Seminar 6 May 9th-

The things that matter. By Verbeck
Seminar by Andrew
-Looks at Ezio
Slowlab

www.slowlab.net
-Eco design
-Recycling
-Development
-Psychological

How can the psychological life span be prolonger?
-Making things look better the longer they exist i.e. leather vs. chrome.

History of industrial design
-in 1900s standardisation/computerisation was thought of as dangerous
-in 20th century machines came back into popularity but everything that was created had to have a use.
-in about 1950 was pop culture and ‘throw away’ aesthetics

Script- designers anticipate the use of the design therefore limiting the use.

Objects are made too regularly; durable objects need to become a reality.

“Matter matters”

Discussion thoughts
-People want to shop for new things, how do we stop this?
-Do we have to change the whole culture?


Using computers
-Emma’s seminar

Byte magazines
Ontological- is a formal way of setting up ideas. A research tool, to figure out the relationships between different ideas.

As computers develop they will become easier to work with, and also more human like. Human computer or computeristic humans?

Computers are already starting to think for themselves. Like in word, how the computer is programmed to figure out what word you are trying to write out even if you are spelling it wrong. Computers have instincts. We are learning from computers and computers are learning from us. – The idea of feedback.

This reading was written in 1987, when not everyone had computers like they do these days. These were the good reason in the reading to purchase a computer.
-Save a lot of time
-Save labour
-Data basing, organising
-Feedback

Technology develops technology, technology develops us, and we develop technology.

Discussion thoughts
Computers can’t head towards being too much like human beings because all humans are inevitably different. What we like about computers is that they are predictable, and faultless, not individual.



Slots are fun, slots are trouble. By Erkki Huhtamo
Seminar by Hamish

-Looking at the history of electronic games as a manifestation of the human and machine relationship.
The popularity of slot machines is due (according to Erkki) to the ‘magic realm’ it creates. This is a realm designed to make the customer forget about the outside world. The slot machines also gave women a sense of being equal, which they didn’t have at the time, through the 20th century.

“We are probably witnessing only the first stages in a development that will attain much more massive dimensions and proceed into directions we cannot at presence perceive.”

Why are slot machines important to learn about in design? Because they talk about a social change.


The class reading...
‘Towards user design? On the shift from object to user as the subject of design.’ Written by Johan Redstrom

He’s asking can we design the use of something.
-really you can only decide the use of something once its in someone’s hand, not before then, while you’re trying to create it.
Participatory design
-To test whether people would use the object how it was designed to be used.
Good to have objects as simple as possible so they can be used for different things (handrail) the concept of the user becomes designer
Is the most successful thing a designer can do to make as many varieties he can from one form?

With modernism came less decoration, more objects that have purposes. ‘Form became subordinate to function.’
This is definitely something we work at here at Vic uni design school. With every design we create, there has to be a function. The tutors will never say well done this looks really nice.

Successfulness is shown by similar thought. If an object is truly successful then any one who picks it up to use it, will be thinking the same thoughts. ‘Define its effectiveness’. Unless the user understands the object the way the designer intended him to, the design is unsuccessful.

These days Designers can get big awards for designing something useless. Design should be judged by the design users. ‘It is now becoming clear, in view of the large number of award-winning designs that have failed the test of use,’

People accept that knowing about use and users play a part in design.

What a user is-
‘First of all, people, not users, inhabit the world. A ‘user’ is something that designers create.’

We aim not just to design an object but also control how that object is seen and experienced. Not in all cases though. Here are three objects where the ‘user’ has gone against what the designer has intended. Cell phone, which is not now just a ‘phone’, the cell phone that we carry around with us these days, is just as much a photo, text messager, or portable computer. Hand rails. Which we designer simply to assist people walking up stairs or along a path. Now used by skateboards as they development new moves. Turntable originally developed as a private device to listen to records, now it ‘replaces live music at dance venues.’

People interpret objects differently. ‘As it seems, the process of people becoming users, interpreting objects in terms of use, frequently generates alternative pictures of what the use of the object should be.’

It’s unlikely that the designers of a handrail would have ever been able to predict what the skateboards have done to their design. Skateboards wouldn’t have been on the designers list of people to consider as users.

These days we have specific objects that do specific things and are much closed. This means that users are unable to interpret the object how they want.

What is design about if not use? But there is a fundamental difference between designing things to be used and trying to design use or the user experience.



End question…

Is it better to design simple object (like the hand rail) with no predesigned use, so the ‘user’ or rather the people can make their own decision on what the object should be used for. Or is it better to be specific in your design so there is no guesswork left in trying to figure out how the object works.