What’s this thesis about? So here you go the 5 cent tour of what my thesis topic is.

This thesis centrally concerns itself with the ways that ideas, concepts and decisions are being presented in the environment of web 2.0.  Assuming that graphic design must evolve over the next ten to fifteen years, the time is now for the discipline to define itself. With that I feel that the current systems in place are taking away the rights, freedoms and democracy that the web was originally build upon, leaving these decisions to a select few individuals. A non-level playing field is being established in the types of relationships that are being developed and propagated on-line. Graphic designers across all levels are failing to actively engage with this discourse. The community is currently populated by a large amount of amateurs and only a select few intermediate and advanced graphic designers. This is causing the identity of the field to be overrun by tutorials, spam and image barf, which isn’t really what graphic design is all about. An increased presence of working professionals and experienced designers would shift this identity to conversations of more thoughtful discourse, allowing all to have a voice in the way the discipline is defined as we move foreword.

ABOUT FACE 3 – By: Alan Cooper

Chapter 5:
Successful products meet user goals first. When users are commonly using a product over and over again it is important to make their tasks easier. The designers of this product need to be aware of the needs and tasks of their users. When developing personas we as designers can gain an aptitude to better understand the users and their needs.

ABOUT FACE 3 – By: Alan Cooper

Chapter 4:
Understanding product, the ways they are used, why they are used and what makes them beneficial are hurtles to overcome in creating successful design. By conducting and understanding research (both qualitative and quantitative) designers can better plan for addressing these problems. Under many circumstances this research will prove to change the final outcomes and deliverables of the brief.

In chapter 4 Cooper discusses the value of qualitative research in the design process. Different from research driven to create stats and graphs, qualitative research aims to drill down into the process to realize what is failing/not working in the system in which a design operates. This process focuses on empathy. With a better understanding of the people who are using, buying, selling, manufacturing the product designers can make decisions to better suit the audiences that the design needs to serve.

THE DESIGN OF EVERYDAY THINGS – By: Donald A. Norman

Chapter 4:
One of the most intreging parts of this chapter came in the Cultural Constraints section. I can see this issue becoming a vary large issue in the field of interaction design because of the wide audience that a design has to access. In graphic design (traditional terms) our target markets are much more clearly defined. When making a poster or logo for a particular event or company they have a very clear idea of who this piece needs to reach. But in interaction design how do you make it so that what you have done is understandable throughout many cultures? The example that Norman uses is with color, but I can see this being only the start of issues or norms that an interaction designer has to deal with cross-culturally.

The Crystal Goblet of Interaction Design Should Be Invisible?

THE DESIGN OF EVERYDAY THINGS – By: Donald A. Norman

Chapter 3:
“If a (successful) design depends upon labels, it may be faulty. Labels are important and often necessary, but the appropriate use of natural mappings can minimize the need for them. Whenever labels seem necessary, consider another design.”

Norman brings up an interesting point about the ways in which people interact with physical elements. The mapping of objects (Norman uses a stovetop to illustrate this problem) is many times incorrect and not laid out in a parallel manner to the way our minds think. Interactions can become hard for us to understand when the controls do not translate into the actions we think they should. Many of these mismappings can relate to breaking conventions. For example, in the west we read left to right, top to bottom. Because of this we can have an immediate misunderstanding when an interaction starts at the lower left. In the stovetop example Norman shows how the knobs to turn on a burner may not translate to give expected results.

Does this type of interaction not illustrate that interactions should go off as seamless? When a user has to put thought towards getting what they want done it is not successful. The design should be invisible. Arguably the most successful designs are the ones that we may not even notice.

ABOUT FACE 3 – By: Alan Cooper

Chapter 13 & 14:
In these chapters of About Face Cooper only pushes the idealistic notion of invisable interaction design. When explaining various different types of interfaces (implementation-centric, metaphoric, idiomatic) it became hard for me not to ask why these different applications can not act in connection with each other. An interaction design is a system and within this system there needs to be a built in sense of redundancy. It can work as a sort of bail out methodology. If a metaphoric approach is not completely accurate can a idiomatic system not also be in place for this same interaction? I would argue that you see this happening on websites quite often. Navigation is a largely redundant system. You can click this icon link at the top, the text link in the footer or the image link in the post. Because of this the interaction is mapping ad explaining itself in many different ways at the same time. If a user does not understand one of the interactions they can default to another one.

Click image for larger view.

THE DESIGN OF EVERYDAY THINGS – By: Donald A. Norman

Chapter 2:
In chapter 2 Norman brings up an interesting point about the way human’s interact with things that fail. We tend to blame ourselves for not having successful interactions. Norman states, “Suppose I try to use an everyday thing, but I can’t: Where is the fault, in my action or in the thing? We are apt to blame ourselves. If we believe that others are to use the device and if we believe that it is not very complex, then we conclude that any difficulties must be our own fault. ”

I believe that this tendency may be changing. When writing this (1988) things, and especially technology, were very different. I believe in our current culture we are more aware of design then we have ever been before. Companies like Apple have placed design in the spotlight in their product line and marketing campaigns. Also with technology and the internet still bombing there is a tendency for people to run into things that just flat out don’t work. Under this context I think that we are more comfortable to look at interactions and understand that things not working may not always be the users fault.

ABOUT FACE 3 – By: Alan Cooper

Chapter 2:
Designing is all about knowing your audience and this still applies in interaction design. It seems a little obvious that we do not need to understand the amount of work or what is going on in the background during actions, they just need to work simply. Cooper says that, “It is critical that designers understand in detail the way their target users think about the work they do with their software.” This is because many of the interactions need to rely on norms to make them easier to understand. The example used in the book illustrates what when Adobe designs features inside of Photoshop they base them on outcomes and visual reference (though Photoshop works technically through complex algorithms and math).

Chapter 3:
The level that users make an interaction comes at 3 levels, beginners, intermediates and experts. Though many people come in quickly at the beginner level, most users fall under the immediate level. I think that this is because there is a standardization that is happening with interactions, again because we are paying more attention to design then ever before. For example, when working on a mac you can be comfortable within any program because of the consistency of the top menu bar.

Between different manufactures and programs that do very different tasks, the “file” menu will always perform a similar function. By doing this users can quickly move from the level of beginner to proficient intermediate.

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Please visit the EMERGENT STRUCTURES BLOG for the full project post.

Please visit the EMERGENT STRUCTURES BLOG for the full project post.