Curious - Design as a Profession

I’ve been pondering this question for awhile and I’d just like to put it out there …

Is design a profession? 

I’d be anxious to read responses …

Q & A About Expression Assignment

People have asked me some questions about the expression assignment, and I thought I would collect and answer them here. This is important, because if you don’t understand what these key concepts mean, you can’t do the assignment correctly.

Make sure you have a clear idea of what is “an expression” and “an experience” before you attempt this assignment!

Q. Is “the written word” or “film” an expression?

A. Nope. That’s a type of expression. An expression is always concrete, like this particular film, or even this scene from this particular film; or this poem, or even this stanza from this poem; or this story that my mother used to tell; or the jingo from this commercial. In class, we looked at a 5-minute segment of the film, Spirited Away. That film segment was an expression; some of the “an experiences” it seemed to draw upon related to our everyday experiences of adolescence, nightmares, and myth.

Are designed experiences “real”? (and other initial thoughts on Dewey and experience design)

I502 started with the question of how can we (as interaction designers) design compelling experiences, such as those we experience when watching compelling films. Reading dewey caused me to step back and reflect on the very experiences we design and intend to design. When I see the term “experience design” used, it often seems to imply that designer attempts complete control over the experience of the user, i.e. the particular details of the experience are (ideally) designed prior to and in anticipation of use. In the Language of New Media, Manovich suggests that interactive new media actually exerts more control over the user than traditional media, by imposing the mental structures of the designer on the user, and i think in certain circumstances he may be right, e.g. following links on the blogs can prevent undergoing. Interactive environments such as grocery stores and amusement parks are often discussed in terms of Experience Design, where every aspect is attempted to be controlled in order to lead to increased repeat visits and increased consumption. This notion of “experience” and “experience design” is often used as pejorative. Two common critiques I see leveled against designed “experiences” are that they are (i) vicarious or simulated (divorced from reality) and hence not real or authentic, and (ii) passively consumed. I’d like to discuss some of these criticisms of the potential negative effects of vicarious, simulated, and passively consumed experience and then offer some relevant questions I’ve been thinking about.

Dewey Lecture

I want to talk about this phrase “objective logical reality” that was tossed around today. First this term “logical,” and that it’s not the same as “singular” (or perhaps “uniform”) in the sense that there can only be one correct order. So different arguments can reach the same conclusion, and the same rationale can lead to different conclusions, yet all can be logical, no?

I also got hung up on the idea of an experience coming to a (happy) resolution/conclusion. I can’t remember if Dewey states it explicitly or if it’s just something Jeff said while distinguishing experience from an experience, but I remember the phrase “happy ending” coming into play to describe how an experience ends. What if I’m having a positive experience that then ends? I could think to myself what a pity it is that this great experience has ended. Then is this necessarily a “happy ending?” I may be misquoting or misinterpreting something so I want to make sure I understand.

I was also trying to relate Dewey’s experience and an experience to ready-to-hand and present-at-hand. So if experience is something contiguous that does not consist of an emotional quality (I believe that’s Dewey’s terminology), i.e. something that I go through unaware, then that would be like ready-to-hand. Of course then an experience is comparable to present-at-hand. Said differently, I suppose one could say that different designs are described as ready-to-hand or present-at-hand that then result either in experience or an experience.

Also, if one tries to design something to be ready-to-hand (and someone has an experience) or present-at-hand (and people aren’t having an experience) is that bad design or unsuccessful design? I suppose that depends on the designer/design’s intentions.

Semantic change of design.. Just a lot of questions

While I read the Dewey’s book, I was wondering if I am an artist, designer, or even scientist. My identity, just as a humble live creature is seriously getting to be ambiguous. When I was addicted to draw I thought I was an immature artist, when I had studied and worked in design I used to be a fake designer, and now, in this HCI area, I feel I am an irrational researcher in science field even though the field is somewhat different from natural science.         

Of course, I have read that someone have said in terms of the definitions of each area and the evidences they collect in order to support their argument in terms of the boundary between Art and Design, between Design and Science, and even, in the design discourse, the design from the realization of everyday life to technology-centered design to Human-centered design, and as Klaus Krippendorff said, if we need to consider of Science of Design, Design science, or Science for design or not.

For me, it is getting to be difficult to realize that what identity of design is where the boundary is and what its discourse stands up.        

In some moment, it seems to be clear for me, but in the other moment, I have no idea what it is.     

In addition, as if HCI people seem to enjoy jumping in its ambiguity when they design, they have thrown many questions and unsettled resolutions to me even though Jeff has been not to stop explaining what design is, what factors of human beings we need to consider, what theoretical methodology we need to study users. I think his explanation is just for him and his evidences that he collects, but not mine. He provides me with huge thinking space to make me ponder in the questions. And I have to think about the questions in my own way: How do I ultimately answer this question? How do I participate in the design discourse?  

The name of design, it changes its semantic body. It is like another aesthetical experience for me.     

Paper Submission

Jeff and or Marty

Where do you want the final paper submitted? There isn’t an assignment slot that I saw on oncourse. Thanks!

The final paper ongoing..

When designer is describing user.

Keywords: Ambiguity, Interpretation, Editoriality(Plausible), Authentic design  
I am not sure if I am successful to finish this final paper, since I have still studied in my interesting areas: The interpretation of experience from narrative to storytelling or from storytelling to narrative: recursive system or not. This is my current problem domain. I realized the relationship between the narrative of user and storytelling in my individual research. More specifically, I am curious how designers can create narrative/storytelling of Inter-subjectivity/subjectivity for interaction design by interpreting the language of user’s experience rather than the issues of interaction quality. This is not only introducing today’s researches of the interpretation of experience in HCI area but delving into the methodologies to interpret user’s experience and context. I will explain my curiosity based on hermeneutics cycle and post-modernism. Both the theories are representative to deploy my ideas (however, I won’t limit my ideas to the two theories only). In order to resolve, I will use Eco’s point of view, Abduction, which means un-canonical in terms of Interpretation and over-interpretation. (This predicates the issues of interpretation between two competing and polarizing paradigms: on the one hand Post-structuralism, De-constructivism; on the other hand Hermeneutics) In addition, I found the analogy between interpretation and editoriality, mentioned in the book, editorial engineering by Mathoka Seiko(松岡正剛), a visiting professor of Tokyo university, in that both are not objective but subjective, making us witness unexpected creations abundant. As a result, I came to think that the editoriality pursues the certain kinds of plausibility, the possible design solution for user’s ambiguity, in meta-interpretation process depending on intention/ editing axis. This is also likely to be useful in pointing out the limitations existed in HCI that usability methods such as heuristic manner reveal that the final result might be more difficult to understand user’s experience. As mentioned before, in the case study, I will introduce how designers/developers try to interpret user’s ambiguous narrative and how they as storytellers apply it to creating design story based on literature study in HCI. In this paper, I hope that the meaning of design is more comprehensive rather than merely pursuing the end for a certain goal that in the relation between designer and user and its interpretation, designing is to approach for “discovery” or “development”. Finally, I want to ask for myself what the authentic design methodology for user research is again.    

This is my current thought for the final paper. Not yet elaborated. I guess there are a number of weak points. Please let me know if you guys have good ideas. Especially, I am still confused with what kinds of case studies might be good examples for this theme, and what kinds of issues to analyze the case studies might be effective to deploy my idea. I don’t just want to introduce the case studies in the part. I want to analyze them by using the criteria that I set. However, I have no idea about it. Hmmmm      

Template for final paper

I’m pre-writing my final paper today and after reading the assignment I wondered if perhaps Jeff couldn’t post a link to the template you would like us to use. I’m kind of assuming that the CHI format you are talking about is the landscape one with two columns and the third row for callouts and figures, but it would be helpful to have this made explicit.

I wouldn’t mind a little more guidance on if you want a lit review section on the paper, and if so how complete.  We’ve all read a basic set of literature (or at least we should have right) how must more do we need to say about that?

There is no self?

I was a little bit shocked by the post-structuralism. What is it talking about? There’s no self?

Yes, I am constructing myself when I was writing this post. I want myself doesn’t sound stupid, I don’t want anyone knows that I haven’t read Jeff’s reading for this week.

But that is me, isn’t it? The way I am constructing my post, is different from David, Mingxian and Yen-ning. I am wondering how does post-structuralism explain the author’s intention behind the construction of his book?

Post-Structuralist Contradiction or Complementation

Certain aspects of a post-structuralist perspective are very cohesive and useful for analysis.  But how can post-structuralism prematurely claim we cannot discover truth about the world without stating this as its discovered truth?  Perhaps this might be perceived as a play on words, but doesn’t every theory attempting to explain the world indulge itself in some proclamation of truth?