Directionally Correct Design
The value of design often butts heads with the rigor of quantitative proof. But as the design advances into more complex territory, proof becomes even more challenging. While at the Institute for the Future HealthCare 2020 open space meeting on Science and Technology in Health, Chris McCarthy, Director, Innovation Learning Network at Kaiser Permanente, talked [...]
Design Thinking Is the New Design
In his Ask the Innovation Guru video series (yes, there is such a thing, and yes, I watched some of it), Bruce Nussbaum tackles the question Why Is Design Thinking Relevant. He parses views on design thinking into two camps: those that think it’s too abstract and has little to do with doing; and those [...]
Are important issues missing out on design?
photo from ISIS Last month, I presented at the Sex Tech, a conference that, to my surprise, had nothing to do with making sex better through technology. Instead, the conference brought together people involved in adolescent sexual health, sex education, HIV prevention, STD prevention, and sexual literacy. I was there with Carrie Chan to talk [...]
mTID Gets Panties in a Twist
I’m not sure Carnegie Mellon’s master of tangible interaction design is news to me. I sort of recall hearing something about it last spring. But today was the first time I saw a curriculum for the program. Like several of my former peers, I am intrigued by this program. And as a master of interaction [...]
Core Competencies of Design
Richard Buchanan presented the “Core Competencies of Design” in class this week, offering a slightly different version of the list of why designers are valued. I’m not sure if this is just a further iteration or different due to the shift in focus from designers to design itself. The language is fairly similar, though notably [...]
“Emergence” (book review)
Steven Johnson’s “Emergence” attempts to connect the lives of ants, brain activity, urban interaction, and software to show how decentralized and bottom-up interactions emerge as an intelligent swarm. I was at first skeptical about the book, as it seemed to take a very scientific view, which I am wary of given my thesis on design [...]
My Blogs of 2007
Dan Saffer just posted his list of the best interaction design blogs this year. Missing is his own blog and mine (just kidding about mine—but perhaps one day). Given grad school time constraints, I don’t follow many blogs these days. But here are a few I have found either insightful or troubling over the year: [...]
Graphic design is art, says Paul Rand
I don’t know if this is new, but it was new to me and I just watched it. Paul Rand talks about graphic design, and says that design is art. I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with him, but it’s kind of interesting to hear his perspective and see the array of designs.
How Designers Think
Yes! Yes! Yes! No, this post is not about sex. It’s about Bryan Lawson’s How Designer Think, which is an orgasm of design process and thinking. On nearly every page I found an idea I could relate to as a designer and often thought the book should be required reading for those entering design. If [...]
What is design thinking?
After reading Bruce Nussbaum’s recent article, Design Vs. Design Thinking, I have to ask, what is design thinking? Why? Because the way he refers to design thinking conflicts with my more or less ambiguous definition. The first thing that struck me was his reference to design thinking as a new field. New field? Is design [...]
Defining Design
Is defining design a worthwhile endeavor? Or should we just get on with it, do what we do and not analyze it so much? My rather amorphous thesis paper revolves around the process of design research to design concepts, supposedly within the realm of interaction design, but so far not really staying within that boundary. [...]
Designing for Beauty
Just finished watching Crash, and am now thinking about the ability films and other media have on stirring emotion and changing our perspective. I used to say that I never felt more emotional than during or after watching a film. There was a time when I would go to a film on a weekend night, [...]
Design-Emotion.com Seeks Female Design Experts
In response to my post on this site and my post on Adaptive Path’s blog, Marco Van Hout, of design-emotion.com, admitted that I busted him on having only men on his site. He is now looking for expert female designers to interview. I appreciate his transparency. Unfortunately, the essay I was researching that spawned the [...]
Support for a Connection Between Writing and Design
In relation to understanding the connection in my life between writing and design, I was inspired to read a comparison of the craft of writing to the craft of design in David Wroblewski’s “The Construction of Human-Computer Interfaces Considered as a Craft” from Taking Software Design Seriously. This was required reading for our seminar 2 [...]
What’s wrong with “user testing”?
I’m talking about the verbiage. Bruce Hanington, who teaches my Research Methods for Human Centered Design course, tried to correct himself after saying “user testing.” He proffered that “product testing” is better because it alleviates the concern people have that they’re being tested. He’s not to first to make such an argument or to object [...]
Pluralism and Objectivity
My graduate seminar class with Dick Buchanan ended yesterday. For this last class, we discussed pluralism and objectivity, which Buchanan states as the fundamental problem of design. Why is it a problem? There is no subject matter in design. Designers make their subject matter. “This is a very peculiar thing,” Buchanan says. I agree. And [...]
Buchanan in Lisbon Impression
I received a report from the field about Dick Buchanan’s speech at the design conference in Lisbon last week. While subjective, I found it interesting and got permission to share it with you. Buchanan tells us that the design methods movement of the 1940s was largely concerned with design potentialities, productive science (the act of [...]
More Type Calendars
How did I spend my Saturday night? Why designing calendars, of course! Yeah, my previous calendar was a bit safe (and grad is not the place for safe). So I experimented some more. I think I could spend the next 30 years working on this, which makes Thursday’s deadline seem all too soon.
Stuff Makers
?Ǩ?We are the stuff makers. That is our role as designers,?Ǩ says John Zimmerman. Today we began our next interaction and visual interface design assignment: digital music player. My new group, consisting of fellow graduate student Sook and an industrial design undergraduate, will be creating a new player for commuters. We read Don Norman?ǨѢs Emotion [...]
Mobile Project Paper Prototypes
For tomorrow’s class, which begins in six hours, my mobile project team will be presenting our paper prototypes. Again, if you haven’t been paying attention, we’re creating a mobile application to help people find a coffee shop. Our persona travels often and really likes coffee, but not just any coffee or coffee shop. Our man [...]
Data Poster Critiqued by Ben Fry
After depriving myself of sleep and taking a chance that my poster would work it?ǨѢs way through the print queue in time for class (we were told to allow 48 hours and I submitted my job at 2 a.m.), I gladly hung my poster on the wall with everyone else during grad studio this afternoon. [...]
Empty Space Loses Its Meaning
I read the following quote in the appendix of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, which a friend laid in my lap while I was drinking beer and searching for new clothes online at 1 a.m. I wished to show that space-time is not necessarily something to which one can ascribe a separate existence, [...]
Mobile Project Persona
Today my group met to discuss our findings from independent interviews regarding our mobile project to help find a coffee shop. We have the beginnings of a persona. His name is Johannes Zummerman. He is 38 and married, and is a military software consultant. He loves good coffee. He needs it. It?ǨѢs part of his [...]
Learning to Frame the Problem
I got my control redesign grade: 88. It’s a decent grade, though I’m not that concerned about the grade. Since giving my presentation, John’s question, “Who wants gas without flame?” has bubbled to the surface of my brain now and again. So it wasn’t a surprised when his feedback said the problem with my solution [...]