MFA in Interaction Design: Home

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  1. Khoi Vinh: Designing the Conversation

    Khoi Vinh spends a lot of time thinking about designing for different audiences. As Design Director of NYTimes.com, it’s his responsibility, in part, to keep the needs of hundreds of thousands of users in mind, not to mention the internal constituents and teams he works with inside the organization. Off-hours, he publishes Subtraction.com, where he discusses design, technology, business, and culture for a changing conversation, as Subtraction has been going for over a decade, over a gazillion years, really, in internet years.

    We had the opportunity to talk with Khoi as he is beginning to plan his course, “Designing the Conversation,” which starts later this year.

    School of Visual Arts: You publish a popular blog called Subtraction.com. How did Subtraction get started (and what is behind the name)?

    Khoi Vinh: I originally started the site — over a dozen years ago now — as a way to promote the freelance design work that I was doing at the time. And, of course, to have a place to experiment and learn about what it means to publish online.

    There’s no one reason why I chose the name “Subtraction;” I liked the arithmetic connotations; I liked the allusion to the concept of design being a process of taking things away, and maybe more than anything, I liked the way the word sounds and reads.

    SVA: Since you started writing for Subtraction.com, how has your approach to creating content for the site changed?

    KV: In the first few years, I treated the site in a very analog fashion; not so much as brochureware, but as a place to sporadically publish design work and creative explorations, and very much in a one-to-many paradigm, in which there was really no feedback from the site’s visitors. It was very visually oriented too — lots of large images,collages, and visually playful typography.

    Subtraction.com 1999

    Subtraction.com, 1999

    Over time, Subtraction.com became the primarily text-based vehicle that it is today; I publish far more writing online than I do design work. I also try to write in a way that is inclusive of my audience; I really relish the comments that readers leave, and I try to write about topics that respond to what they’re reading and thinking about.

    SVA: It sounds like the experience you have on Subtraction.com is very personal, yet the work we do as designers is often about design with the intent to satisfy an audience. In creating a voice for one’s personal site, is it more important to write for an audience or to write for yourself?

    KV: Actually, what I’m really trying to do is to create content that falls in that nexus between what my readership expects and what I’m interested in, what really satisfies my curiosity. Most of the time, that’s easy, but I also like to push the boundaries a bit, writing about things that I think may only be of interest to me. Well, really I’m skewing towards my own interests, but after all I’m doing all of this work for free.

    Subtraction.com 2009

    Subtraction.com, 10 years later in 2009

    SVA: What kinds of changes have you seen in your audience, and how have you adjusted the design of your site to meet their needs?

    KV: Starting out, the audience was naturally very small, and it was easy to identify and communicate with the “regulars.” In fact I’m still very good friends with two of those early faithful readers. Over time, the audience got much bigger, and also harder to address personally. I also found I needed to visually call out the comments that I might add to a discussion, as having more than a dozen comments on a blog post made it really hard to tell what I was saying from everyone else’s contributions. Which isn’t to say that my comments are so much better, but the site is after all a lens into my own thinking, so I think readers are really looking to use what I have to say as a kind of narrative guide to the whole discussion.

    However, I’d say I really haven’t done enough to really adjust the site to accommodate what users could really be doing on the site. There’s more that could be done in terms of allowing users to see all the comments they’ve added in one place, or hooking into their Facebook accounts, or allowing them to connect or respond to one another more directly. That’s one of the drawbacks of running the blog in my spare time; given more time and energy, it could be a much different experience.

    SVA: The level of control you’re alluding to, in a sense, relinquishes part of the control of your site over to your readers. Is this your intention, and if so, how much presence do you want your readers to have on your site? How present do you want to be?

    KV: For me, there’s no ambiguity: the site is about me and my interests and my particular lens on the world. At the end of the day, I do it for my own satisfaction, so if it becomes too much of a user-driven experience that I don’t find it fun anymore, I would stop. At the same time, I enjoy the interaction with users very much. To use an analogy, you might say it’s “my house,” but it’s the kind of house where I want to have guests over very often. That means rearranging the furniture so that people like being there.

    SVA: You’re teaching a course in the MFA Interaction Design program in the fall semester called “Designing the Conversation” that states, “design consumers are demanding control over the way design solutions look, behave, respond to their needs — even how design is delivered.” In your experience, what do these changes mean for the roles of designers?

    KV: It means something different for different designers. For those already steeped in social media, it means learning how to provide a kind of narrative guidance in the experiences we construct so that users get the most from a design. For those coming from analog media, it means learning  how to embrace the medium and rethinking old conventions.

    In both cases, we’re looking for the sweet spot between the author/editor/designer and the user, a balance that allows audiences to make use of content and tools in the way that makes the most sense to them, while also satisfying the creative urges that have always compelled designers to create terrific products and experiences.

    ——

    Many thanks to Khoi for taking time to share thoughts on the changing conversation with us and more than a decade of design writing for audiences on Subtraction.com. You can see the complete Subtraction.com here.

     

  2. Lecture: “The Improvisors,” May 13


    Join us for the next in our lecture series featuring four speakers giving four talks in forty minutes. This month’s topic:

    “The Improvisors”
    Whether it be muddling through a new workflow, designing a feature, or working with a new material, as designers, we make it up as we go along. In other disciplines, this “making it up” process is valued as “improvisation,” and comes with rich methodology, principles, and process that we can learn from. In fact, jazz musicians, comedians, actors, chefs, even designers are using improvisation in their work in ways that can teach designers how to bring spark and perspective to otherwise ordinary and spark-less processes. Learn from four practitioners from very different backgrounds how to use improvisation to reach your audience and bring perspective to your work.

    Speakers

    • Armando Diaz, Instructor, Magnet Theater
    • Heather Gold, Speaker, Performer, The Heather Gold Show
    • Graham Marshall and Sunmee Kim: Innovation & Design, Motorola Inc.
    • Charlie Todd, Founder, Improv Everywhere

    Details

    Wednesday, May 13
    6:30PM – 8:30PM
    White Rabbit
    145 E Houston Street b/t 1st and 2nd Avenues (View Map)

    Sorry! This free event has been sold out.

    Event Partner Select attendees will receive gifts from our event partner, Coroflot, “The Creative World At Work.”

    About the Lecture Series

    The Dot Dot Dot Lecture Series is meant for broad explorations of interaction design, business, and aesthetic inspiration. Practitioners and thought leaders give short talks in an informal setting. Wisdom will be revealed and methods will be shared in a environment intended to satisfy both social and scholarly pursuits.

    About MFA in Interaction Design

    The MFA in Interaction Design program trains students to research, analyze, prototype, and design concepts in their business, social, and cultural contexts. Today, business success depends on the presence of a well-designed, engaging experience, and the new MFA in Interaction Design program explores the strategic role of interaction design in shaping everyday life.

  3. Lecture: “The Influencers,” April 15


    Join us for the next in our lecture series featuring four speakers giving four talks in forty minutes. This month’s topic:

    “The Influencers”
    We all draw influence from somewhere. Whether it be from history, academia, industry, or whether we look to future trends. The work we do has been impressed, whether explicitly or implicitly, by the leadership or direction of others. Who were some of those influencers, and how are they present in our work? Hear from four lecturers how masters in their domains have dominated markets, inspired their own work, or changed the course, so that we might make some predictions about the next generation of influence leaders.

    Speakers

    • Allegra Burnette, Creative Director, Digital Media, MoMA The Museum of Modern Art
    • Steven Heller, Author, Co-chair, MFA Designer as Author program, SVA; Co-founder MFA Design Criticism and MFA Interaction Design programs, SVA
    • Jason Santa Maria, Web Designer and Consultant, Forthcoming Faculty, MFA Interaction Design
    • Molly Wright Steenson, PhD Student, Princeton University School of Architecture

    Details

    Wednesday, April 15
    6:30PM – 8:30PM PM
    White Rabbit
    145 E Houston Street b/t 1st and 2nd Avenues (View Map)

    Sorry! This free event has been sold out.

    Event Partner Select attendees will receive gifts from our event partner, Coroflot, “The Creative World At Work.”

    About the Lecture Series

    The Dot Dot Dot Lecture Series is meant for broad explorations of interaction design, business, and aesthetic inspiration. Practitioners and thought leaders give short talks in an informal setting. Wisdom will be revealed and methods will be shared in a environment intended to satisfy both social and scholarly pursuits.

    About MFA in Interaction Design

    The MFA in Interaction Design program trains students to research, analyze, prototype, and design concepts in their business, social, and cultural contexts. Today, business success depends on the presence of a well-designed, engaging experience, and the new MFA in Interaction Design program explores the strategic role of interaction design in shaping everyday life.

  4. Scott McCloud Workshop: Sign Up to Attend Workshop

    The MFA in Interaction Design Program and the Interaction Design Association of New York City (IxDA NYC) are pleased to announce the first of a series of quarterly workshops:

    “Visual Storytelling Through Comics: Theory and Practice”
    Join comic book artist Scott McCloud for an exclusive two-day visual lecture and intensive hands-on workshop in the art of making comics. Strong emphasis will be given to developing clarity, storytelling skills and personal expression. Students will learn and apply a variety of techniques for presenting narratives through comics, as well as a wide arsenal of skills applicable to any form of graphic communication. The workshop culminates in the creation of a short comics feature, written and drawn by each student.

    WHEN

    Friday and Saturday, May 1-2, 2009
    Approximately 10:00AM-5:00PM

    WHERE

    School of Visual Arts, MFA Interaction Design
    Flatiron District
    New York City

    FEE

    $295 (includes lunch)

    HOW TO SIGN UP

    The workshop is limited to 40 participants. Because we anticipate great interest from the community, entry to the workshop will be granted by a random electronic drawing (out of fairness to everyone).

    Enter the drawing here.
    Deadline is Monday, April 6 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

    COURSE OUTLINE

    Day One:

    • Writing with Pictures: The basics of telling stories with pictures in sequence
    • The Five Choices all comics artist face: Choice of Moment, Choice of Frame, Choice of Image, Choice of Word and Choice of Flow
    • Clarity and Intensity: How to balance clear communication with a compelling presentational style
    • Exercises! and critiques

    Day Two:

    • Creating human beings on the page and connecting with the human beings who’ll be reading your work (including an examination of facial expressions and the calligraphy of body language)
    • Negotiating the dynamic relationship of words and pictures and using the freedoms they can afford each other
    • Tools and Techniques: A brief discussion of the tools used by comics professionals
    • Creating an original comics feature
    • Critiques and general discussion

    To enter the drawing, fill out your information here.

  5. Robert Fabricant: Behavior is our Medium

    At the Interaction 09 Conference, Robert Fabricant talked about Interaction Design as a practice beyond just computing technology. He gave examples of Interaction Design as far back as ancient history, all the way to a humanitarian project underway today.

    In this talk, he shows that interaction design’s primary medium is behavior, extending far past the high technology world into the realm of human behavior and relationships.

    We’re pleased to welcome Robert as part of the new faculty for the program, teaching Prototyping User Experiences with Joshua Musick and Clay Wiedemann.

  6. A Discussion Workshop with Matt Owens

    Join faculty member Matt Owens and colleagues on April 2-4 as part of the National Student Show & Conference in Dallas, Texas.

    The Practice Sessions workshop will be a “make-tank” for 10 of the top students at the National Student Show & Conference. The workshop will focus on students and professionals working together to leverage their collective talents to create a new positive propaganda. Participants will be collaborating and using their visual communication skills to raise spirits and affirm that “Everything is going to be OK.”

    We love this idea, and hope it fills students with advice and inspiration. Wish we could be there as well.

    More on The Practice Sessions.

    More on the National Student Show and Conference.

  7. Announcing: Scott McCloud Workshop sponsored by MFA Interaction Design and IxDA NYC

    Join comic book artist Scott McCloud for an exclusive two-day visual lecture and intensive hands-on workshop in the art of making comics:

    Visual Storytelling Through Comics: Theory and Practice
    In this first in a series of workshops between MFA Interaction Design and IxDA NYC, strong emphasis will be given to developing clarity, storytelling skills and personal expression. Students will learn and apply a variety of techniques for presenting narratives through comics, as well as a wide arsenal of skills applicable to any form of graphic communication. The workshop culminates in the creation of a short comics feature, written and drawn by each student.

    Details

    • Dates: May 1-2, 2009
    • Workshop fee: $295
    • Where: SVA, MFA Interaction Design Department
    • Attendance: Limited to 40 people
    • Registration: Not yet open, but will be announced by mid-March on this site and by IxDA NYC

    About the Workshop Series
    The MFA in Interaction Design Program at the School of Visual Arts and the Interaction Design Association, New York has teamed up to provide professionals access to education in a way that works for them. Approximately four times per year, workshops will be held at SVA to teach concepts and methods of interaction design at a cost and timeframe that can accommodate working professionals. These lectures and workshops will be hands-on, intensive training sessions.

  8. Brendan Dawes on the craft of making

    Last month, at the February Dot Dot Dot Lecture, “The Modularists,” Brendan Dawes spoke on the modular process behind creating a project called DoodleBuzz.

    “If you practice the art of making things, that’s just as important as making anything worthwhile. I like the craft of making; it’s important to practice that craft.” —Brendan Dawes

    Upcoming events include:

    About the Lecture Series
    The Dot Dot Dot Lecture Series is meant for broad explorations of interaction design, business, and aesthetic inspiration. Practitioners and thought leaders give short talks in an informal setting. Wisdom will be revealed and methods will be shared in a environment intended to satisfy both social and scholarly pursuits.