0. How Do We Get There From Here?
Presenting a Series on Designing Preferred States
The most common definition of Design that you’ll find at the Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Design usually has something to do with preferred situations. This is taken from a former CMU professor and Nobel laureate, Herbert Simon. He believed Design was a process to make the world a better place.
This series is exploring the distance between ideas and theories that have shaped Design. Each essay has a specific focus as it relates to Design and the Design Thinking Process.
In earlier planning stages, I was thinking about this series as five questions for the future of Design. Looking toward the future is at the heart of moving into preferred states, which is why I chose to reposition these articles for new or novice designers.
By repositioning these articles to be more personal, individuals can reflect on their practice and personal notions of a preferred state. As Design practitioners, we’re all growing and changing with our practice. Each project that comes to close is another ring within our trunk.
Structure and Context
The articles presented in this series draw on an array of influences. I’m currently in a master’s program where I’ve had the privilege of exploring a variety of topics from IDEO to AI. This has broadened my scope for these articles. I’m particularly thankful to professors Jonathan Chapman, Molly Steenson, Marti Louw, and John Zimmerman for taking the time to share their expertise with me.
Writing these articles has taken me through the fields of Design, Human Computer Interaction, Media Theory, and History. Some of this research illuminated deeper disciplinary interconnectedness. Other research felt meandering and was left on the side of the road while passing through more interesting territory.
Ultimately, the diverse mix of ideas came together to form robust models and concepts for Design.
Each article was written to be read independently. For curious readers, there is a description of the series at the bottom with a link to the series. The articles were written with the order below in mind:
- Don’t Spill the Drinks: A New Metaphor for Design Thinking
- The Empathy Boogie
- But It Smelled So Good: Burning Your Tongue on Freshly Bakes Cookies
- Seeing the Forest for the Trees
- Designing To Be Self Directed
- What’s Good? A Co-Design Experiment with AI
Algorithms
I am not an expert, but I am interested in using expert methods to reveal something new in the distance between ideas. The last article, What’s Good?, is a research proposal for building an algorithm to autonomously design posters based on Swiss design. Having never built a machine learning algorithm, I had to do a lot of homework. Please forgive any errors in oversimplification.
Learning to Talk Good
This project, aimed at aspiring Designers, has made me reflect on the language and communication within Design. Words like “users,” “intervention,” and “immersive” are common terms in practice that Designers easily forget that this coded language excludes novices and the public.
To increase inclusion in this conversation, every article uses images and metaphors to make abstract concepts more concrete. All images are my own illustration and original to this project.
Lastly, these articles aim to use accessible language. Medium recommends writing for the average adult reading level, which is 6–8th grade in the US. Every article falls within this range on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Analyzer.
