convivio lecture 3 – anxo and nina
i didn’t get very detailed notes of the lectures today, largely because i was incredibly tired. the first lecture was also spectacularly boring. it covered good stuff about strategies for creative ethnography and prototyping for pervasive projects, but it wasn’t new to me, and the presentation was all text. all courier text. on a blue screen. it was frightening to anyone with memories of the blue screen of death.
the second lecture was very good, but it unfortunately involved turning the lights out and watching a story, and i couldn’t stay awake. the topic was a specific sort of storytelling in regions of india that involves a small wooden temple with stories painted on the doors. storytellers use the temple as a prompt, and the stories are commissioned by people in gratitude for wishes they have made, which figure into the stories. nina is studying these storytellers and the stories, and it was fascinating, and she also shared a story that she herself had made for her father, and turned into an animated short. that was what made me fall asleep, which i did regret.
so no specific notes, but i did get some thoughts that were triggered by one thing or another, mostly relating to user needs in the first lecture, and then design and art in the second.
[anxo]
Paparek, Victor “Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change.”
there seems to be an assumption that “quality of experience” = “proven user need” i challenge this. i can really enjoy a lot of things that i wouldn’t say that i need.
new technology enables new creativity, which can be used in powerful ways, but that does not mean the technology was needed. that’s just what people do with new things. so my question is – are there real and pressing needs that we can address through design in a direct manner? it seems obvious that we can, but then how do the impacts of that design (which seems somewhat prescriptive) compare to the unpredicted ripples of forward-thinking new tools? many great innovations were accidental repercussions of something else, but it doesn’t seem very sporting to just count on that and not look for great things to do with fewer levels of remove. but real change depends on impacts at several levels, and i wonder how realistic it is to expect ourselves to be able to see that much? is that the choreography of interaction design? it seems somewhat bigger. it is the political foresight that erik and i talk about. it is the responsible use of power. but is the seat of that power shifting? getting too babbly…
i am interested in whether there are separate schools of design that we haven’t yet been able to clearly delineate. i think the reason that the difference between art and design so interests me is that i don’t think they are as clearly separable as many people seem to. i think we can try and create a science of design, but it will be reductionistic, and it will lead to design that is devoid of some of the emotional insights that mark the best work. i think that we can also have a rather pure art of design, but it will lead to designs that are too often too narrow or abstract to be of much use. so the true designer is both a scientist and an artist.
and maybe the true scientist is, as well. :)
but that’s another question.
how does a hierarchy of needs map on to a hierarchy of design? do i believe in a responsibility to focus on more fundamental needs first? the principal motivator for a lot of the human-centered design work that gets the most lip service is something like “deepening the human sense of community”, which is a need, and a rather fundamental one really, but it is multifaceted, and it often focuses on communities that have other needs satisfied.
i sometimes feel drawn to building community between areas rather than within them, because this nongeographic sort of community seems a strength of the digital medium, but what is it based on? if i think about this more, i should write to kevin.
[nina]
art and storytelling are some of the tools of interaction design, so knowing when to use them and how and who to ask is important, but it is the shape of the experience that is the work of the designer. nina’s story works well because of the personal details. is it helping people to give those details life that is the task of design? many types of expression that used to be available to pros are now more widely possible, and sometimes i think that designing to put these tools into people’s hands is a large part of what appeals to me.