Blog
-
Interaction 10: Day Three
February 7, 2010
From mobile apps to the responsive city, Eric St. Onge recaps the final day with Day Three’s highlights.
The historic Trustees Theater at SCAD
I started on the third and final day of Interaction 10 with a presentation from Jeff Blaise, who talked about designing interfaces for mobile devices. He was able to use some of his experiences as a designer at Sapient to give some helpful advice on the process of designing and developing mobile apps.
After that, I went to see Peter Morville discuss the Future of Search. Peter recently published a new book called Search Patterns, and he used examples from his book to demonstrate some of the behavioral and design patterns that have appeared in user interfaces for searching. He also talked about how he thinks that we’re going to see more multisensory forms of searching in the future, including better visualizations for search, audio search, and image (and video) searching. He ended his talk by describing his idea that search should to act as a microscope, a telescope, and a kaleidoscope.
Next, I went to see Rob Nero demonstrate his TRKBRD project. In the process of developing an idea for his thesis project at Malmo University, he used Arduino to develop a trackpad that sits on top of his laptop’s keyboard: a “trackboard.” The project was a good reminder of the Physical Computing course I took last semester, but it was also fascinating to see the social effects of what can happen when you publish your work in progress. I look forward to seeing his thesis work on stacked input devices.
After a lunch break, I went to see Gretchen Anderson of Lunar talk about the importance of facial features when designing products. She demonstrated how the first things you notice about an object can strongly communicate what you think the potential of that object can be. You can design these “facial features” into products to create a good first (and continuing) impression.
Finally, the last keynote speaker of the conference was Dan Hill. Dan writes the blog City of Sound and works as a designer at Arup in Sydney, Australia. He spent much of his talk sharing some of the “civic-scale” visualizations he’s designed, which hope to move some of the private data about infrastructure and city usage out into the public. He showed many examples, including graphics showing water usage, wi-fi in libraries, public transit systems, and responsive architecture, among many others. I found the talk very inspiring for thinking about ways to make invisible data visible, and ways to improve the design for public spaces.
And that was the end of the conference. After three days of big ideas, fried chicken, and sweet tea, I was on my way back to New York, and on my way back to homework. After the amazing experience this year, I definitely hope to attend Interaction 11 next year in Boulder, Colorado.
Thanks to the students for covering the conference! We’ll see you again in Boulder.
-
Interaction 10: Day Two
February 6, 2010
Sunshine, student competitions, sparks from Tom Igoe, and a stunning finish from Paola Antonelli, Evinn Quinn recaps Day Two’s highlights.
Today kicked off interaction 10 Day Two. There were even more things to do, and the weather cleared up. Today we started off with the opening keynote by Enzio Manzini, and then swiftly moved to Shelly Evenson. I was interested in the talk that she gave. I was preempted, by my cybernetics teacher Paul Pangaro, to observe her talk. She spoke about systems and the conversation, which is a very interesting and relevant concept that is involved with our studies.
Tom Igoe again sparked thoughts of interaction design through the use of physical computing. Speaking on intellectual property and how product manufacturing is a combination of multiple lines of intellectual property and how it is becoming dispensable. He views this as a problem, suggesting that because things are privatized and copyrighted, there is more development and waste of things that accomplish similar goals. He views this as a primary reason that the landfills are progressively getting bigger.
I was also very interested in the student competition. The students were to apply with a concept that was to be judge upon entry. The second phase of competition was to attend a design charette, which is a design competition, focused on a specific topic. The topic for this challenge was social networking. The students had 8 hours to come up with a concept. Social networking can mean many things.
In the context of these projects it could be as physical as a concert or as literal as this conference were attending. The content was great and the presentations were awesome. Followed by the presentations was the final speaker for the evening Paola Antonelli, curator for the Museum of Modern Art, in our very own New York City spoke about design and interactive art can communicate with us in various ways and the roles that designers play in that space. It was a good talk to end the evening. Now, on to the Microsoft-sponsored event!
-
Interaction 10: Day One
February 5, 2010
Reporting live from rainy Savannah, Georgia is one of fourteen MFA Interaction Design students attending the Interaction 10 conference. From a packed days of lectures to a rain-soaked walking tour of America’s first planned and designed city, Stephanie Aaron recaps the day’s highlights.
The historical Cotton Exchange building from the walking tour of Savannah
Nathan Shedroff kicked off the conference this morning with a challenge: innovate and create meaning. For him, meaning is the deepest connection one can make with the user, and all design is the process of evoking meaning. His key point for the future? Consumerism isn’t dead, but it needs to be so we can move on to a path that is innovative, sustainable, and profitable. Nathan left us with three key questions to ponder: What does a more sustainable world look like? What does a more meaningful world look like? What does a post-consumer world look like?
After Nathan’s talk I went to hear our own Liz Danzico speak on, and lead an experiment in improvisation. She also asked that we creating meaning in the products and services we design. Her talk, ranging from jazz to neuroscience, showed how frames can allow consumers to be co-creators.
Greg Vassallo launched the third talk of the day with a moving segment on lessons he learned while living in a hospital for a year and how he applied them to being a design consultant. His ten lessons include useful tips such as “lighten up,” “it’s okay to ask for help” and “treat the patient, not the illness,” which encourages all to step back and consider the big picture, to ask ourselves, “are we solving the right problem?”
The morning was capped with a rain-soaked walking tour of Savannah—America’s first planned and designed city. The city has not one center but 24 squares, each is a self contained unit consisting of all walks of society, from richest to poorest. The streets surrounding the squares have no traffic lights, and is a self regulated system. There are two overlapping grids, the back streets contain services such as electricity, telephone poles and sewage, etc. and the front streets are of homes, shops, and civic institutes.
Students will be covering the conference over the weekend. Check back for posts to come.
-
The Awl: A Conversation with Paul Ford
February 4, 2010
In a recent interview with The Awl, associate editor of Harper’s Magazine Paul Ford talks about why he thinks paywalls are necessary, what he envisions for the Harper’s website, and what he would do with ten million dollars.
An ad promoting online subscriptions from the Harper’s Magazine website.
-
The Study of Systems: A Conversation with Paul Pangaro
February 1, 2010
SVA: You’re teaching a course titled “Introduction to Cybernetics and the Foundations of Systems Design.” Would you describe cybernetics and its application to design?
Paul Pangaro: The word “cybernetics” is a useful place to start. It comes from a Greek root that has to do with steering. In order to steer, you have to see where you’re going; see whether that’s towards the goal or off-course from the goal; then change your actions to head back toward the goal. I act. I see the consequences. I say, “No, not quite what I meant.” And so I correct by acting again. That’s the cybernetic loop.
Now, notice I’ve just described the design process. I’ve just described what happens when we say, “Let’s build this.” We make a prototype and it doesn’t quite work. So we adjust it, get users in front of it, and change our mind, try something else, and so on.
The user’s process is also like that. The user picks up a device and thinks, “I want to buy a book on Amazon,” then realizes that’s not quite where she wants to be, goes to another site, and finds that’s not even the book she wanted. But this new goal is better than the old goal. So humans are also engaged in a cybernetic loop for getting what they want.
Fundamental models of cybernetics have great applicability both to the process of design and to an understanding of what we’re designing for—human interaction.
So cybernetics offers a set of models that starts from general concepts of action and goal and feedback, and helps us solve the complex problems of design today. Cybernetics applies to complex technologies, to organizational structures, and even to conversation itself—which, as we all experience every day, is a basic human way of setting goals and acting to achieve them.
From L’Ère Atomique, Cybernétique, Electronique, Automation. 1958. Éditions René Kister, Genève.
SVA: What is its value to design?
PP: Design often focuses on the particular medium or constraint of interaction: is it a chair? Is it a smartphone? That usually creates a narrow frame. And the design process moves from that focus on the particulars in a straight line to a particular solution.
But complexity of today’s design problems comes from the chain of design, the chain of systems, the chain of interactions that are much more than a single individual can manage. For example, we might be designing a piece of software that has to be coded, that runs in a device that has to be manufactured, that connects to a service via the internet “cloud” that affords a whole universe of possibilities. While I use my smartphone, I’m engaging “systems of systems” without having to think about them. And there is no “straight line of design” from the concept of a computer I hold in my hand to a particular solution. Any solution requires teams upon teams to create.
Cybernetics demonstrates its value to design by modeling this complexity in the abstract as a mesh of collaborations, conversations, and goals, which harness the systems of systems to operate. The models of cybernetics both help tame this complexity and keep the focus on steering to achieve human goals, in service of human needs.
From L’Ère Atomique, Cybernétique, Electronique, Automation. 1958. Éditions René Kister, Genève.
SVA: Where do students apply systems thinking both in your course and beyond?
PP: My experience teaching these concepts is that it takes over the way students tend to think about a problem. It becomes part of how they look at the world.
I also see it as a diagnostic tool. It offers the perspective that, “I can make this better if I thought about it in the cybernetic frame.” Students learn along the way, for example, how to focus sharply on the limitations of a system’s capabilities—what it cannot do—in order to better define what they want it to do.
Designing the conversation is something they can bring every day to every meeting. “Mondays at 10AM we all get together in the same room to discuss a project.” Looking at it cybernetically, these conversations can’t achieve the goals set for them. Can we design the next conversation so that the knowledge to move to the next step is in the room when we meet? That’s just one example we all experience. Understanding teams and conversations as a system is a way of designing around the horrible meeting culture that so many companies have.
So, cybernetics is a set of tools that apply to our every day work process as well to the design of better interactions.
My goal is that these models get carried forward, not so they get drilled into somebody’s head and are applied slavishly, but so they become a way designers naturally see the world—and not just see the world, but diagnose it to understand how we can make it better.
-
Physical Computing Final Projects
January 27, 2010
Final projects for Fundamentals of Physical Computing are up. Students have documented projects and labs through their blogs and video work. See the result of many whiteboard doodles, post-it notes wireframes, and brainstorm sessions.
What a wall looks like in the studio on a typical day.
-
Video: Jared Spool “What Makes Design Intuitive?”
January 25, 2010
Using examples of web sites, applications, devices, and more, guest lecturer Jared Spool tackles factors that contribute to counter-intuitive design, and narrows down when design is intuitive:
It’s basically, they (the user) will just know what to do. They can walk up to it and know what to do right away, and they don’t feel they would need any training, whether explicit or implicit. It’s obvious.
-
Student Project featured in Magazine
January 22, 2010
Cover and page 53 of the Community Currency Magazine feature work by students Gene Lu, John Finley, and Colleen Miller.
The neighborhood currency project, which garnered much attention last semester, has been extensively featured in the Nov/Dec issue of the Community Currency Magazine. Gene Lu‘s local currency for Alphabet City made the cover of the magazine, and images of other student designs appear throughout the issue.
-
Alex Wright on Museums 2.0
January 21, 2010
In a recent Times piece entitled “Online, It’s the Mouse That Runs the Museum,” Alex Wright discusses the effect of social media on museum web initiatives. As one powerful example, Wright talks with fellow faculty Jake Barton on the curatorial process for the Make History 911 memorial website.
Make History is perhaps the most notable recent example of a museum tapping the collective energy of Web users to help build its collection. While museums have been experimenting with the Web for years, these projects have often consisted of little more than an exhibit photo gallery or online guestbook. In recent years, however, the rise of social media has given Web users the technological wherewithal to play a more active role in shaping the direction of museum collections.
User-generated content on the Make History website
-
MFA Designer as Author Podcast: Robert Fabricant
January 21, 2010
Faculty member Robert Fabricant recently spoke at the MFA Designer as Author program on social entrepreneurship and the role of the designer as interpreter of social needs.
-
Karen McGrane on Interaction Design
January 19, 2010
What is interaction design history? In a blog post over the new year, faculty member Karen McGrane, who taught a course on the History of Interaction Design last semester, investigates the topic at length with classroom presentation slides, as well a list of interaction design history sources. Below is an excerpt from her blog:
Photo Credit: Columbia University Computing History
Learning more about computing history is a sort of professional hobby of mine; I have a fetish for pictures of old mainframes and this research lets me indulge my proclivities. When I tell people in the user experience field about my studies the most common response I hear is “I don’t know anything about the history of computers.”
I think that’s sad. Practitioners in other design disciplines—architecture, graphic design, fashion—would be expected to have some grounding in historical movements and trends. But most people have no formal education in interaction design, and so they’ve never learned the roots of the discipline. I taught a short course in IxD history in the MFA program in Interaction Design at SVA, and I hope that the students in the program know enough now to at least recognize key people and events when they come up, even if their introduction was a whirlwind 5-week tour.
-
Application Date for Fall 2010
January 15, 2010
Thanks to all the prospective students we’ve gotten to know through our events such as the Open Houses, Graduate Portfolio Days, department visits, events, and email and phone correspondence. The application date for prospective students who are intending to apply for fall 2010 is today, Friday, January 15. Prospective students in the New York Area are encouraged to drop off their applications in person to the main Admissions Office located at 209 East 23rd Street on the first floor by 5:00PM.
Applicants can expect this timeline from February through April. If you have additional questions for the department, or would like to schedule for a tour or to talk, drop us line at interactiondesign at sva dot edu or call at 212.592.2703.
We look forward to seeing everyone’s hard work!
-
Students Design NYC “In Transit”
January 12, 2010
For their final projects in Jason Santa Maria’s Communicating Design course, students were asked to identify a problem within New York City’s subway system and to design a solution that addressed the problem. Students researched the system in depth, including a class trip to the New York City Transit Museum, and addressed a variety of problems ranging from learning the subway system to keeping track of how much time is spent in the system overall.
Below, a selection of students explain their projects. Photos from all projects are available at the department’s flickr stream.
Children’s Subway Map
Carmen Dukes
“I think it’s safe to assume that the MTA’s most passionate subway riders are children, yet nothing within the subway system is designed specifically for them. I think that there are creative opportunities to augment a child’s ability to learn the subway system as well as enhance their overall experience, therefore I wanted to work on a project that tackled a design challenge for the subway’s youngest riders.
A child’s mental model of the subway system may only contain a few subway stops, so my map is designed to allow a parent or child to personalize the map by only adding relevant subway stops. My inspiration for the icon designs was Ed Emberley’s drawing books. Using his simple drawing guidelines, I was able to create a playful and engaging design for young children.”
BetterMTA.info
Derek Chan and Colleen Miller
“We created BetterMTA.info as a website makeover for the New York City transit system. In our design, we suggest clear functional improvements for riders. Based on a survey of active commuters, updates include live service announcements on the home page, a prominent trip planner, and a cleaner overall layout that streamlines access to important information. We have modified the site architecture to separate different services and corporate data of the MTA system into subdomains for more focused access, in an effort to enhance the user experience. We have also created an app in which commuters can access service updates on their mobile devices.”
Voice of the Community
Richie Lau
“Voice of the Community is an augmented subway application for the iPhone that re-engages New York City’s subway system into one that publicly transports the free opinions and thoughts of its surrounding communities. It allows people to speak without censorship or limitations. The interactive experience transforms the iPhone into a graffiti art supplied tool chest filled with cans of virtual spray paint that allows augmented creations to be posted, seen, and captured.
To use the application, people download the free application and purchase virtual spray cans. Choosing from an assorted color selection, from Green Apple to Cotton Candy. Purchased cans are then stored in the iPhone’s arsenal of paint supplies. Writers shake their virtual spray cans and listen to the marble that gages the paint levels in their cans. Users point their cans at the wall and spray. Motions and movements are stored in the system at specific geographical coordinates. Users use the application’s augmented viewer to view works left at these locations where snapshots can be taken and stored. The built-in subway map marks locations that people have marked, and shared, allowing one to share their creations with their Facebook or Twitter friends and followers.”
ReDirect
Russ Maschmeyer
“Service changes are bad. Very, very bad. They often involve doubling, sometimes tripling the time it takes you to get where you’re going. To add insult to injury, the accompanying service change signage is such a riddle of dates, times, and re-directions that it often requires multiple readings to glean even a basic understanding of the change. For any transit system experiencing redirects, there are four key messages that need to be conveyed: alert the riders to a change, provide a quick overview of that change, course correct any wayward travelers, and finally, guide riders through the hallways to the proper platforms. If done right, no one should have to stop to study a sign, but study them we do. Currently, the MTA employs a single, densely packed sheet of 8.5x11” paper to convey an entire set of messaging. This is a problem worth solving.
I approached this problem with the aim to stretch out that messaging over the rider’s entire subway experience, from entering the station, to the turnstiles, to the platform and then onto the train itself. I devised a simple hack to the current station entrance and turnstile signage involving LEDs surrounding the train symbols, as well as the LED route boards on the new R160 trains, which would alert riders to service changes and cancellations. Once inside the station or on the platform during a transfer, riders would find redesigned fliers, which would include iconography, a strong information hierarchy, and a map of the service change. This is of course just a beginning, but hopefully these small changes would go a long way to making these changes a bit more digestible.”
TrainSpy
Evinn Quinn
“Train Spy is an application ecosystem that I developed for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Train Spy utilizes technological advancements with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and the uniqueness of the iPhone platform to offer an up to the minute, real time subway monitoring system. With the RFID keeping track of every train’s position, the iPhone allows you to view this information and plan accordingly. In addition to the application for iPhone users, there is an in-station viewer installed in every subway station that allows for non-mobile users to take advantage of the system.”
See all student work for In Transit.
-
What to Expect: January through April
January 8, 2010
If you’ve given thought to graduate school in interaction design, the deadline for applications is fast approaching: next Friday, January 15, 2010, in fact. Any application received after this date will be reviewed as space remains available in the program.
What can prospective students expect after January 15? Here’s what the months look like from January through April:
- January 15, 2010: Early application deadline for prospective students.
- February 22, 2010: Applicants who applied by January 15 receive notification about a telephone interview. (Admittance to the program requires a personal interview.)
- February 24 - March 5, 2010: Personal interviews.
- April 1, 2010: Applicants who applied by January 15 receive a decision in writing from SVA.
The department is happy to advise you in preparing applications or counsel you in last-minute questions you might have your portfolio. Contact the department to set up an appointment if you haven’t done so already.
To find out more about the application requirements or read more here. If you have questions, or want to stop by for a tour or a talk, drop a line to Qing Qing Chen, Assistant to the Chair, at interactiondesign at sva dot edu or 212.592.2703.
-
Barton presents BIKE IT!
January 6, 2010
Recently Jake Barton presented BIKE IT! at GOOD Design NYC, presented by GOOD at Nau, a showcase for ways design can serve New York. Local Projects asked, “How can we get more people to ride their bikes?”
Barton proposed that the real problem with biking is a physical one: People don’t like to go to work sweaty. Barton pointed to Cool Biz, a program that’s already underway in Japan and in other places like Denver, making it culturally acceptable to dress down in the workplace so buildings don’t have to keep the AC cranked. The same dress code changes could be made to allow people to stay cooler after they biked to work, reasoned Barton.
About
Not all updates belong in the curriculum, and the Interaction Blog is where we talk about news and events around interaction design far and wide.
School of Visual Arts