Category: User Experience in Design

Reading Response: Sidewalk City

Is how space designed, layout and construed  simply a work on paper or is it more?

We delve into the article exploring how legislation and human activities affect how a city system is structure.

The author interestingly brings in her postmodern perspective, deconstructing the original intent of city planning as just a mere means of creating an efficient overall structure, and introduces the concept that “urban design has responsibility to ethnography”.

And from there we learn how to marge these two diverging paradigms into a harmonious design system, where human nature and instinct coincide and live abiding the rules.

An interesting dilemma brought up is how design, being mainly placed in the hands of the elite, is couched in deep-seated political inequality, due to ignorance or indifference, further marginalizing the poor, lower income groups who make a living on the public space, by taking that space away from them. The opposing idea is one of designing with social justice in mind, to create alternative space typologies that cater to every person.

However, designers have argued that advocacy planning; keeping in mind of social concerns, have often resulted in uninspiring designs and this causes designers to lose their core focus.

The reading also presents how “lab-based”, idealistic designs wouldn’t work well in the real world, for the real world is fraught with social issues and needs that need to be addressed in design.

“Intelligent design solutions require a deeper understanding of the design problem.” The writer makes a salient point by introducing how city states are an immigration hub, and design should transform itself from being native and local, to being international and cosmopolitan, to be able to suit a “heterogeneous public”.

But then so, how do we combine spatial analysis of serving the “heterogeneous public” and preserving “ethnography” and the essence of what makes the country’s sidewalks what it is?

The explanation of the solution is definitely easier than its execution. To build a spatial ethnography of the sidewalk, and integrate social relations and physical space, we need to use visual research methods, and also reconsider and restructure sidewalk paradigms.

This gets me thinking:

In Singapore, much of our history is erased or poorly taught and documented. This has allowed our infrastructure and sidewalks to be built representing an era post-historical baggage. This system, while efficient, does nothing to preserve whatever distinct cultural roots or local flavor that our nation has sorely lacked, and continues to come up empty with.

To preserve our waning culture, and to promote the growth of new ones, should we forgo Singapore’s deep-rooted virtues of efficacy and do some restructuring of the public space? Or should we continue on progressing towards greater modernity and not attempt to construct some space of belonging for our historical past?

 

Reading Response: Thoughtful Interaction Design

We live in a world of design and sytems, the article states, and it emphaises how important it is for us as designers to create a world structure that is easy for people to navigate.

How? Through detailed, thoughtful, knowledgeable constructs of design.

Previously through Jan Chipchase’s readings, we already know the importance of Signifiers and Affordances, and how they help us create designs that clearly bring about meanings and understandings.

But the article brings about the nature of “Good” and “Bad”, moralising design choices in relation to our objective law systems, bringing an interesting new and humane perspective onto the once otherwise methodical and impartial understanding of design.

 

A client may only be driven by his needs and wishes, but a designer is torn between many options. He has the power to change or influence the development of a society and this thus implies significant responsibility, one that “transcends the conditions of the contract”. In my personal opinion, the designer is also torn because he would wish to retain his own design sensibilities and integrity. It is difficult to measure client’s wishes, societal responsibilities and the call of integrity.

 

However, the article proposed a solution where the designer can open his perspective an see things in a different light, challenging oneself to increase “personal engagement” and “personal expression”.

I realise that applying oneself can help designers realise flaws in the existing system, and work on solutions to improve it, like learning how certain industry practises are unsustainable through personal engagement, incorporate social responsibility in his design, and create solutions through expressing himself.

In Singapore, where the design field is limited, because we do not manufacture a lot of our own products, I begin to wonder if we are truly able to manifest of designer’s social responsibility. If not, how much of our reach can we make and how much of a wider splash can we create?

 

Teamlab response

TeamLab is an “art collective” of “ultra-technologists” consisting of engineers, programmers, CG animators, graphic designers, editors and more, specializing in combing scientific advancements with artistic endeavors to create interactive art installations. They use light as a medium to paint in an unrestricted unbounded canvas existing between the physical and virtual world.

They seek to merge Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) in real life, creating interactive artwork with very strong immersiveness.

In Nature, the participants personalize and scan their drawings, and their drawings appear within the walls of the installation. The existing displays interact with the added design, creating different responses in the flora and the fauna in the virtual environment.

Based on participant’s input, the installation, which spans the entire room, changes and evolves to the input, becoming like a living, breathing atmosphere. The participants are surrounded by this mix of AR and VR, thus creating a string suspension of disbelief, creating immersiveness with the artwork.

 

I believe a lot of inspiration has been derived from past immersive interactive artworks like “Osmose” by Char Davies, where a participating immersant’s input, like body tilt and breathing movements affect the VR display.

The concept of using participant’s input to create a interactive, unregulated output allows more room for exploration and interactivity which will transform the installation in unpredictable ways.

It is always interesting to debate the difference between are and commercial work. However, history has proven that thee two are early indistinguishable. In the arts and crafts movement, the Japanese Mingei folk art movement focused on creating normal, functional pieces of art for everyday use, eschewing from their ideals of creating luxurious, “high art” objects. Even though this is essentially commercial work, it is still classified as a work of art, for the craftsmanship, stylistic explorations, and aesthetic values elevate it into a form of art. Furthermore, this movement left a mark on the artistic trends of society, creating a impact in history. I believe, with significant impact, commercial work can also be considered “art”, for art is what tracks human growth and progress over the generations
Furthermore, the pressures of modern capitalist society force artists to have to resort to producing some version of commercialised works as a way to sell. Even though this notion is commonly recognised as “selling out” and abandoning ones pure artistic ideals for monetary well-being, it is also understood to be a necessary choice made.
Thus i dont think the distinction between “art” and “commercialised work” is important today.

Reading Response: Jan Chipchase: Calibrating your cultural compass

In this chapter, we learn about different examples of designs that are suited for different climates and locations. As Jan Chipchase describes how the universal, ubiquitous Mcdonalds projects a differently designed image in every country; a homeless shelter/resting area in Japan, a mostly vegetarian place in India, and a healthier fast food alternative in France, it is clear that corporations have to design a different brand identity for themselves in different countries,

Colour shades

Imported brands have to cater themselves to the local market, by experiencing local culture and building a common understanding with the market and people’s wants and needs. For example, american beauty brands like Fenty Beauty are known for their extremely large range of foundation colours- having 40 shades in total, to cater to the Latino and African-American public.

However, in Singapore, there were less than 40 shades imported, presumably because the retailer’s understanding was that Singaporeans do not have such a dark skin tone. In places like Japan, where fair and light skin is enforced by cultural pressures of beauty, the dark shades are fully eliminated and only the light shades are sold.

 

Besides catering to local taste on the retail scale, brands marketing and image changes fro country to country too. In England, Peppa pig is just an ordinary kids TV show. However in places like Taiwan and Hong Kong, the image of Peppa pig is a symbol of societal rebellion, even leading to the ban of Peppa pig in mainland china.

Because the locals can transform and twist the imagery and meaning of a simple and harmless children’s TV show into a political figurehead of societal rebellion, this serves as an incredibly resounding reminder to brands that brand identities must be carefully curated and built together with the local community.

Reading Response: Jan Chipchase- You Are What You Carry

From our previous week’s reading, we have learnt that behaviours are learnt, adapted and shaped by the forces of our environment. Thus, people behave differently in different countries, and designers have to find different methods to communicate in different countries. I recall his next chapter on how we must walk through the actual place to have the rue in-depth understanding of the affordances, signifiers and hidden affordances of each place, sign and action.

“it never left her sight. Whats more, it never left her grasp…”

Through Jan’s story of Meili, who is consciously in a high state of awareness of the security of her bag, we learn that environmental causes results in may a change in action. For example, a place high in theft would cause people to be more wary about their precious belongings. This notion of protecting their own things calls in the debate of ownership; If we never carry around anything tangible, will the risk of theft still be present?

Jan shows us the example transferring paychecks to SIM cards in Afghanistan. Without receiver physical money, the paycheck goes to the recipient straight, without the threat of thievery via the middleman. The idea, though helpful, did not work out as planned, as recipients began to cash out immediately because they felt no sense of ownership over their money.

It seems to me that humans are stuck between the tangibility of ownership– to own something, people still feel the need to see it, to be reassured of its tangibility. This attitude is reflected in how we express ourselves– for something to be truly representative or a part of who we are, we have to make it a visible part of ourselves. In daily life, we are faced with many symbols of status. Branded products help to increase our social standing and social associations. However, displaying such products leaves us susceptible to the risk of theft or robbery. Jan Chipchase brought out the example of how apple airpods became very high targets of theft. This brings us back to our original point on tangibility.

Personally, I feel that this attitude and obsession with the tangible creates an inherent struggle which prevents us from progressing to a less object-oriented society. As Jan Chipchase puts it, there is no risk of theft if there’s no ownership. In addition, a less object-oriented society would allow us to share items, due to their lack of ownership. This ubiquity would then allow us to carry less things, thus streamlining our lives and having less things to carry and be weighed down by.

Due to environmental limitations, or simply for the sake of maximizing efficiency or even due to the human laziness, the stuff we are willing to carry are gradually becoming lesser. “use more while owning less”- if we create things with universal affordances, communal objects born will bring about benefit to the large part of the population.

 

This is evidently the direction that the modern world wishes to proceed in, as seen from the rise of eBook or music cloud sharing services, where books and music are no longer trapped within the confines of their physical selves, and can now be shared ubiquitously without the constrain of ownership.