Thoughtful Interaction Design
A Design Perspective on Information Technology
By Jonas Lowgren and Erik Stolterman
Being thoughtful is about being reflective. To reflect means that you use your critical mind to examine your role as a designer; …… A thoughtful designer is someone who takes on design as a serious and important task and who tries to become a designer with the ability to create fascinating, authentic, and useful digital artifacts.
We as a designer are aware that what we create is able to influence people, like spreading a message through the work. However, do we actually know the definition of being a designer? As designer, it is important to understand what our roles and responsibility is about.
The definition of a designer online, “a person who plans the look or working of something prior to it being made, by preparing drawings or plans.”
In this reading, it allows us to understand further on our role as a designer and make us think of what make one a “good” designer. This reading also talked about the relationship between a designer, the client and the users.
The client typically pays for the design work and makes final decisions about whether the results are acceptable.
To be honest, it is easy to forgo our role as a designer when facing difficult client. Like the sentence above, the client have the final say in everything as they are the one paying for the final product. The reading also mentioned that every design process is unique and the outcome can never be predicted. Sometimes, many designer chose to let go of certain aspect in the process of satisfying the client expectation and deadline. However, it is all part of the design process and it’s something designer must go through.
If the outcome can be predicted, it is by definition not a design process.
Jellyfish Barge
Jellyfish Barge is a greenhouse boat, a floating crop cultivator that does not rely on soil, fresh water or chemical energy. It purifies salt or polluted water with desalination units that produce up to 150L of clean water per day. Also, Jellyfish Barge is built with low cost technologies and simple material like recycled plastic drums. With technology, user can monitor and control Jellyfish Barge remotely. This creation do not need any power source but generate with solar panels.
This is created with regards to the prediction of global demand for food that will be 60-70% higher than today. Agriculture is the human activity that relies most on the existing water resources. Due to the change in climate, many areas are more vulnerable to the problem of water and food. With this creation, no water is needed to grow agriculture and produce more food which helps solve the problems faced.