Wither – Jordyn Khoo

Wither
2017
Mixed Media
3560mm x 420mm

Wither
2017
Animated
3860pixels x 480pixels

Swatches/Motifs used in the banner

Artist Statement

Wither is a work that is inspired by the fairytale, The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen. Unlike regular fairytales that often promise a fantastical, happy ending, I was attracted to the realness of this tale.

In her last moments, the Little Match Girl lights up the matchsticks that she was unable to sell in order to keep herself warm in the cold, winter’s night. As the flames flicker in the darkness, giving her light and warmth, she dreamt of the things she loved and yearned; a table full of food, a fireplace and her beloved grandmother. In the flames’ dying moments, those imagery fade and so did her soul. These fleeting moments before her death is tragic yet beautiful as she falls quietly into an eternal slumber. Thus, this work features a romantic representation of the transient beauty surrounding the Little Match Girl’s eventual passing.

Final Project Updates (Recycling)

Group consists of Chua Qi Wei Valerie, Fong Hin Wai, Jordyn Khoo, Kerin Ng. 

Based on our survey, we identified that most people feel that recycling information is not easily available in Singapore and that they are willing to learn more about recycling.

One of our design solution to improve the recycling experience in Singapore is the integration of an application in the process of recycling to allow users to keep track of their recycling activities and at the same time have access to recycling information easily.

Here are some screen grabs that we have came up so far.

 

Final Project Ideas

  1. Redesigning people’s experience in the lift

Everyone takes the lift everyday to get to places, however most of the time we simply ‘wait’ in the lift doing nothing and staring into blank space or interact with our smart phones. I feel that this time spent in the lift albeit short can be made to be used better.

Possible solution: To create a virtual reality that could make the experience of taking a lift more enjoyable. Example, interactive screens.

2. Redesigning the experience of recycling

Having gone on exchange for a semester in Canada, I found that people that sort their trash into different categories and bins for better waste management. Even though this is a good practice to cultivate in Singapore, especially for recycling, I found it too much of a hassle to do so in Singapore as most of us only have one large bin for throwing ALL our trash in.

Possible solution: Redesign a rubbish bin that people can use at home with compartments for people to dump different categories of trash in.

3. Smart room

Since Singapore is a small country, with very limited land space and apartments are getting smaller and smaller, having a smart room that changes and caters to the activities that we intend to carry out in the room will be pretty useful.
For example, a bedroom that can be converted into a smart workspace. When you hit bedroom, the room transform itself and dim the lights or plays relaxing music to create a mood for sleeping. When you hit workspace, the room lights up (white light) and curtains are drawn, air conditioning is set to an optimal level and your laptop is turned on..

 

 

 

Test Print

Sadly, the colours turned out way different and was so much duller.

Things to improve on:

  • increase saturation and brightness
  • flowers can fall more haphazardly
  • lower part can have more flowers
  • add highlights to flowers to make it pop more
  • gradient can be stronger

Week 8 Reading Response

This week’s reading focused on designing for people (service design) and the method of Goal-Directed Design. It was interesting to see how the writer differentiates design and art, being design having a more conscious effort to solve problems and having certain constraints such as time, costs, materials, regulatory requirements, competitive pressures etc. Whereas in Art, it serves more of the purpose of inner expression of the artist.

The article also mentions that in Interaction design, it often answer questions like

  • What activities does the product or service support and how?
  • What workflow provides the best way for users to accomplish their goals?
  • What information does the system need from users?
  • How will users move from one activity to another?
  • How is functionality segmented and manifested?

I found these question really useful in making sure that our design stays relevant and goal/human oriented. Asking yourselves these questions when designing a product for people helps to ensure designers stay focused on making designs useful and user friendly. I think that this is a common problem that designers face when designing for people. Designers are often very visual and aesthetic people, who may be too caught up in designing for aesthetic purposes than for usability. Having these questions at the back of our heads help to keep our designs grounded and usable.

The article also talks about Goal-Directed Design (Method), a framework to help designers design better and to achieve what they have in mind. There are 4 components to this method: principles, patterns, process and practices.

What stood out to me was the use of personas for testing of products. I found this method really smart and useful as it would greatly reduce the amount of time and cost needed should designers use real participants to test a product. Using personas for testing during the research process is a good way for preliminary testing, to develop requirements for the design. However, should there be enough time and budget, I feel that real participants should still be engaged at a later stage for fine tuning purposes.

 

Diary of Behavoir

3rd March, Friday (Use your phone day)

My phone is my alarm clock so I woke up and the first thing I did was to reach for my phone and stop the alarm. Then I checked for any new messages on Whatsapp and Telegram before washing up.

I had to run some errands in the morning and I was in a rush so I used my phone to book for a ride on Grab car. I had a friendly chat with the Grab hitch driver but when I used my phone, mainly for messaging, I noticed that the driver would stop talking to me upon seeing I was busy with my phone.

After I was done with my errands, I took the MRT down to school. I forgot to bring my earpiece so I was unable to listen to music while travelling. Instead, I used it to surf social media sites like Facebook and Instagram (mostly instagram), VSCOcam to edit photos, Whatsapp and Telegram to contact my friends and also Safari to browse and read up on research materials for school work.

When I was at school, I mainly used my laptop to do work/consultation and had applications like telegram and Whatsapp web to contact friends and family. I did not really have to use my phone since everything I need to contact people and for work is on my laptop. Furthermore, my phone was running out of battery, thus I left it somewhere to charge.

On my way back, I had to buy yarn and wool but was unsure where to get them from. Thus I used my phone to search for shops that sells those materials. Apart from that I used my phone as mentioned above; social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, communicating applications like Whatsapp and Telegram.

Throughout the day I also used my phone’s calendar app and alarm to remind myself of tasks to accomplish or appointments.

In general, I observed that people commonly use their phones for social media sites, texting, music and also to watch videos or dramas on their phones. These people are usually people below the ages of 35 years old. Older people are less seen to be using their phone for entertainment purposes.

 

4 March 2017, Saturday (No Phone day)

I woke up with the alarm going off as usual. My phone is my alarm (sadly), thus I had to use it a little for this purpose on this day as I work on Saturdays. I decided that in order prevent myself from using my phone, I decided to not bring my phone out. I wore a watch to keep track of time since I will not have my phone to check time.

While on the train, I simply thought about stuffs like things to do for the day and also focused my attention on other passengers. For example, a couple who was sitting directly in front of me. I don’t mean to stare but since I have nothing to distract myself from, I found myself looking at them interact. When I realise how much I’ve been staring I try to turn my attention away.

I got to work a little earlier and since I did not have my phone with me, I took out my laptop instead to do some work. After work, I had to get some wool and yarn (again) so I went to spotlight at Plaza Singapura. However, as I was looking for a specific type of wool and was unable to locate them in the stall, I wanted to ask the staffs for help but realised I didn’t know what it is called. I had to reach for my laptop and attempt to connect to the free wifi at Plaza Singapura and googling for the name and image all the while standing and resting the laptop on one of my arm… How I wish I had my phone with me at that point of time. It would have made my life so much easier…

Finally I found the materials I needed and left for home. I took the bus back and since I did not have my phone with me, I fell asleep on the bus instead of using social media apps and what not.

When I got home, I cheated and went to check on my phone for any messages. I simply had too much work to do to not use my laptop and waste the day away so I had to turn on my laptop and start working on school work. However, I try to not use my phone as much as possible.

It was honestly a rather liberating feeling to not have your phone with you all the time. It relieves me of the pressure of being constantly contactable and made me engage with my surroundings more. However, there were many times I felt slightly bored without it to entertain me and keep me occupied. The greatest inconvenience I felt without a phone or electronic device is the inability to do work. Since most things are digitalised these days and as a visual design student, it is near impossible to stay away from electronic devices if you want to be productive or if you have work on hand.

If I had nothing on hand, free from the burdens of life, I think I would thoroughly enjoy the experience of not having to use electronic device for a period of time.

My Little Piece of Privacy response

I particularly liked “My Little Piece of Privacy” because of how the artist approached the subject. The topic of privacy has always been a serious one, where people treat the breach of privacy as very severe issue. However, Niklas Roy chose to approach this subject with a light hearted tone, making this project silly and amusing. It’s interesting to note that that little piece of curtain that was meant to obstruct people’s vision and thus provide the artist with a little bit of privacy, instead draws attention. His large clear window, appear to have a lack of privacy as people who walk by are able to look through it and see whoever or whatever is on the other side of the window. In order to create some privacy for himself, the artist created a curtain that detects and follow passerbys in order to shield their prying gaze. However, this plan to gain some privacy backfired as people are intrigued by this moving curtain that so enthusiastically tries to obstruct their view. This in turn made them even more interested in what lies behind the curtain.

This is interesting as it shows how sometimes, the more we try not to draw attention to ourselves by devising plans to hideaway or coverup, the more attention we will get. As compared to the large window with no curtain, I believe that artist will get a little more privacy than with his frilly moving curtain.

Response to Week 7 reading + 2 examples

An example of a thoughtfully designed user experience is the Grab car mobile application. Grab is a mobile application for ride sharing. Much like Uber, it is a platform that connects riders and drivers and aims to provide consumers with a lower cost alternative to taxis. Grab is found in 6 countries within Southeast Asia; Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam. Like Uber, Grabs aims to provide convenience and low cost transportation options to people, thus it is important for them to make their application interface user friendly and easy to use, which I believe they have succeeded in doing so. This week’s reading talks about what is considered good design. It mentioned that “outstanding user interface intelligibility is pointless if the basic functions of the artifact fail to satisfy the users’ needs while an intelligent and adaptive artifact with exceptional problem-solving capabilities is worthless if it is too slow”. Grab’s application indeed solved what it has set out to do for users; provide convenience and alternative transportation modes. It connects users to drivers easily with it simple and clear interface in a considerably short amount of time. Time taken for the application to load is quick and the process of booking a ride is intuitive. However, this application might not be considered well designed for users who are not technologically inclined like the older generation. Despite that, I still believe it is a thoughtfully designed application as Grab’s main target audience is the tech saavy public who are well in tune with the visual language of digital interfaces. Lowgren and Stolterman’s article also mentioned that design has to be judged in relation to the users’ competence and skills. Thus, a product that is considered well designed to tech saavy users may not deliver superior user experience to users who are not technologically adept.

 

Another example of a well designed product is the Airbnb web and mobile application. Airbnb is a company that aims to provide temporary housing services which include vacation rentals, apartment rentals, hostels, homestays or hotels. Similar to Grab, Airbnb has successfully met its goal of providing short term lodging to people through it’s well designed website and mobile application. It’s website and mobile application allows for a simple and efficient process of finding and booking lodging. Its concept is easily understood by users and both the application and website are fast with good feedback system coupled with great problem-solving capabilities. Besides, Airbnb sports a strong brand identity with aesthetically pleasing web and mobile interface. According to Lowgren and Stolterman, “the importance of aesthetical aspects in design cannot be overestimated” as “every new design adding to this world, has an impact on how we experience the whole”. Airbnb’s clean, flat and simple user interface design adds to the whole experience when users use their services. People tend to associate the visual qualities to the actual experience. For example, Airbnb features a minimal interface with sans serif typeface, showing how they value simplicity and efficiency. When users navigate their application or website, these feelings are transferred to the service itself, further reinforcing the ease of using the application, which in turn enhances the experience.

 

I believe the success of these two applications, is due to the thoughtful design and superior user experience that make users use the applications repeatedly.

Response to Week 6 reading; You are what you carry

An interesting read to put knowledge that we take for granted into words; making us reflect upon our day to day activities and how the choices we make on what we carry, how we act in our environments tell about the surroundings that we are in. What I found interesting to note was the part where the article talked about the Great Unburdening; how technology and cloud storage have helped to free up physical loads. Our smartphones itself, doubles up as a music player, a calendar, a camera, a photo album, a notebook and more depending on the application you download. Without the invention of the smart phone, we would still be carrying physical music albums, calendar, camera, photo album, notebook, pen around with us when we head out into the world. However, despite the physical strains that technology have relieved us of, it is important to note how this Great Unburdening has actually affected us on a psychological level. Because a single item carries so many functions and items, the value of these objects increases exponentially, thus impacting the range of distribution and how closely we hold these objects. That said, going digital does not only impact the range of distribution in this way. Chipchase also mentions how going digital allow “those yo-yo strings (to be) longer, in terms of physical distance, time distance and distance from consciousness”, thus allowing us the range of distribution to be much longer. It allows us to access these items stored in the digital sphere almost instantly, essentially snapping back the yo-yo string anytime and anywhere we please. Chipchase also mentions that going digital enables us to juggle many more strings at once. Though this may be a good thing, I tend to be skeptical on the psychological burden that may have on people due to such digitization. Because of this accessibility and power, life has inevitably become much more complex. A blurring of work and life balance since people are reachable even past working hours, a presentation may include so many more mediums like video, photography, people have no excuse of being late or have trouble finding a place due to google maps…

Another point that I found very interesting is the idea of predictive shipping. Reading that part of the article, I found it to be rather far-fetched and futuristic. However, I will not be surprised if in 5 years down, this sort of predictive shipping as Chipchase mentions become a norm. We can already see predictive advertising, where advertisers use algorithms to select and show advertisements that they think certain groups of people would be interested in. I often get advertisements of products that I have previously browsed but not buy online. Personally, I do not like such selective advertisements. Though it is definitely more cost effective for advertisers to target only a certain group of people for their products and not waste resources advertising to people who definitely would not buy their goods, I feel that this kind of advertising borders on a stalking behavoir and limits options and diversity of choices in this world. Even though I might not be interested in cars but should an interesting advertisement on cars come up, I would want to watch it or browse it as well.

In conclusion, this article was a stimulating read to reflect upon ourselves and be more critical and analytical of what we already know. I think that the essence of User experience is really to be reflective upon what seem to be normal and common practice to us; taking a step back and looking at these norms in a different light to uncover insights on what it tells us about an environment or a culture.