convivio lecture 2 – irene mcara mcwilliam
summary: her own overview said that the presentation was about exploring the different sorts of contexts in which technology is used (not just geographical or temporal, but psychological, cultural, social, etc.), and then presenting her idea of interaction design, particularly why and how it is different from other areas of design. the first section was interesting but very abstract, and more like a literary criticism lecture.
“the technological imaginary” – proposals of the future
it’s interesting to me that the idea of imagining technology is seen as synonymous with imagining the future
talks about the way our hopes and fears are projected into the technological imaginary. i applaud that insight. that new movie about the people using the internet to come back from the dead makes me fall on the ground in hysterics.
she talks about the relationship between the technological imaginary and the reality of what is developed, saying that our ideas are influenced by what we see in art, and i say of course. but it seems more interesting to me to think that the same underlying cultural forces are working on both artists and technologists, so of course there is a dialogue between them, but a) it is a dialogue – what technologists imagine impacts what artists imagine as much as vice versa, and b) it is not coming from nowhere.
she uses the idea of the impact of the imaginary to frame a point about the impossibility of neutral design, saying that it is the designer’s job to identify assumptions. she is talking about understanding the full context in which design takes place.
disposable camera study
[tuned out to think about the idea that what i need most right now is a string of projects that are taken from inception to production, so maybe i should apply at ideo? or smaller places like that one where josh wanted to work. thinking there are a few pieces – the architecture piece, the knowledge of how things get made, the design of the annotation interaction]
she is saying interesting things about the idea of the home, and the office place, and where things are really going to be used, but i am not sure what to write about. her points do not strike me as novel, though they are good. rather broad, though, or something… “think about important things when you design” thanks, cap’n.
write about the relationship between personal and professional design.
she gives an example of a lightshow and calls it user-centered because it was designed from the perspective of the viewer. this reminds me of arvind’s comment yesterday about the music glove being user-centered because it was designed with the hand in mind, and our discussions in the speckled group about the idea of using the specks as an art installation. this makes me feel like it is important to make a distinction between “human-centered” in the sense that things are designed with the psychology and biology of the human species in mind, and “human-centered” in the sense that designs are motivated by existing needs or desires that grow from observations of or discussions with a group. interaction design is definitely a powerful foundation for artistic expression, but this, to me, is a different sort of design than the user-centered design that i have spent the last two years learning to value. maybe here is the line between art and craft that i always wanted to bicker with marty about. and maybe this is the difference between interaction design, in the european sense, and hcid, as the school of informatics are attempting to define it. so what parts of our training overlap and where do they diverge? i should write more about this.
[coffee break]
now a more concrete discussion of her theory of interaction design
“ID is the design of the dynamics of the relationships between system and user(s)”
the word dynamics is what signifies a new type of design, because it means we are dealing with time and timings, rather than exclusively the form or shape of a material. “so actually you are all becoming choreographers. you are making products dance.” that’s a very nice metaphor.
so the designers job is to imagine the space in which the system will be used, and design the affordances and aesthetics to suit that space.
i like the way that involving time as a part of the medium makes it easier to explain the difference between a static interface and the full space of interaction. i think erik would say that the digital material interacts with time differently than other materials, so it is the work of the i designer to understand that, but the metaphor of choreography across time is very helpful.
she refers to the “digital material” as synonymous with code, and lists it an element of interaction design. so a piece of the dance, along with the media, the interaction modalities, the locations, and the users. but the overriding “material” of design is time, or better put, spacetime. so it is not just finding the material, as erik strives to do, it is realizing that the material stretches across more than 3 dimensions. “it is about things that change. we are looking at design through a different axis.”
it sounds so simple. i think it is mindblowing. it ties together a lot of ideas that i’ve been unable to phrase. w00t.
the digital material allows us to design in an additional dimension. programmable interactivity is the key. so we are stepping into a new space. the digital paint works because it is timed to coincide with events that we personally control. the digital layer of objects is possible because we can control behavior through time. “i want this object to have this property at this time, or at the time that it resides in this space, or near this person.” it makes objects malleable across contexts. but it’s not actually the digital that does this, is it. we could make time-release objects, keyed objects that change in different hands upon authentication, weather-driven objects… the digital is a particularly useful resource, but it is not the only one. it is the only one that can exist in more than one place, though? i think so. maybe that is the shift that has pushed us to define a new profession. spanning locations enables networking, which produces possibilities for interactions that would be impossible with isolated objects that changed over time.
it’s stepping up to a higher level of design, along with a step up to higher levels of information. are there more levels? i’m not sure i can imagine them.
irene’s design philosophy: moving from ‘automated dreams’ (‘smart’ homes, ‘intelligent’ machines, ’emotional’ computing, computer ‘memory’) to the social construction of technology.
(where and how do we think of our metadata now? can computers manifest our existing metaphors rather than creating new, shining abstract ones?)
her final points really resonate with me – using technology to leverage human strengths rather than make machines smarter. she speaks of tools, which is language that has drawn me from day one, and “promoting cultural and cognitive wellbeing as the dominant ‘technology'” is interesting.
so how does the artistic perspective fit with that. is it the artistic conscience rather than the industrial? i still feel like i don’t fully understand the dance between art and practicality. art has purpose, and motivates. i believe this deeply. but i still see design as broader than art. i think there is a different responsibility.
the example of the chairs and buildings that light up to indicate activity. or the light up wallpaper.
these are things that improve the quality of life, but only within the bop.
is that my reservation?
her comments on design vs art – not done in galleries, not done alone, the output is multiplied and distributed into the fabric of everyday life
an understanding of aesthetics is one important aspect of design, but it’s not just about aesthetics
but i don’t think art is only about aesthetics, which is the root of my old complaint i guess.
but underneath it all are the questions that drive you to design, that define the design space within which the aesthetics are applied. these goals of supporting community and making social spaces more engaging are very interesting, and the potential implications of a wider sense of community engagement are not something that i want to underestimate or dismiss. but they exist for the most part in a space of privilege that is not my greatest motivator, and their potential for wider impact does not seem to be that often realized. we are exploring, and prototyping, and visioning, and that is good. but in the meantime there is a lot of shit happening in the world to which touch-sensitive lighted wallpaper doesn’t really bring much to bear, and so i think that i want my design space to be defined somewhat differently.
but how?
by the degree to which i can help people build ladders.