Navigating Spaces
Week 1
How do you know what an object it?
How do you know how to pick it up, make it work?
Why do things make us feel a certain way?
I think as designers we’re sub-consciously aware of the impact of things we’re designing but we need to know how to use form to communicate as well.
At the same time, things that behave exactly as expected are boring — so as a designer, it’s important to lead the viewer but let him discover for himself. That’s what makes a piece of communication design interesting.
Calligraphy — Myrna Rosen at CMU!
Information can be organized in different ways based on audience and context.
What’s interesting to me about collecting data is how the very fact that data is being collected for study changes the data. Data is watching me watching it.
My relationship with food changes so much every time I move to a new city — linked to how much (and if) I’m earning, my age, the climate, how close the grocery stores are, restaurants, company, etc. I’d like to find out more about the co-relations (David Mccandless, Stefan Sagmeister).especially, now, lactose intolerance, allergies, significant weight loss (skinny jeans become regular fit), lack of sleep, exercise.
I might want to use my consumption of food as data points — what. how much, how many times a day, how much water, to establish patterns and remind myself.
There must be studies on the motivation that fitness apps create.
Also, food has been glamorized so much thanks to Instagram, it might be interesting to see what happens when unglamourous foods are collected. How much khichdi do I end up eating over a week?
Update (9/29)
I think this is too inward facing and self obsessed. I’d rather learn how to visualize large data sets and find relations between disparate sets (is that possible? Is it possible to discover through the process of design or do I need to have a clear idea of my goal and ‘agenda’ before I start designing? Is gathering the data and finding the co-relations the design rather than just the visual output?
Some ideas are -
Politics and economics — For example, election spending and purchasing power parity between the US, India and perhaps the UK, where spending is capped.
Week 1 — Part 2: Conceptualizing the Conceptual Model
Analyzing Experience Design 1 by Nathan Shedroff and documenting discoveries
Read Chapter 2 of Things that Make us Smart — Experiencing the World- Don Norman.
Like Stacie said, Norman tends to get very black and white about concepts. This makes it easier to understand but sometimes it raises questions. Like what happens when a task needs both forms of cognition- Experiential and reflective? It’s important to think about different ways of learning and cognition while designing.
Some of the things that I was thinking about
Flow — Does facebook induce flow or is it just habit (Skinner). Does it get more challenging?
I’m trying to tie both these in to a concept design for Austin’s class
Interesting how some examples of gamification (since it’s a buzzword now) force experiential when reflective is needed.
Experiential learning is about patterns
Reflective requires deeper thinking about — schemas — it’s based on past experiences
Could look at the structure excercise from the point of view of different users — windowshopper at Ikea, fast finder for Lynda.
How does the format of the book affect how it’s perceived? Does a landscape mode ‘afford’ coffee table books?
I had a hard time making sense of the structure of ‘Experience Design’ by Nathan Shedroff. It’s a really cool looking book with a ton of great examples from diverse fields. So I just sat down with it and a bunch of post-its.
The team exercise we did really helped me to start seeing some kind of structure in how I viewed this book. So in hindsight, maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t see/understand the table of contents immediately.
Sketching the conceptual model
I kind of saw the different spreads as individual elements that fit into a larger ‘section’ structure that fits into the book’s structure. Certain themes or concepts seem to run into others. I tried to capture this visually.
Then I felt maybe I was being too abstract so I dove into each of the things he talks about. That’s the list of topics numbered on the left, the arrows in pencil showing the order that makes sense to me, the diagram in pencil showing the ‘form’ of each ‘Act’. And the names of the Acts themselves (because after delving in deeper, I felt it was becoming too granular)
I’m not sure if we need to visualize the conceptual model but it makes sense to me to see areas of hard concepts and vague possibilities and interconnections flowing visually.
But I think I will stick to the 7 broad Acts in the book for now.
Week 2- Visual analysis
Documenting the visual components according to Lynch
We were to identify key pages in our respective pieces and then analyze how our eye floes across them. I think the idea was to identify patterns in the layout, consistencies (and exceptions to the rule) and what they say about the content, how they make sense in the context of the overall piece.
Below I’ve marked out the sections in the first key page (which is an example).
The second one I did was much more ‘graphic-centered’ so the analysis is quite different.
The common thing about both the spreads is that though the layout and focus is so different, the text is the last thing that you would see or read.
So though the content is very dense and serious like in a text book, the visual hierarchy and flow almost defines it as a coffee table book.
Week 2 — Part 2: Re-conceptualizing the Conceptual Model
Diagramming the structure
Over the weekend, I spent some time with the conceptual model again and tried to figure out the best way that I could communicate the gist of the book to someone else.
Mapping the visual components according to Lynch
The next task was to align the visual flow done in the previous class to Lynch’s definitions of nodes, districts, paths, landmarks and edges. I found it really difficult to find a consistent pattern in Experience design 1 since each spread is laid out so differently. And there are not many clear graphical markers of the spaces or flow (sometimes text is in a bigger, bolder font).
I felt the key markers were based more on the textual content on each page rather than a visual one. Sometimes, it is visual as well though but it’s only apparent that it’s a marker when you go through the contents of the entire book and then retrace your steps to create a flow.
As you can see, there’s not much consistency in the page types.
So instead, what I chose to do was find the landmarks, paths, districts, edges and nodes within the content using my conceptual model.
This time I decided to use color to show the co-relation.
The literal map was completely unintentional. I initially started by using the same forms I had used in the conceptual model but it evolved into a sections that were interrelated, led to a goal and were contained within a broader space of ‘sensorial design’
Week 3
Documentation processes
Last week we went through each others documentation to figure out what styles made the most sense.
I know with mine, it’s been more of a documentation of my process and perhaps not as introspective. Some people had really descriptive text and some had very well worked out image compositions.
Though we did agree on some best practices, I haven’t managed to pull all of in yet. But I’m definitely going to be more descriptive of my work. I tend to write points on a white board or sheet of paper while I’m working but I’ve realized that sometimes just taking a photo of that isn’t enough. Like someone said in class, the idea of the documentation is so that it’s easy for someone else to see your process and if needed, replicate it.
I got really great feedback on how I could improve some of the post (adding a GIF to the visual analysis post). I was a little surprised that some suggested that I write more and some that I don’t write so much. I think highlighting the key learnings is a good approach.
Reviewing the conceptual models and applying visual design principles
The next day we reviewed each others conceptual model (this time it was mapped to Lynch’s principles in ‘Image of the City’. Dixon and I paired up and it was really helpful since both of us are dealing with similar problems of communicating the structures of our books. I’ve also noticed a pattern — the books seem to have more complex structures than the websites. Maybe it’s to compensate for the overly linear format of a book and to break the tendency to read it from left to right? While a website inherently encourages non-modal interactions so a very clear structure helps users orient themselves easily. Has the format of books changed as the web has grown popular for mass consumption?
I don’t know if we directly answered the questionnaire but I did get some ideas of how to show the randomness and the fact that you see the structure only if you try really hard.
Some of the visual examples we spoke of were -
- Puzzles
- Magic eye drawings
- Pointillism
- Tetris
The idea was to convey how the you don’t see the structure till you put the pieces together. I don’t know how to do it but I like the magic eye idea and pointillism since it builds in viewing distance — a form of user interaction with the poster.
Iterations
I’m trying to incorporate how two different colors (corresponding to disparate themes in the book) can combine to create the impression of a third.
The problem with this is that the images from the piece and the conceptual model look completely divorced. Also, putting in one example from a district for example, doesn’t really indicate a district made of multiple units.
This is proving to be the hardest part of the exercise since I didn’t derive the conceptual model based on the visual elements at all. In fact, I had to learn to ignore the graphical backgrounds to read the content (text). The images were more helpful in the example spreads but that it’s shape my conceptual model either.
The other feedback was that the shapes didn’t make sense without me explaining them.
Another direction I tried was moving from the bottom up. I was wondering if it was possible to show that sensorial design (the end) and experience design (the beginning) are the same thing.
This wasn’t making too much sense going into the book when concepts ‘bleed’ into each other.
The grid format below is an attempt to stay true to the linearity of the book, show the groups and the fact that the my conceptual grouping of them doesn’t match the page order.
I wasn’t sure about the images so I mapped out a grid of just the titles and acts. This one looked too boring.
The borders and labels look too stark and overwhelming so I went back to the overlays this time using ‘Multiply’ instead of lowering the opacity and adding a border.
I went back to using the images, this time using ‘Multiply’ instead of lowering the opacity and adding a border.
Prints
I think type size works fine. I don’t want it to stand out too much. Initially I was worried that it would look too busy with the cutouts but now I think it’s fine. The only thing I need to add are the masks for the page titles and possibly connections between the pages.
Getting there
The sequence of the thumbnails follows the sequence of the book. I’ve converted the image to grayscale — earlier the colours of the spreads were interfering with the blocks.
I’ve also used warm and cool colours to signify concepts that can be grouped together. The font seems too light on screen but I need to take a print to check for that.
The final poster
This poster communicates my conceptual model and experience of the book ‘Experience Design 1’ by Nathan Shedroff. The book is meant for linear reading as a text book but the form is that of a coffee table book. In the poster, based on my reading of the contents, I superimposed my structure onto the existing order. The spreads in the background allow for viewers’ own interpretations of the book.
