jamin.org

Obviously, I have not been writing much recently. There are a number of reasons for this. First, I needed a break from all the design thinking to remember how to function with the rest of the humans. It seems they don’t often talk about design or know what I’m talking about.

Second, I’ve had a lot to do in the way of preparing for my move to San Francisco and Nokia. I moved out of my apartment and will be leaving Pittsburgh in a few days for a road trip that I haven’t completely planned yet. In general, I’m visiting a few folks in the east, then heading to the top of the country, hitting state and national parks along the way. Some stops include Geneva, New York; Vienna, Virginia; Charlottesville, Virginia; Great Smoky Mountains; Badlands; and Glacier National Park. I’ll eventually arrive in Mammoth Lakes around early August, where I’ll stay for a bit before heading to San Francisco. I’m doing this by myself and living in my car or a yet-to-be-purchased tent. I’m pretty excited for the adventure.

Finally, it’s been difficult to blog as I have not had a laptop since mid May when we had to return the ones the School of Design let us use during our time there. Not having a laptop has really cut down all the design reading that often inspired posts. Of course, not being in school and exposed to great teachers and peers has also had its impact. But I suspect I will pick up again when I start working.

Until then, don’t expect much from me unless I bite it and buy a laptop or make posts through my iPhone from the road.

Over the course of the school year, my thesis paper went through quite a metamorphosis as I explored many text and wrestled with what I wanted to say about design. In the end, I titled my paper “The Thinking Behind Design.” Here is the abstract I submitted with my final paper.

What designers do—the thinking behind design—is not fully understood. Design is still often viewed as a black art rather than a rigorous discipline. Designers themselves have difficulty explaining how they make the connections that lead to the final solution and why those judgments are valid. While good design work can be done without understanding these forces, it is my hypothesis that the more designers know about the forces involved in design thinking and process, the better they will become as designers and the better they will be able to communicate design to others. This paper examines design as an approach to solving problems and what makes it different from other approaches. It examines design thinking as desire for a particular outcome, a philosophic viewpoint, a conversation, imagination, reason, judgment, wisdom, and a skill. And it explores the nonlinear, dialectical, and unique nature of the design process. Finally, it suggests that designers can view the development of understanding and ability as a design endeavor itself, and that it is possible to design oneself as a designer. Though the audience and focus is on designers, it is my belief that a better understanding of design along with increased ability to communicate design’s rigor and value will ultimately benefit and advance the discipline as a whole.

It’s not a huge change from the previous abstract, but it’s definitely very different from the first, which had to do with making the leap from user research to solution. While I am pleased with the final paper, it’s not exactly the masterpiece I had hoped it would be. I absorbed so much from my readings that I often became overwhelmed or sidetracked on tangents, which is why I had to rewrite the entire paper over spring break. There is much that I had to neglect.

Personally, the process of writing a thesis paper has had tremendous impact on my thinking as a designer. This thinking has impacted both the way I practice and how I talk about design. It certainly provides a sense of mastery in design that required the exploration and struggle I went through. But it has also humbled me with the knowledge that with increased understanding there is also more ignorance, for I now know that there is more that I don’t know, and that becoming a master in anything is an endless pursuit. Still, this it was a worthwhile endeavor that has helped me grow as a designer and a human.

Download the final paper (pdf)

Just want to share the results of the eReader and gestural interaction project I had my Basic Interaction class (undergraduate HCI double majors) do for their final project. This was a six-week project with the following focus:

• Synthesize needs and opportunities from both potential product users and other sources.
• Discover the intersection between the needs observed by researchers and the needs people perceive in themselves in otder to find rich areas for product development.
• Design product interactions that support the emotional connections between the person the reader
• Explore the personal and social roles that ebook readers facilitate
• Communicate the value of the ebook reader through the visual, auditory, and narrative channels provided by a video sketch

Though the time line was short, I was pleased with the results. During the final, a user research specialist from Daedalus Excel showed up and was very impressed with the presentations and solutions.

I was really impressed with the quality of the video sketches. I had them read John Zimmerman’s Video Sketches: Exploring Pervasive Computing Interaction Designs and showed them several examples. We talked about the advantages and disadvantages of different styles. But we did not go over tools, video techniques, or audio, which is typically done. Also, I told them that there was no right way to do this and that they should design their video sketch according to what they thought would be most effective given their skills and the time they had. The quality of the results were really impressive.

In particular, I enjoyed one group that used simple sketches and a child narrator to tell the story for an eReader for moms.

The students got to select an audience focus from a list of six options. Some of the groups overlapped. The documentation links are below, which contain links to their videos and final presentations.

Commuters
Starburst Reader
EasyNews

Moms
Kava
Oracle Reader

Family
Flip ‘N Share

Today I received my diploma. My overly large diploma. The day, as a whole, was a bit surreal.

At 10am this morning, I turned in my signed thesis paper and thesis project, making me officially done with grad school. It’s been pretty quiet on this site the past couple weeks as I tried to get everything complete. This short post is meant to break that silence. But as I have spent many sleepless nights the past week, I’m exhausted and in dire need of a beer, I am keeping this brief.

Graduation is on Saturday. It’s a relief to be done, though I don’t think the reality of what that means has sunk in yet. Congratulations to all of my peers.

Look forward to a longer, more reflective post to come, when I have more energy.