Assignment Week 6

Day 1 – 13/9/2016 – Log of HP usage

 

0752am – Check phone battery and to reply Whatsapp messages. Batt requires recharge. Charge

0911am – Checks phone battery and put it aside

0954am – Has some questions and sent a text message to friend for assistance. Puts away

1009am – Replied to couple of text messages. Put them away

1032am – Decided to kill some time and look at Instagram updates in the train. Read some articles on Reddit

1124am – Sent a text message to a friend asking her whereabouts

1431pm – Took a peek for any notifications and battery’s remaining charge

1458pm – Checked Instagram updates

1543pm – Checked battery’s remaining charge. Left it to charge

1821pm – Took it off power supply. Read some manga

1900pm – Replied to couple of text messages

2211pm – Look at some posts on Snapchat and watch some Youtube videos and phone left untouched till next day

 

The first obvious sightings of mobile devices are usually in public spaces. Specifically in public transport when there is time to kill. Most common things to see on the screen would be replying of text messages, checking of social media or watching videos. The next common spaces would be eating areas and waiting areas. Mobile devices are taken out to kill time and reduce their sense of awkwardness while being in a public space.

 

Day 2 – No use of digital and mobile devices

I decided to attempt this exercise on the day that I would be staying at home thinking that it would be easier as I was determined to finish up on all the hands on work that I have remaining. When I was about to begin, I had to stress to myself thinking what was on the priority list. I usually keep track of my to-do lists in the main page of my phone as a reminder for datelines and which has more priority over the other. As most of my other works are kept digitally, I couldn’t refer to any.

In the midst of doing work, I decided to take a break and a usual practice of mine is to look at some Youtube videos before getting back to work and I remembered about this exercise. Not knowing what to do, I laid down on my bed and took a nap. It was torturous for a whole day not being connected to the internet. But what I realised was that, I was more inclined to more physical activities like going out for a short walk and etc to relax my mind instead of staring at the screens of my devices during every break I had.

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This week’s reading is  CH 1 from Jonas Löwgren and Erik Stolterman, Thoughtful Interaction Design, providing insights on the overview in interaction design.

A designer should constantly be questioning and be reflective on the design issue. An issue addressed should never have an immediate solution as this defeats the design process. As mentioned in the reading, the design process is always ongoing and is impossible to predict the design work. Designers should always be creating new conditions for design and produce different patterns of thinking and acting. Most importantly, we should always be improving and exercising thoughtful design.
Thoughtful design should be empathetic and not be overly focused on the brief and the criteria set by the clients. As designers, there is a need to weigh every elements involved in a particular project which includes the designer, the resource and the situation. When the need arise to tackle uncertainty and involves great risks, a designer should be considerate about his choices and decisions and to hold responsibility for the outcome.

It also mention that aesthetics should not be neglected and underestimated despite the chaos of all the design process. Aesthetics also has a role in impacting the experience as a whole. Being a designer, we hold the power to influence how we shape the outlook of the world we live in. Aesthetics is also essential on how the outcome is approached depending on how tacit the designer crafted it. A good design should be tacit and appropriate in its first impression by a user.

The reading also never specifically narrow down to the kind of design field applicable from this written knowledge. It also mention that it intends to provide design perspective for readers to widen their views and reflect on the implications. To extract the essence of understanding from this reading makes it easier without readers being judgemental on the content reference. 

 

Qn 1. When attempting to challenge the unknown and taking on big risks, do we draw a line somewhere in this venture or allow it run wild?
Qn 2. Every designer has different design process, what would be the best method to share and cultivate our different approaches as a learning process?

Week 2 Assignment – Part 2

This week reading is a chapter on Jan ChipchaseHidden In Plain Sight: How To Create Extraordinary Products For Tomorrow’s Customers.

After going through the reading, there were questions that I would subconsciously recall from the short trip out of school last week. Working and observing in groups as mentioned in the reading really does helps through meta cognitive learning. We also tend to turn a blind eye to signage be it in the form of notice boards or integrated in the infrastructure around us. Only when a situation arise would we frantically look for signage and we experienced this when we were looking for a ramp in the control station.

Also, signages would no longer appear mundane to me as it would provoke and generate questions when observing signages in the future. It would also be an interesting factor to consider when doing user studies later on.

It also answered most of my questions when I began my study on why I had to carry out certain techniques for user studies. It broadened my view on how to effectively input and apply the observations practically as part of my research studies for future design works.
Overall this reading was very much useful and raised my awareness on certain points and factors that I have always overlooked or deemed redundant when doing user studies.

 

Questions

 

1) Elaborate on formal and informal data collection?
-From my understanding formal data collection is going to the site with questions and objectives in mind whereas informal is to proceed to the context without any queries and freshly experience the phenomena of the context before settling down for discussions on discoveries. Is it along this line?

2) What would be the best method to conduct a cultural calibration in a group?
– Going to the site with questions and objectives prepared beforehand

– Discussing and asking questions while observing

– Experience and observe before discussing and asking asking questions