Designing Lives

Now is a good time to be a designer, especially in the field of information technology. The article mentions that digital artifacts (designed things built around information technology) are so incorporated in our daily lives that designers who deal with such artifacts are in turn designing people’s lives. With the complexity of digital artefacts and the different factors involved in the process, there are bound to be hiccups and aspects of a design that people may not be satisfied with. Thus, the article calls for thoughtful designers. The world needs designers that are reflective – designers who use their critical mind throughout the design process.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Perhaps to people who do not know better, they might perceive the article to be glorifying the work of designers. However, I thought that the article gave due credit to designers for the amount of thought and consideration (read as blood, sweat, tears and brain cells) put into designing something worthwhile.

What then are designers doing that is so complex? design theory is process oriented, in which each process is unique. These unique processes involve chance, forcing designers to challenge the unknown, create the not-yet existing. I would then conclude with an example of a digital artifact that deals with people’s lives by better managing the different platforms that we use as internet natives.

If this then that works by connecting the different social media and internet platforms like instagram and Facebook together or gmail with applets.

For instance, you can receive email updates on the weather from a weather website or post Instagram posts on Facebook when the applet is activated. This site saves time spent online and is an innovative design that I would strive for as a designer.