“The landscape as well as the city are both highly structured, and our existence is furnished with many different kinds of devices and technological systems. These are what instruct people in contemporary societies ‘how to live.’”-De Vries
There is a wealth of design and social science literature that suggests that the artifacts we use shape […]
Entries Tagged as 'Design'
Balancing Values & Usability
November 7th, 2007 · 3 Comments
All Games Are Serious!
October 28th, 2007 · 1 Comment
Today a classmate of mine, Aaron Houssian, presented his research plan for a serious game framework. His well-done presentation and this interesting discussion prompted me to think about serious games of all varieties.
According to Wikipedia, a serious game is a software application developed with game technology and game design principles for a […]
Interesting Commentary On Smart Homes / Design / Technology / Humanity
October 23rd, 2007 · No Comments
Here is a presentation I found last year when I was Marty’s RA, looking for new material for his course. - http://web.archive.org/web/20040407205056/www.richgold.org/SMART/HTML/slide2.html
This guy, Rich Gold, was a researcher at PARC before he passed away. Pretty cool stuff, my favorites are:
Present-at-Hand & Ready-to-Hand in Interaction Design
October 16th, 2007 · 4 Comments
Recently, Heidegger’s concepts of present-at-hand and ready-at-hand have been mentioned in readings for both Jeff’s class and Erik’s class. I find the implications of these concepts interesting for interaction designers and want to examine them further. A fundamental question for an interaction designer being introduced to these concepts is:
Should products be designed to be ready-to-hand, […]
A New Vocabulary & Gesture of Sketching
September 23rd, 2007 · No Comments
In Buxton’s book ‘Sketching User Experience’ he talks about the nature of sketches. He says sketches are fast, cheap, plentiful, ambiguous, etc. He also talks about how sketches have their clear vocabulary and distinct gestures. Examples of this vocabulary and gestures would be how lines extend through endpoints and how they are not tight or […]
Tags: Design
Tools For Interaction Design - Experience Prototyping & Beyond
September 23rd, 2007 · No Comments
I have been thinking about Erik Stolterman’s lecture about design. A large part of the lecture was about the tools and materials used by designers. He used a carpenter analogy and stressed that the skilled designers, including carpenters, carefully select the tools they use for a task.
As interaction designers, one of the most […]
Tags: Design