      • Donald Norman: Site about design functionality, several visual examples, including some used in affordances
        • THE DESIGN OF EVERYDAY THINGS
        • HIS WEB SITE
    • Problems specific to USER CENTERED DESIGN
      • Can people use it intuitively?
        • using what people already know in new designs
          • I LOVE SKETCH
          • LIVECRIBE PEN
      • Can the design adapt to anything new?
• PARTICIPATORY DESIGN
  • a design process that is inclusive of:
    • designers
    • developers
    • users
    • decision makers
  • Examples
    • LEGO: WIRED
    • FOLDIT: Solve puzzles for science
    • DESIGN THAT MATTERS
    • PLEASE REVIEW ON YOUR OWN
      • HOWARD RHEINGOLD
      • JIMMY WALES - WIKIPEDIA FOUNDER
      • YOCHAI BENKLER - WIKIPEDIA and LINUX
      • OPEN SOURCE EVERYWHERE - WIRED
  • The Path of Participation
    • Making emotional connections through participatory design
    • 1. self-immersion
    • 2. current experience
    • 3. ideal experience
    • 4. embodiment of ideal
  • BENEFITS?
    • let's designers work directly with users
    • gets technical and non-technical people to work together
    • provides a forum for identifying problems and issues BEFORE they become too expensive to fix
    • insures or enhances buy-in with users
    • use techniques that users can learn and apply in the future
    • gives users a voice to increase probability of viable design
      • multiple participants can have an accuracy that individuals don't
        • remember collaboration and the story of guessing the weight of the OX?
      • People don't always know what they want
        • Market research
          • MALCOLM GLADWELL
• EVOLUTIONARY (PROCESS or EXPERIENCE ORIENTED) DESIGN
  • There is no predetermined outcome of the design
  • Designer has a responsibility to make an experience (or object) endure and change across time in a way that is compelling
  • EXAMPLES
    • VIDEO GAMES
      • MMOPRG (massively multiplayer online role playing games
        • Rules for evolutionary design in computer games
          • 1. create rules
          • 2. play through the rules
          • 3. observe how people react to the rules
          • 4. identify problems with the rules
          • 5. return to step one
        • Spore
          • Video overview
          • Will Wright's overview
        • World of Warcraft
      • Wii Fit
    • WEB SITES or WEB COMPONENTS
      • Facebook
      • Youtube
      • Google
      • e.g: cascading style sheets for html
  • Problems specific to EVOLUTIONARY DESIGN
    • The abstraction of the particular objectives at hand adds complexity and cost (it's hard to plan for experience)
    • Clients may resist this approach because it appears to be wasteful and inefficient
    • If it is done well, it can save a client money in the long run (but this may be hard to document)
    • How do you design for change?
      • Designer must not have a a grand vision of a specific outcome, rather a sense of how to create an environment that's engaging over time
    • when is the design finished?
      • no design is ever finished, particularly evolutionary designs
      • the more unfinished you think your design is, the more you will build in the capacity for improvement
      • designing for improvement means making improvement easy and possible
    • if it is going to be improved and updated, should the initial design reflect (communicate) that?
      • are there user-centered elements that should be present?
• UNIVERSAL (aka ACCESSIBILITY or BARRIER-FREE) DESIGN
  • The term and concept were once only applied to physical access and usability
  • increasingly, UD is applied to design of information for accessibility, comprehension, and retention
    • Learning style, communication style issues are at stake
  • Problems specific to UNIVERSAL DESIGN
    • no single representation of information is ideal or accessible for everyone: learning style differences require UD for effective learning
      • provide alternative representation of content
        • e.g.: providing documents in format that are visible AND audible (using text readers)
      • provide multiple options for expression and control
        • e.g: multiple options in word processors: menus, key commands, icons
      • provide options that promote engagement, interest, and motivation
        • Objectives must be understandable
        • Challenges must be appropriate
        • Supports (like hints, or training wheels) should be initially available, then disappear or be withdrawn
        • Personally relevant feedback should be provided
  • Principles of UNIVERSAL DESIGN / ACCESSIBILITY
    • Perceptibility
    • Operability
    • Simplicity
    • Forgiveness
• SUSTAINABLE DESIGN
  • a philosophy of designing something that complies with principles of economic, social, and ecologic sustainability
  • Applies to everything from objects to systems
  • my summer reading list
    • Design Like You Give a Damn
    • Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
    • Worldchanging book
    • Worldchanging.com
• SOCIAL DESIGN (?)
  • ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD: http://www.laptop.org/en/

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