Experience Design

The thesis direction that I am exploring builds on the ideas of The New Ecology of Things (http://www.newecologyofthings.net/). The methodology is attempting to pull from a number of different influences that over the next year will shape and inform the ideas that are being explored.

3 Main bounding areas have immerged

1.) Tangible Systems : the notion that products, artifacts, areas of attachment to media and content are enhanced by the physicality and tactility of the item.

2. ) Narrative / Storytelling : Design has a rich background in conveying messages in narrative form. As interaction and multimedia becomes involved narrative mediums, the ability of an artist / designer to tell a story about the content becomes more relevant in a dynamic world of branding and systems design.

3.) Circuits : The ability to build and make functioning technologies that push at the ideas of interaction with tangible, physical connections to data, content, and design.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

Hybrid Media Systems

A methodology of researching, making, and experimenting that drives at the concept of media that is neither a screen or a printed artifact but rather a combination of the two. Technology seems to take the role of replacing older media ie the kindle for the book, but what if thinking, design, and prototyping concentrated more on the affordance of both screen and cloud computation and the affordance of print artifacts? Could a poster be more engaging through computation? Can embedding functionality and technology allow the artifact to take on an extended experience beyond the visual and into the interactive?

The notion that a designer is a visual problem solver is not hard to dispute, but what if being a media designer is about asking questions and not just solving specific problems? The role is switched and the designer becomes the question and problem maker and not just the solver. The media designer is then responsible for answering their own questions. The ownership of the ideas and the possible solutions are then responsible to the designer. I see the media designer’s role as a methodology of making and thinking that drives not singularly at a problem but more at understanding the problem. Through asking questions around, in, and through the existing problem, the media designer utilizes the skills of experimentation, prototyping and analysis to generate new understanding and insight into otherwise unexplored areas with in design, culture, and business. Questions are posed outward while solutions are inward. A media designer should be able to do both with out getting dizzy from all the round and round. The ability to research and parse out specific questions allows for media designers to challenge the larger questions. Christopher Reid Becker

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook