2016年9月23日金曜日

Architectural Critique of Connected Utopias by Thomas Wendt




Thomas Wendt started his talk with Prometheus story, how he deceived Zeus and got punished forever because of his actions to help human. Compared to his brother Epimetheus, it's interesting that he is the one who think things forward(Pro), not afterward(Epi).

He criticized connected world from 3 dimensions which are (in)visibility, solutionism, and sustainability. Google is transforming NYC's payphone booths to WiFi hub and people are happy to enjoy free services, but it is not visible that we have to offer whole bunch of our private information and be exposed to ADs. We can also find "innovations for innovations' sake" such as Egg Minder the smart egg tray and Pooper the solution that makes other people get your dog's poop.

He said he didn't have solutions but he suggested a few disciplines not to be a part of think-less world of connectedness. We designers must have ecological thinking, considering how we dwell. Being cunning, critical, political, and co-operative will help.

This was the best talk of the day for me. what he pointed out have been concerning me these days - designers not conscious enough of the consequences. Using tech because it is a trend. Producing apps for making apps. It gave me a wonderful opportunity to check my design philosophy of why I am designing things for whom.

2016年9月22日木曜日

Connecting conversation by Alastair Somerville

Alastair Somerville is specialized in sensory UX. He gave us an insightful talk about how inclusive design that users can perceive/understand/take action of well is important to products. There are always gaps between product and person when we designers try to compress meaning while users try to extract meaning.



For example, we can find proprioception from new iOS10 home button design, users have to change their action to use the product. Chronoception is a similar concept of cognitive slop time. Those gaps make users irritated and confused.

In the workshop, we tried to communicate with others without talking and seeing, only with touching and it was extremely difficult to make them understand what we meant. We often design things that we believe they are understandable but it doesn't work for many cases. Because it's users who make meaning.

After he talked about senses and meanings, we had time to think about emotions. Emotion coat sensory experience and that's why we have to understand the importance of visceral design. We practiced to design smell to make people get out of bed at the morning, but it seemed impossible to realize the product because every person has different emotions from a certain smell. This is the question we should keep in mind - Does your product respect the emotions of its users and adapt to them?

It was a great session to start the whole conference. It gave me an opportunity to look back my way of meaning making process, and I understood deeply about the importance of offering products that's easy to perceive, understand and take action of to users by understanding them right.