Experience Design

http://www.kstoolkit.org/Storytelling

An open question was left at a former post : Reading Facts. which I wish to revisit. When knowledge is not valued over its ability to be fast or slow what does is become? The issue with fast or slow knowledge rests on the delivery form factor, ie through computation (kindle, ipad internet) or not. The ability for the message to be lost due to the form factor it becomes delivered through has change dramatically due to technology in the past 10 years. Marshall Mcluhan said “the medium is the message” This statement has become widely accepted when discussing media theory especially print material. We are acutely aware of how content delivery changes between tabloid news, newspaper news, and news Television, and that is only taking into account a line of similar content. As content types diversify the ability of the medium to affect the message is compounded. There is a lively debate in academia as to how new media devices are affecting education and to that extent society. The level of pervasiveness within technologies like the internet, smart phones, computation and the like are having on sectors of society across all economic positions remains a huge challenge from both a standard of living access point but also a society & educated populace stand point. Because of that, education is on the head of the technology spear. The ubiquitous nature of information technologies has forced the systems of education to reevaluate their methodologies for better or worse. However I believe there is a massive gaping hole in the collective thinking process of education when it comes to communication technologies. Ubiquitous computation is seen as a barrier to teaching methodologies due to the nature and speed at which computational devices alter and change and access of content especially the content that is attempting to be taught through the teacher. The 19th century education model still dominates a vast majority of theory of education system especially k-9.

I don’t teach in k-9 but I would imagine it would be super difficult to dish out lessons, mandated curriculum and dated textbooks when a majority of that content can be accessed, parsed and delivered at the touch of a mouse. I am not saying that the speed of the information age is a bad thing, I can only imagine how it throws a wrench in to the teaching methodologies of countless classrooms. Similarly I am not suggesting that there should be a free fore all on the Internets access and ubiquitous nature. Many have discussed the difficult bind to which education is in and me rambling on about it is not really the point especially when there are writers & educators like Sr. Ken Robinson. But education has to find a what to establish what it means to be educated in our modern times.  Is this going to be based on the old model of memorization and specialization or will it me more the ability to ask the right question and be endlessly curious with the ability to use technology to not only find the answer but contribute back to how the questions are asked?

I do believe that the ubiquitous nature and speed of our current technology has had a profound impact on our ability to tell stories. It is arguable that we have more stories then ever before and I would agree with that, however, it is purely an outcome of access not quality. The saying quality over quantity has never been more appropriate than when speaking about the internet and the amount of content that is added to it knowledge bank daily (to which I am adding with this blog). Therefore I believe that a fundamental piece that is missing in education is truly great storytelling skills, conceptual thinking and lateral thinking methodologies and subsequent devices to assist those skills. The ubiquitous catch all nature of computers is, in my opinion, having a detrimental impact on thinking out side the computer and impacting the skills of students, designers, teachers, and businesses.

I recently took place with the generosity of the AIGA Los Angeles Organization in the Student Portfolio day as a reviewer. Although I did not review hundreds of portfolios, one thing that I was immensely disappointed in was the lack of storytelling when in came to presenting visual ideas and solutions. Students seemed to have a prescribed set of things in their somewhat unimpressive collections of work. It made me sit back and think about what it is that a designer does? In the 5 portfolios I looked at it felt as if I was looking at a predetermined script. It went something like this. 1 to 2 logos with 1 of those logos as a letterhead business card etc, 1 to 3 print posters (just the solutions no context), 1 to 4 ad campaigns (non of them a systems of ads just a single advertisement),  1 to 3 editorial spreads (no context), 1 package (a cd jewel case, no context), and 2 to 3 misc illustrations, photographs, or typography pieces (again no context).  Each having between 12 and 15 pieces. Only one person had even the hint of digital competency with an overwhelmingly simple html site but I gave her some slack because she was only a sophomore as USC and I appreciated the gusto to get evaluated at such a early stage in her schooling. However the predicted procedural nature of the portfolios made me stand back for a second and say wait? Is this really how education views the role of designers? Has the system of curriculum’s and dated industrial needs reflected so poorly on the skill sets of designers? Can we as visual professionals be so quickly summed up.  My frustration with the lack of story telling lead me to be quite harsh on my last review of the day. I told my student. “Yes you have the required 15 pieces of work that has some how been determined this makes you a designer, however I know nothing about you! You have not told me a single story or lead me along any thinking path that has convinced me that your visual solutions are the correct ones.” I followed it up with “a logo and business card are the baseline of designer however if you can not tell me a story or show me that you have a making and thinking methodology then I really don’t care about your work. Period.  I want to know if you draw, how many images you collected how many versions you did, why you chose to do this the question you asked the things you were looking at and thinking about when you made it.  If I was going to hire you which I am not, I would want you. Not a prescribed set of 5 to 8 baseline skills, yes they are necessary but not unteachable in industry. If I were you I would find a way to let your portfolio be a mirror of your passion and your ability to think and think as a designer not the curriculum of your design education”  After going a bit of a rant I said I was sorry for being overly harsh but without it all the work becomes useless to which he disappointingly agreed.

After all the reviews were over the reviewers and educators gathered as a recap of the day. During the discussion a number of  reviewers shared the same frustration with a lack of personality and passion and storytelling in their students work. I am convinced that this lack of story telling is based in the narrow minded approach most educational systems are equating to design. Design rather than a thinking approach is a determined set of skills. However the collection of design professionals siting in the room were disgusted with the lack of understanding of what industry is looking for out of our design education systems. It seemed to me the design education systems were looking to teach predetermined skills where industry was looking for creative visual thinkers. Somewhere there is a missing element in the teaching of skills to designers. I believe that skill is storytelling. Design is not making a logo, the logo is the culmination of visual problem solving that requires a huge set of skills including design research, anthropology, biology, visual taxonomy, system thinking, business, drawing, computer skills, history etc etc.

“Design is that area of human experience, skill and knowledge which is concerned with man’s ability to mould his environment to suit his material and spiritual needs.” _archer, B

This lack of story telling could be a vision problem of education to design or it could be something more systemic as I had mentioned at the beginning of this post. Regardless of the root of misbegotten storytelling,  I think that until we as educators, designers, professionals, and thinkers articulate the importance of media specific storytelling methodologies and start charting changes in the education delivery systems to meet these new changes, our society will start to see the growing effects and missed opportunities from not teaching and learning from profound stories and storytelling processes.

http://designspiration.net/image/40370/

( I wish I would have had this quote to give to the students I reviewed because passion will always trounce innate talent -

Picasso said ” inspiration does exist, but it must find you working” )

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

http://www.storynet.org/conference/index.html
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http://lightblueoptics.com/products/light-touch/

If its not a screen make it one with a projector.  Technologies are moving onto every surface.  With a projector and software, interacting with computation can occur anywhere.  It is really unimportant what the material is as long as it can have an image projected onto it, anything can be the new computer. The notion that any wall or surface can be a computer or interface with which to engage with computation establishes a value on the visual outcome of a computer. A computer and its interface can be boilded down to just light projected on a surface.

A computer is a type of machine and exisits with in the applied history and design spectrum of other machine.  When a computer becomes just a screen or just light on a surface it neglects to recognize the importance of many aspects that make the use of a machine useful fun or engaging.  Take haptics for example.

Haptics (pronounced HAP-tiks) is the science of applying touch (tactile) sensation and control to interaction with computer applications. (The word derives from the Greek haptein meaning “to fasten.”) By using special input/output devices (joysticks, data gloves, or other devices), users can receive feedback from computer applications in the form of felt sensations in the hand or other parts of the body. In combination with a visual display, haptics technology can be used to train people for tasks requiring hand-eye coordination, such as surgery and space ship maneuvers. It can also be used for games in which you feel as well as see your interactions with images. For example, you might play tennis with another computer user somewhere else in the world. Both of you can see the moving ball and, using the haptic device, position and swing your tennis racket and feel the impact of the ball.

(http://searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid183_gci212226,00.html#)

Light as a phonomonia is untangible.  One can not touch light the heat they feel from lets say a light bulb is altogether a different sensation but the bodies ability to use the sense of touch to establish knowledge about an object becomes a strong and useful tool for interaction.  Interaction with a projection on a wall or table or whatever just becomes interacting with light an altogether difficult thing. A user is not really interacting with anything rather the computer is recognizing the limited physical space to which is being projected and then compensating though the use of software and mostlikely infrared sensors located in the projector. This technology assumes that the interface of a key board is just too bulky and should be illiminated or disregarded as an experience from the interaction with the computer. However the interface and interaction with the keyboard is entirely a learned interaction and has been evolved from the collective consiousness of the typewriter and education itself.  A vast and nuanced history that has both been accepted and retaught an established truth of interface. The QUERTY is not going to redically change but somehow the idea that the physical interaction with keys is unuseful for a user of a computer negelts the ablity of the brain to memorize phyiscal space and repeat actions known as muscle memory. The phyiscality of even the simple keys to which this post has been made would have been a much different experience for my hands if I were just to project the letters onto a surface. I would imagine that my fingertips would hurt after pounding them on to a hard surface and that I would have to use more of my sight in order to correctly locate my fingers over the keyboard. The ability of a keyboard to have sutle haptic clues allows me as a user to orient my self to the interface of the keyboard with much more ease. I am speaking of the tiny raised dashes on the f and j keys. Any thing projected can’t accomplish this nuanced yet setting and orienting feature of the keyboard.

I am dismayed by the thinking that a screen is that answer to all our needs when interacting with computation.  What would a computer be if it was not screen? why do we need to interact with computation only in the visible sense? Why have computer moved away from the machines you engage and experience and into the the real of only see? All these question arise when I am confronted by technologies that imply and attempt to bring to truth that a computer is really just a screen when I think that it could be so much more such a better experience that light on a surface.

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Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

There is a fundamental difference between the experience of a print media and screen based media. As screen based technologies become more and more pervasive, it is refreshing to see some design companies ie Bonnier considering the particular affordances of the media devices that they attempting to prototype. The affordances of the screen are those at which print material can not possess but there is always a trade off. Bonnier is making a valid argument that if magazine content is going to delivered on a screen, then that screen should deliver a unique experience relatively independent of its magazine predecessor. That is not to say that the screen is devoid of design elements and layout principals that have garnished the vast history of magazine publishing, but rather that those design elements and layout principles be modified to fit the device. Form follows function and the function of a screen is not that of a book or magazine.  To exchange the values of a book experience complete with printed ink, paper and sequential pages with that of a screen and expect the user to just accept the convenience and portability of that screen ignores that unique opportunity to make something new. Screen experience design is in its beginning stages and has struggled to separate it self from is print based counterpart. The technology of printing and books has not adapted to the technologies of desktop computing. There has been an extreme leap from the printed page to the screen and in this leap many interactions and experiments with combined media have been left out.  Personal Computing expectations and device production has left print design in its coat tails, but the expectation of experience is still lagging behind with the print world.  Bonnier is a least attempting to realize and research the unique affordance of a screen based magazine and not just transport a magazine onto the screen.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

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As technologies become more and more pervasive, print media companies are starting to jump on the bandwagon that a screen is a “better” way to experience their content. With the techno world buzzing about the possibilities of tablet computers from Apple, Microsoft, and  prototype Joojoo

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/08/07/apples-1-2-billion-tablet-computer/

JooJoo Hands On Demo from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

, media providers rather then improving or increasing content awareness are opting for the screen. The demo of the Sports Illustrated magazine on a tablet is a interesting view into the possibilities of their future content. Complete with page turning sounds and multi-touch options the demo shows some potential in eliminating the magazine. I mean why would I buy print when I can get it on a screen? Soon enough we will never have old used magazines that can be rummaged through at our uncles “the sport nuts” house.

The introduction of the iPhone has truely had immense impact on the acceptance of interacting with the screen. I just see the thinking of “You know what is better than an iPhone, A bigger iPhone!” faulty. The iPhone functionality and pervasiveness is seen in the Joojoo demo utilizing similar learned interactions from the existing phone. Technology is iterative and for innovation to exist predecessors have to come before, I am having a hard time coping with the innovation of phones replacing the innovations that print has made since the invention of the printing press.

The experience of print material on a screen starts to include video options and some level of costume interactions which is what makes interaction with screen objects effective and engaging but is that functionality worth the tangible interaction with printed paper. Interactions with the tablet are all learned and idiosyncratic rather than the free form and intuitive interactions with the pages of a magazine. The ease of getting to page 22 in a magazine is much different than the action to do that same thing on a tablet. Especially a magazine like SI where a users is less inclined to read from front to back (unless we are talking about the swim suit issue of course) Regardless the SI interactive has some interesting potential but in my opinion will never become a replacement for the greatest bathroom reading since the Victoria Secret Catalog (unless it can become waterproof.)  I just don’t see a tablet computer replacing the magazine rack in the bathroom no matter how interactive and engaging it is.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

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