Should the ability to code separate good designers from extraordinary designers?
Day 01 & 02:
The first week of class just has me yearning for more, because even though we’ve covered some basics, I feel like there’s so much more to be covered in such a small amount of time. At the same time, these first two sessions were pretty exhausting sessions because of the mix of the history of interactive computing and then being dropped into a world of code.
We began our very first session with a small brief of the course, and our expectations of the course. We also had a discussion about whether or not designers should know how to code. We all had very similar opinions on this, as we felt that it is good for designers to know different aspects of design, which invariably includes coding as well, but also agreed that it’s not a must or a mandatory thing for designers. And that the desire to learn coding should come from their interests.
But does the ability to code come in the way of excellence for designers? It’s always debatable. Having the knowledge to code is liberating for designers, as it opens up a whole new realm of creative possibilities. The designs created can be executed exactly the way the designer intends when they know both sides of the coin. Then the duties of the design and code will fall into place, and the designer won’t need to go to a coder, and then go through multiple loopholes and thereafter change the designs. It is therefore, a huge time saver when the designer knows how to code. It can also open up the horizons of the designer, in terms of job opportunities. I personally feel that the best results comes from a designer who knows how to code.
Following a slide presentation, we came across many terms that were a refreshment of the terminologies we came across in our previous year of college. One of these terms that I wanted to explore more was hardware sketching, which I learnt, enables the user to iterate and build on their existing ideas through the form or medium of coding.
We also revised terms like natural language processing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, internet of things, user testing, UI prototyping, etc., and this was a good starting point, because it helped me differentiate between the things I know and some things I am unfamiliar with but am interested in. The discussion on IOT was another interesting topic to me, and how it’s made its way into our daily activities as though it has always been present, like home automation and security, etc. We also did a little history in between, the Mother of all Demos (1968) where the world first witnessed personal and interactive computing with the introduction of the computer mouse, to edit in real time, hypertext linking, etc.
From my experience, I feel that designing through coding does give a certain level of confidence and also makes the designer aware of what they are designing, because they understand the possibilities of actually creating such a service or product on the back-hand side of design as well, and not just the front end. It makes the designer more involved in the process, and teaches the designer how to think practically and logically.
We soon moved on to Cygwin, the terminal we used to learn about Command Line, and with regards to this, learnt some basics, and some things that are recognized and not recognized by Cygwin and how this is a case sensitive platform, as is Python. And we continued on with the basics of command line the next day and more trials and errors helped facilitate our learning. Plans were also underway for the first group assignment, to create an experience with an existing space in the N5 campus with a particular context in mind.
Beginning the next day with Kings’ puzzles, I understood the importance of binary and code that finds its existence and relevance in everyday life as in did in the olden days to convey and send messages of victory and urgency to other far off kingdoms.
I learnt about the first program to ever utilize a complete Graphical User Interface, Sketchpad (1963). It was a program that allowed man to talk graphically to a computer. It helped the designer solve a problem, by making the designer iterate and ideate probable solutions when even the designer couldn’t know what the solution to the problem at hand could be. It enabled the designer to explore, which made the computer almost like a human assistant. It consisted of a light pen that enabled the designer to draw lines and circles, and moving this pen faster would stop the current object from being drawn. Things could be dragged, shifted, made perfect shapes, deleted, etc.
Post this, we came across the Eliza chat-bot once again, and watching a video about it, allowed me to understand how Eliza would actually draw and hook people into it, as it would facilitate the conversation first by asking the user a question, not really leaving the conversation open ended. Confining the space of the user to answer generates multiple but various kinds of responses that are limited by the subject of the first question asked. And that is how Eliza would kind of trick the user to continue using the bot.
There was also a discussion about conversational agents in general, for the purpose of the assignment and the kinds we can use for our assignment. Those like text, speech, haptic, graphic and gestural.
When our group sat down to brainstorm, we wanted to fixate on the kind of conversational agent we’d like to have, and since voice based seems like the most generic form of interaction, that’s the choice we are opting for. We’re feeling optimistic about the project at hand, but it’s also kind of intimidating because of the time constraints. Will we be able to learn what we need to be able to create something like a voice based interface from scratch?
My experience with coding from my school days has certainly proved to be some kind of advantage in college, as some courses have required coding, but even with the basic understanding I’ve had, I haven’t been confident enough with coding, and it sometimes scares me, as it does most people.
My aim and hope with this course, is to complete this course, confident enough so that I don’t go running in the opposite direction when I hear the word coding. It’s always been something I’ve wanted to tackle and be up for, but this fear has held me back. Now, with this determination, I want to make mistakes, I want to be able to learn from trials and errors and I want to leave this course proud of the achievements made for the duration of this studio and have a completely finished project at the end of five weeks.
