Brief idea 2

'To what extent does the concept of memory influence user engagement when embodied within a digital artefact'

Project Deadline: 30 November

Context: This project is about understanding how embodying personal experiences within a digital artifact influences users responses to it; which digital artefact's they use, for how long, how they use them and how often they use them.

Insight: This project focuses on understanding the importance of memory or personal history to further enrich the user experience. Social media is constantly creating increasingly personalised experiences, with content and the availability of personalised information. There are a wealth of ways that the user experience can be enriched by tapping into memory and creating profiles. However, designers have to understand how it affects engagement with an object whether this be positive or negative and to which extent.

Objectives: This project aims to investigate the individual. Detailed research processes will be developed as well as various prototyping techniques. Familiarity with emerging technologies is also important, and how they can be used.

6. Reading:
Identity, Personality and The Self, John Perry
Memory: History, Theories and Debate, Sally Alexander (and collected authors)

First Brief

'To what extent does the concept of personal identity influence user interactions with digital artefacts'

Project Deadline: 30 November

Context: This project is about understanding how a users profile influences which digital artefact's they use, how they use them and how often they use them.

Insight: This project focuses on understand who uses what and why, to further explore user experience on a personal level in order to create a better understanding as users as a whole and how to group them.

Objectives: This project aims to investigate the individual, and how the individual situates themselves in society and why. The development of detailed research processes, and prototyping techniques as well as gaining familiarity with emerging technologies.

6. Reading: Identity, Personality and The Self, John Perry

Exploring emerging territories: Nostalgia

Exploring nostalgia.

Projected future work cont.

The emerging technology is nostalgia, which will be expanded before establishing a brief for future work. The effect of personal and community experience on design, both from the users personal point of view as well as the designers point of view.

The previous methodology that was established for producing an area of interest and further exploring it is now being replaced by a brief to explore through research and studio work.

My manifesto and projected future work

Thinking about people:

My manifesto: Design should be; safe, ethical & socially responsible

In design i want to make my users lives easier or better in some way. Be this by streamlining tasks, creating new ways of doing things or by connecting them to other people or objects. I just want to enrich users experiences.

It is through this way of thinking that this brief was created:

I brainstormed ways to enrich users experiences. I identified three spatial areas that people function in: Home, Work, Recreation. Between these areas is the area of Travel-a transient community. Social aspects apply to all four these areas.

My Brief

What is planed to to do:

Investigate people within the four spatial areas.
Select two that area interesting of these two focus on
Re investigate these two spatial areas
Select one
Draw out areas of need/potential improvement from a designers perspective
Discuss these with members of the spatial area
Identify a specific community within this area, and how they interact with the other areas
Research this community
Create prototypes & Test
Final prototype
Production
Finished outcome

I plan on spending around 6 hours minimum on each spatial area for the purposes of initial enquiry, and then making a decision on which two to investigate further. I don't feel that this would be a waste of time, as i would be able to test new research techniques and to be able to compare my observations of each of these spaces.

Travel: Train, Bus, Survey of people using 'Boris bikes', Walking-observe popular routes, Cars-more difficult
Recreational: would separate these into adults and children- observe playgroups for children for example and bars or outdoor pursuits for adults
Home: observe people in their homes, and view how outside influences can affect them. Would have to observe quite a few different people
Work: employees, self employed, office, outdoor, service professions

The next step would be to re investigate two areas in more depth. Techniques: i would like to include more audiovisual investigation as well as more quantitative investigation: i will be observing a large amount of people and it would be useful to get demographic information.

It could be useful to get assistance in the quantitative research.

The first spatial area that is going to be investigated is travel

The travel environment is fascinating, and it is one space where the community is not really a community per say: instead it is a collection of mostly complete strangers. Travelling at the same time via the same method, members of the community might become familiar with each other, but this is rarely translates into friendly recognition in my personal experience.

Areas where strangers come together has recently become a subject of interest. The artist Michael Landry created an ongoing art project about the concept 'random acts of kindness', titled 'Acts of kindness', where he asked members of the public to submit their stories about strangers kindnesses on the tube. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13815981

 Michael Landry also destroyed all his 7000-odd possessions in a piece titled 'break down' http://artcritical.com/blurbs/LWLandy.htm he systematically destoyed everything he owned in a comment about commercialism and waste. Social contexts and conflicts really interest me, and making a comment on society through art and functional design is quite unsual and interesting.

Thinking about apps

Mobile applications generate billions in revenue, and are regularly used by every smart phone user, regardless of demographic. The most profitable app is the tom tom, a navigation app. I learnt this in my eCommerce module, and it got me thinking.

Navigation is the one app i use on a weekly basis, with gaming and informational apps (like news) trailing behind. I was shopping in the supermarket and noticed how much time even regular customers waste wandering around trying to find things, often walking down aisles multiple times and there is no clear way to quickly locate items. Supermarkets have drastically cut staff in recent years, so it is difficult to fins anyone to ask.

I think it's useful to come up with snappy solutions and ideas for problems i see in the world, and my solution is supermarket navigation application where you put in what you need, and it comes up on a map where you also have the choice for walking directions.

This application would be great if you were going to the supermarket for the first time, or had only a few things to buy. However it would not be so good if you had a massive list of things to buy as most people wouldn't want to spend ages inputting it into a device. However, people do write shopping lists so it may be feasible to move from conventional pen and paper to a virtual smart map.

Who would use this: busy people only trying to find a few things? Would it be easier just to wander round? Would it make more sense for a supermarket just to have a floor plan or an installation with this information on a screen? Probably.

I mocked this application up. It is useful to quickly create non-functional prototypes to illustrate what i mean: these were finished quite quickly.

Home screen with icon

 Welcome screen

 Aisle map

 Walking directions

Developing apps

• Signed up to be an iphone app developer, and downloaded Xcode 4
• Downloaded android SDK here http://developer.android.com/index.html

I find apps a useful way of creating solutions,  but it is easy to get trapped in the idea of it.

Junaio: Augmented Reality

Junaio is open augmented reality software with an API available to everyone. I signed up to be a developer, and its developer homepage has lots of tutorials and things to get you started.

First I watched a junaio video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaIUfaJC4DM&feature=player_embedded#! which shows the potential junaio has. It is a showreel and demonstrates with breadth of possibilities.

You are essentially allowed to create your own 'channel' of information at beginner level.

Week3: Nostalgia

I had decided to make a video on nostalgia, which in a way captures another aspect of Bhavesh's video: Escapism i.e. recapturing another period in time. I decided to film nostalgia because it is universally and massively relatable: arguably almost every adult has experienced nostalgia. I separated adulthood and childhood in my initial brainstorm (see below), and tried to identify what they generally feel nostalgic about. I managed to separate the feelings of nostalgia into events and people.

Graphical representation:

Nostalgia is like a line between a person and an object that sparks nostalgia, connecting them emotionally to someone or something in their past. We are constantly creating these connections (much like how connections are created in the brain for memory), and we develop a 'web' of feelings. Every individual has their own constantly growing 'web', but occasionally certain points overlap where there is joint experience. However, we have no way of knowing the significance of various objects that are important to other people.



Below is a diagram of how objects are 'connected' to feelings. Would it be possible to view alternative nostalgia's i.e. other peoples nostalgia's for the same objects? eBay's xcommerce is creating an app that allows a user to take a photo of an object which is searched for in a database. It could be possible to take a photo of an object, and then see information that other people have attached to it. Almost like the 'internet of things'.

The diagram below shows a everyone's nostalgic 'web', and demonstrates how certain peoples 'webs' can overlap. You could you an augmented reality 'patch' to show someone else's reality.

When making my film about nostalgia, i wanted to show the emotional connections between people and objects/spaces, the fact that we cannot see other peoples connections, and my ideas about how to 'enrich' objects and spaces to allow us to see nostalgia through an interface.

I created a rough storyboard, and decided to film the area where i grew up as there are lots of nostalgic places. I took a few shots in a shopping centre to demonstrate how the augmented reality could work to enrich the space. I also showed how augmented reality apps currently work, with my suggestions to improve them by allowing individuals to share photos/videos/sound and to link it to a specific locations. Also for the secondary user to filter this information based on either a user demographic or a specific user: to follow their chain of experience.

This listed which senses could be displayed, and some more concept work on how the augmented reality app would work.

The developer kit for junaio is available online http://dev.junaio.com/

I also found a great list of augmented reality apps which have some great ideas: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/4288-10-mindblowing-augmented-reality-apps-and-videos one of my favourites is http://jamesalliban.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/ar-business-card/ which is an enriched business card. You can use it yourself.

SREngine is really interesting and uses actual image recognition rather than location recognition.

It would be interesting to actually develop this idea further.

My final outcome video is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1S77SweM4M

Video Presentation and Review

Session 3:

• Viewed each individuals videos
• Reviewed motivating themes in the videos.
• Identifying umbrella issues in the videos

To do: swapping videos and creating a new video about an 'umbrella issue' behind that individuals video.

I got Bhavesh's video which was about his relationship with the final fantasy 9 game.

Underlying issues:

Nostalgia

Escapism

Gameplay

He described a game that he bought when he was 11, and has repeatedly played and finished it over 10 times since then. There was no film, but a lot of sketchbook work and research which was very useful. It was interesting to see the work presented in person instead of presented in film, where you can edit bits out.

Nostalgia is the issue which seemed most central to the reason why he chose to focus on the game as well as why it is so important to him, so it is the issue that i decided to make a film about Part of our work for next week was finding a technology and experimenting with it, and through 

What interests me?

This week we were asked to create a 10-20 minute edited video of something that we were interested in.

I created a brainstorm of all the interests i could think of to help narrow down the process.

 

I decided to select an interest of mine which I don't usually have the opportunity to express. It is for this reason that i chose 'baking' as my subject matter, and decided to demonstrate a new favourite recipe, coconut cake with a jam filling and a butter creme topping.

Before i started filming i drew out a little storyboard to show the different stages and wrote a little caption for each. I wanted the purpose of my film to be to not only illustrate something that i find really interesting, but also to show how easy home baking is. This cake takes 20-30 minutes to prep, 25 minutes to cook, and 20-30 minutes to fill and top.



Filming was a little daunting and difficult as for the first portion of film i had nobody helping me. My Fuji SLR that i was hoping to use alongside a tripod decided not to work, so i had to sellotape my iphone to the tripod instead. I took 22 videos in total, and partially edited them on my iphone before exporting (clipped off beginnings and ends with nothing in them).

I then had to transfer them to my computer which i did using the windows photo and movie capture. I had to rename all of my files so that i knew which order they were in. Once imported i came across a new problem: windows XP movie maker is incompatible with .mov files. I tried everything from COREL VideoStudio to Adobe Premier, but the latter couldn't handle ..mov files, and Premier wouldn't work on windows XP. I then tried to convert them using zamzar.com and it took forever just to convert the first one, so that idea disappeared. I then tried to upload them to youtube, with the intention to link the 20-odd videos together using interactive tools in youtube, but the uploads were slow and kept failing.

I then discovered that windows movie maker on vista supported .mov files, so i borrowed a laptop and got started. Once I'd imported all of my files the process was quite simple, and i was able to add titles and caption and transitions which i feel improved the final outcome.

I hadn't realised how difficult it was to make cooking videos interesting as not a lot is happening on screen, and i had to edit my footage down massively as there are lots of long, repetitive tasks such as mixing and cracking eggs. I realised once the video was made that i skimmed over the addition of the dessicated coconut and single cream. I don't have the footage for it, but i don't think that its too much of a problem, but if i didn't it again i would correct this. I would also try to make the commentary a bit more interesting, and have a larger variety of shot angles/distances.

There are lots of other things i could have shot that weren't demonstrations:

• Cake shops
• Documentary 
• footage of people eating cakes
• A mixture of all three

The final outcome:



My original final video was too big for the web, so i burnt it to CD for presentation and uploaded a smaller version to youtube.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcbHviSBIug

The recipe i used (from bbcgoodfood 101 Cakes & Bakes):

Week 1 Log

Week 1 Log

Beginning 03/10/2011

A group trip was conducted to the V&A during which everyone was required to select three objects of interest and analyse them through the ‘mediating lens’ as described in the design context diagram. The objects were analysed and the context of production and consumption examined. The concept of the ‘person manifesto’ was introduced where all participants were asked to examine why the objects were chosen, what they thought of it and how they’d change it in regards to their own personal manifesto. Early identification of a personal manifesto was created. It was later developed by researching existing manifestos, for example Dieter Rams manifesto. The final manifesto: Design should be safe, animal friendly, ethical and socially responsible.

Design Manifesto

During last weeks museum visit, we were asked to create our own personal manifestos, and observe museum artefact's through the 'lens' of that manifesto. I hadn't realised that i had such strong views on what i should design, why i make it and how i should make it.

My three manifestos (relevant to three different pieces in the museum):

1. Design should be safe: designs that i make shouldn't have to be carefully handled, or require any specialist training to prevent injury (this of course would not apply if i was a designer of things such as industrial machinery).

2. Design should be animal-friendly, and ethical: i disagree with the harm/killing of any living thing if not being directly used for food. I do not use fur for this reason in my fashion work, and would not wear it myself. I am Eco-friendly in my work.

3. Design should be socially responsible: The owner of the well head fountain from my previous post shipped in fresh water during a massive drought in the 1900's. I feel that designers have a responsibility to create things that do not harm other people or worsen their quality of life: either by design or by insensitivity.

I feel that this sums me up quite a bit about me as a designer.


I looked up alternative manifestos online and found a fair few. I have picked sections that i feel mirror my sensitivities.


Dieter Rams:
http://www.vitsoe.com/en/gb/about/dieterrams/gooddesign

My favourite line of his 10-part manifesto is that 'good design is as little design as possible'

Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.

Back to purity, back to simplicity.

 Allan Chochinov http://core77.com/reactor/04.07_chochinov.asp

Teach Sustainability Early
Design education is at a crossroads, with many schools understanding the potentials, opportunities, and obligations of design, while others continue to teach students how to churn out pretty pieces of garbage. Institutions that stress sustainability, social responsibility, cultural adaptation, ethnography, and systems thinking are leading the way. But soon they will come to define what industrial design means. (A relief to those constantly trying to define the discipline today!) This doesn't mean no aesthetics. It just means a keener eye on costs and benefits. 

There is a fine balance in design, as ther e are often a huge amount of people involved including various designers, production/manufacture, and finally the considerations made for the numerous end users. Applying my my design manifesto to my work may not always be possible when working in the real world. For example that design should be safe. As a designer i would rarely have input into the whole creative process start to finish: what if i were asked to make a kettle, which was later made unsafe by the 3D designer and production team in order to make it fit their aesthetic. This i could have no control over. 

Project definition - The V&A

During week 1 we took a trip to the V&A, in order to bring our attention towards the concept of the 'personal manifesto'. This refers to an outlook as a designer that will affect what is made, from what and why.

 We were asked to review three objects, examining the context of consumption as well as the concept of production. WE were also asked to review it with regards to our own personal 'manifesto'-this included why we chose the object, what we thought of it and how we'd change it if we made it.

I chose three objects with different purposes and from different eras.

Object 1: Ritual wine cup

First was the ritual wine cup from the Zhao Dynasty, dated between 1050-1000BC

It was situated next to another cup, from the same place, and with the same purpose, but over 2000 years later. It fascinated me what had changed and what didn't, and it allowed me to draw certain conclusions




I focused on the metal cup on the left. I decided it was ceremonial, was self supported and group innovated-a design developed communally over thousands of years. The second cup hadn't changed much in thousands of years, so it was probably used by a very self sufficient, isolated community with few, if any, external influences.

I decided that my manifesto would be about health and safety-i wouldn't design something that was hazardous to use if in any way by an untrained person, and the pointed edges and corners would be smoothed. to a rounded edge. I would also put handles on both sides to make it easier to use-one handle means less control and it would spill easily.

Tensions between my manifesto and the three 'Zones': Whilst i don't want to make the design unsafe, and would want to add an extra handle, the people in the community could be very attached to the design in terms of spiritual/cultural significance and their connection between the physical shape of the object and its importance in their society. As much as i would make changes to make it more effective and more safe, this would conflict with the needs of the user.


Object 2: Celestial Vault

 A sculpture called the 'celestial vault', 2000

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O76174/ornament-with-stand-celestial-vault/

Ornamental-represents and square earth and round heaven.

Aside from being stunningly beautiful, it has has cultural significance-representing a belief held by an entire group of people. This item was chosen for this reason. My manifesto in this case would be about animal rights ethics-i disagree with the practise of killing things that are not directly used for food, and i would not be happy to use cultured pearls or mother of pearl, so i myself would have used an alternative embellishment.




Examining tensions: I would not force my opinions on mother of pearl usage on the design of this object as i can appreciate its beauty, and perhaps the significance of certain materials to the designer.

http://arthistory.about.com/od/special_exhibitions/l/bl_spasianlaq_rev.htm

Mother of pearl is very prevalent in Asian design, and it was cultivated en mass for this purpose. Used from 1600-1050 B.C.it is a very old tradition, and i can see why the designer incorporated this technique in his piece.

The artist Chen, Pei-ze http://yiidesign.com/en/artists.php is a stone sculture expert adn a jade specialist.


Artifact 3- The Well Head

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O117735/well-head-well-head/

Material: Carved Marble

Place of origin: Venice

This would have been made by trained sculptures in conjunction with plumbers. It was made for a Jacopo Tintoretto for private ornamental purposes, and during a period of drought (1948) he shipped in 20 boat loads of fresh water. As a designer i wouldn't have been able to have an effect on what he did with it once it was made unfortunately, although if i was the engineer he consulted to shop the water in, i would have refused the job.

There are definate tensions between this piece and my manifesto, but as a designer you cannot decide what anyone does with your object once it is theirs (besides copying it).  It would have been handmade, and i would have liked to have known where the marble came from as human rights and working conditions would affect my decision on where i'd source materials from.