Design

Earlier this month I presented at DUX in Chicago on our Mobile Diary method (link to Pdf of paper). The conference theme was on the shifting landscape of design (and our roles within it). I outlined the re-negotiation of conventional processes and boundaries I see occurring in our design process as a result of research methods such as Mobile Diaries. This is because participants generate research ‘data’ themselves (self-reporting) with blogs and mobile devices, in a way similar to that of user generated content or citizen media.

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Colophon is a word not often heard outside of conversations between typography nerds. But it’s a word worth adding to the web nerd’s vocabulary.

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This post was triggered whilst reading ‘Designing for interaction‘ by Dan Saffer (of Adaptive Path). I’ll admit I haven’t quite got to the last page yet but I’m happy to recommend it already. Unlike some of the other more amorphous or academic texts on the subject this book is a useful, intelligent and digestible description of what we do all day. Saffer includes a section on Design Research (a topic along with ‘design thinking’ that is fast gaining attention in and out of the design world and something we specialise in at Digital Eskimo). Saffer outlines three design research methods: Observation, Interviews and Design Activities. What got me interested in particular was the use of the term Design Activities…

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I’m off to Chicago in November to present our paper ‘Engaging With Stakeholders: Mobile Diaries for social design’ at the Conference on Designing for User Experience. The paper describes our work on mobile diaries and design research methods over the last 18 months. The act of doing these kinds of collaborative design activities with our clients and their stakeholders produces rich results. As well as generating data that inspires our future design work the research facilitates a co-design process in itself. This can lead to the generation of content by participants, as well as a reflection on, and change in existing practice. Kinda of a Participatory Design meets User Generated Content.

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Researching the sustainability of paper stock for our album packaging project lead us to consider two interesting questions: how do we find the balance between the needs of the project and the need to be sustainable; and to what extent can we justify using extra resources and creating more waste in pursuit of an aesthetic?

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Over the past few days we’ve been researching sustainable packaging options for a CD we are designing for local indie band FUZU (Eskimo Grant is a member of the band). Hopefully the project will show not only that sustainable design is achievable on a shoe-string, but also that ethical and sustainable choices are sound foundations of any budget.

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In Business Week: CEOs Must Be Designers, Not Just Hire Them. [via plasticbag]. His main point:

I now believe that CEOs and managers must know Design Thinking to do their jobs. CEOs must be designers and use their methodologies to actually run companies.

But he goes on to elaborate. Here’s some more:

What are the biggest social trends that will have an impact on design in the future? I’ll give you the obvious first—sustainability. Sustainability will be a prime driver of economic growth in the years ahead.

… By sustainability, I mean something more fundamental than just saving energy. I mean the reinvention of the chemistry of industry. I mean Bill McDonough will finally be proved right—that cradle-to-cradle capitalism is the next stage in the evolution of our economic system.

We’re fans of this approach for sure, so it’s cool to read it in Business Week. And I had to chuckle at this jibe at Al Gore:

If you’re out there Thackara, go talk to Al Gore about this and help him put some substance on the frame of his vague global warming message. Bulk it up as much as he has….well, you know what I mean.

He also singles out social media as another trend. Definitely worth a read if you have a spare 15 minutes or so…

P.S. in the same plasticbag linkset – Clay Shirky: User-generated neologism: “Indigenous content”. I have long disliked “user-generated content” (preferring “participant media” which was still clunky. I dig the concept of “indigenous content”, still not sure if it hits the mark…

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This little infographic is a great example of the power of visual communication. It was designed by Josh On (of Futurefarmers renown and designer of They Rule) and Shazna Nessa.
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This remarkable work of information design was produced from code created by Barrett Lyon for The Opte Project. The image is based on code that can map every C class network on the internet from a single computer in around twelve hours. The resulting image is a snapshot of the internet drawn from that half-day period. Active North American IP addresses are blue; European, Middle Eastern, Central Asian and African IP addresses are green, Latin American and Caribbean IP addresses are yellow, the remainder are unused or unknown IP addresses.

The ability to create representations of the evolving internet so quickly allows us to see the effect of war or natural disasters on regional networks, or the changing rate of internet use in developing areas of the world. The Opte Project is continuing to map the internet in increasingly sophisticated ways and shares its intellectual property via a Creative Commons license.
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So I went to hear Sarah Bloomer (co-founder of Hiser Group) speak at the inaugural UPA Sydney meeting last night. The topic was Expanding User-Centered Design in the 21st Century OR Why Design Thinking is The Next Big Thing.

It was interesting to see usability professionals excited about what designers have been doing for a long time. Though the division between doing user experience or usability and design doesn’t exist too much at Digital Eskimo anyway (perhaps when it is differentiated, it’s specifically based on methodology).

There weren’t any big surprises in the talk (which is a relief really since my background is in design and we are a design company), and it was reassuring to see how much of what is considered the ‘design thinking’ approach (new, inspirational, nimble, exciting, participatory, innovative and strategic) we already do at DE.

It does trigger me to comment on something that has been in the back of my mind recently though – that for usability professionals, HCI peoples and interaction designers, their/our/my history has come from the computer, from computing technology. Where as design more generally has never been constrained to this. Design has been coming to computing rather than the other way around.

Lots of the more recently introduced “design thinking” and “designerly approaches” to HCI (which are indeed exciting but not new to designers of course), are becoming popular due to HCI/UPA peoples being “released from the desktop” as computing becomes ubiquitous, mobile, pervasive, and everyday. Whereas designers have always been in the everyday. Our products have always lived in the world (although, that doesn’t directly translate to design practice always being human-centred in the way that we mean that in HCI).

I’m not sure how significant this is if all, but I think it is a pretty interesting aspect of the HCI/Design convergence thing that is happening.
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