major studio

Sound Clips

2008-04-26T22:18:00.002-04:00

Sound Effects for Major Studio

61 sound effects / collages were created during the process.

Tools: Reason and Pro Tools.

click here to download

AS 3.0 and XML Integration

2008-04-14T03:01:00.010-04:00

The AS 3.0 code written for XML integration.

Pulling the data for Water Time Line by clicking each year.

Click here to take a look at the SWF file.

Click here to download the original files

Venn Diagram 02

2008-04-09T11:19:00.001-04:00

The visual steps

2008-04-08T23:06:00.003-04:00

Visuals for the New concept

2008-04-04T11:20:00.003-04:00

Venn Diagram

2008-04-04T01:16:00.004-04:00

Visuals

2008-04-01T22:09:00.001-04:00

The individual role for the Screen group

2008-03-25T15:51:00.006-04:00

1. Initial Group Proposal
Research
Researched the general environmental issues, and narrowed it down to the specific problems, identified the long-term / short-terms goals for the project.
Visualization
Produced the graphic visuals to showcase the ideas and the approaches for the presentation.
Presentation
Outlined key points and the concept.

2. Research on IAC business
Research
Researched on Media & Advertising section of IAC businesses: Ask.com, Citysearch, Evite, Insider Pages, Bloglines, iwon, Excite, My Way, Smiley Central and Zwinky. Observed their background information, pros & cons, and possible database for the website.

3. Group Meetings
Ideation / Finalizing the concept
Briefly participated on conceptualizing the project.

4. Visualization of the Project
Motion Graphics
Created motion graphics video to convey the look & feel of the project for the first final presentation.

5. Final Presentation
Motion Graphics
Created / edited motion graphics video based on the new concept after the first critique, and the video shows the steps of interaction between the wall and its visitor.

Week 07 - IAC business, Media & Advertising

2008-03-03T21:10:00.036-05:00

Ask.com

Ask.com was originally known as Ask Jeeves, where "Jeeves" is the name of the "gentleman's personal gentleman", or valet, fetching answers to any question asked. The original idea behind Ask Jeeves was to allow users to get answers to questions posed in everyday natural language. Ask.com was the first commercial question-answering search engine for the World Wide Web. On September 23, 2005 the company announced plans to phase out Jeeves and on February 27, 2006 the character was disassociated with Ask.com. Since the name change, the site resembles the

Ask.com companies
Within Ask.com, the company owns country specific sites for UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, and Spain along with Ask For Kids.

Traffic
The combined traffic to these web sites places Ask.com in the top ten parent web companies in the US.

AskEraser
It allows users to opt-out from tracking of search queries, IP and cookie values. They also vowed to erase this data after 18 months if the AskEraser option is not set.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
RSS feeds

Citysearch

Citysearch is a local online search service, providing information on businesses in the categories of dining, entertainment, retail, travel, and other professional services in cities throughout the United States. Visitors to Citysearch's local city guides will find contact information, maps, driving directions, editorial, and user reviews for the businesses listed.

In 1999, Citysearch acquired the competing Sidewalk.com website from Microsoft, and merged the two sites together.

Citysearch has been recently criticized for their alleged tampering of user submitted ratings and reviews.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
contact information, maps, driving directions, editorial, and user reviews

Evite

Evite is a social-planning website for creating, sending, and managing online invitations. It was launched in 1998. The website is a free, advertisement-supported service.

Party planning tools
Party Budget Estimator, Party Checklist, Drink Calculator, Party Menus + Recipes

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
User interactive party planning tools

Insider Pages

Insider Pages is an online local search company that aggregates consumer reviews on neighborhood merchants. The company has over 600,000 reviews of local merchants around the country.

In press coverage, the company has distanced itself from other social networking companies that target the "YouTube generation" by arguing that it serves a very different demographic: young and middle-aged families who own homes in urban and suburban areas.

After laying off 2/3 of their total staff in January 2007, they were later acquired by CitySearch in March 2007.

Best known features
Multiple reviews per business, "Best of" lists, "Insider Advice", Mapping capabilities, "Helpful" / "Not Helpful" / "Must Read" markings

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
reviews, lists, maps

Bloglines

Bloglines is a web-based news aggregator.

Features
On July 23, 2007, Bloglines released an iPhone version of their site.

It offers an application programming interface that can be used to write software that can read feeds, search its database of feed entries, and ping the service when a blog has been updated. beta site more on features

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
RSS feeds, mobile connectivity

iwon

iwon is a free casual game site and web portal that offers the chance to win cash and prizes through online games and ad links.

Activities on the website earn entries into daily, weekly, monthly cash sweepstakes and other giveaways. For example, performing an internet search earns 30 coins and clicking a link earns five. Entries earned are automatic and are limited to 100 per day. The site is most known for awarding one prize of $1 million annually.

In October 2007, they announced that they had given out $70,320,450 in prizes to more than 275,976 winners.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
Games

Excite

Excite is an Internet portal, and as one of the "dotcoms" of the 1990s.

It resembles other search engines, but it offers customizable menus according to the user's needs.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
RSS Feed

My Way

My Way is a web portal offering a number of news, shopping, e-mail and web services.

It has partnered with the Internet's leading search providers - Google, Ask.com, Yahoo! and LookSmart - to feature the world's best search engine along with our full portal offering...all without banners, pop-ups, video ads, direct marketing and privacy concerns.

Customizable user interface resembles Excite.com. It offers browser tool bar which is considered as a spyware.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
RSS Feed

Smiley Central

Smiley Central is a website which offers free-add-on program to a web browser - which allows users to input smiley faces emoticon on IMs, Emails & Blogs.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
Image archives of smiley faces

Zwinky

Zwinkies are customizable social avatars that are part of the MyWeb Searchbar on computers running Windows. A user creates a non-animated cardboard-like character (a Zwinky) to represent himself or herself in any networking site or blog that supports Zwinkies. When users change the appearance of said Zwinkies, all sites in which that avatar is currently displayed will update accordingly.

Zwinky is currently advertised on social networking sites such as MySpace, along with television shows and networks which target young audiences.

MyWeb Searchbar is considered as spyware.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
Customizable avatar

Week 06 - Group Proposal

2008-02-28T23:12:00.008-05:00

General Environmental Problems:

Reducing pollution
Preserving wilderness
Protecting endagered species
save the ocean
Global warming
Consumption of natural resources

Problems:

1. Endangered species
Distance between human and nature
Industrialized cities

Ex: Coral reefs effect the population of marine life.

Goal:
Educate
Appreciation of nature
Raise public awareness of preservation
Provide indirect experience

Long term goal:
Familiarize
Replenish the nature back to its optimal state

2. Farm raised animals / fish

Lack of knowledge
Issues with public health
Possible link to cancer

Goal:
Educate consumers / government
Alter the purchases

Long term goal:
Eventually, change health regulations on farm raised animals

3. Water pollution
Danger to public health (globally)
Danger to the species living underneath

Ex: issues with environment / promotion of algene water bottle
typhoid, respiratory, skin diseases

Goal:
Awareness

Long term goal:
Extinction of polluted water related diseases

Approach:

1. Data visualize the information (possiblity of using user input database)

2. Narrative to educate the public in an efficient way

3. Virtual environment to provide indirect experience of nature (Endangered species)

Week 06 - Marshall McLuhan

2008-02-22T15:08:00.032-05:00

Marshall McLuhan

Herbert Marshall McLuhan CC (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar — a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a communications theorist. McLuhan's work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory. McLuhan is known for coining the expressions "the medium is the message" and the "global village".

Bibliography :

The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man (1951)

The "mosaic approach" to writing a book. Each essay begins with a newspaper or magazine article or an advertisement, followed by McLuhan's analysis. Aesthetic considerations as well as on the implications behind the imagery and text

The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)

A pioneering study in the fields of oral culture, print culture, cultural studies, and media ecology.

Reveals how communication technology (alphabetic writing, the printing press, and the electronic media) affects cognitive organization, which in turn has profound ramifications for social organization.

Movable Type :

The invention of movable type greatly accelerated, intensified, and ultimately enabled cultural and cognitive changes that had already been taking place since the invention and implementation of the alphabet, by which McLuhan means phonemic orthography.

New technologies exert a gravitational effect on cognition, which in turn affects social organization: print technology changes our perceptual habits, which in turn affects social interactions.

The Global Village :

Electronic mass media collapse space and time barriers in human communication, enabling people to interact and live on a global scale. In this sense, the globe has been turned into a village by the electronic mass media.

The visual, individualistic print culture would soon be brought to an end by what he called "electronic interdependence," when electronic media replace visual culture with aural/oral culture. Humankind will move from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, with a "tribal base."

Understanding Media (1964)

A study in media ecology. A medium affects the society in which it plays a role not by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself.

"The medium is the message" :

The form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived, creating subtle change over time.

Media themselves, not the content they carry, should be the focus of study; he said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself.

Light bulb : "A light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence." It enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. The light bulb as a medium without any content.

All media have characteristics that engage the viewer in different ways; for instance, a passage in a book could be reread at will, but a movie had to be screened again in its entirety to study any individual part of it. So the medium through which a person encounters a particular piece of content would have an effect on the individual's understanding of it.

Different media invite different degrees of participation on the part of a person who chooses to consume a medium.

A movie is thus said by McLuhan to be "hot", intensifying one single sense "high definition", demanding a viewer's attention, and a comic book to be "cool" and "low definition", requiring much more conscious participation by the reader to extract value.

This concentration on the medium itself is the focal point of "the medium is the message".

From "message" to "mass age", "mess age", and "massage"
The Medium is the Massage by McLuhan and Quentin Fiore was originally to be titled The Medium is the Message, but McLuhan preferred the new one which is said to have been a printing error.

The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (1967)

Adopted the term "massage" to denote the effect each medium has on the human sensorium, taking inventory of the "effects" of numerous media in terms of how they "massage" the sensorium.

"The technique of invention was the discovery of the nineteenth [century]", brought on by the adoption of fixed points of view and perspective by typography, while "[t]he technique of the suspended judgment is the discovery of the twentieth century", brought on by the bard abilities of radio, movies and television.

War and Peace in the Global Village (1968)

Joyce's Wake is claimed to be a gigantic cryptogram which reveals a cyclic pattern for the whole history of man through its Ten Thunders.

Thunder 1: Paleolithic to Neolithic. Speech. Split of East/West. From herding to harnessing animals.
Thunder 2: Clothing as weaponry. Enclosure of private parts. First social aggression.
Thunder 3: Specialism. Centralism via wheel, transport, cities: civil life.
Thunder 4: Markets and truck gardens. Patterns of nature submitted to greed and power.
Thunder 5: Printing. Distortion and translation of human patterns and postures and pastors.
Thunder 6: Industrial Revolution. Extreme development of print process and individualism.
Thunder 7: Tribal man again. All choractors end up separate, private man. Return of choric.
Thunder 8: Movies. Pop art, pop Kulch via tribal radio. Wedding of sight and sound.
Thunder 9: Car and Plane. Both centralizing and decentralizing at once create cities in crisis. Speed and death.
Thunder 10: Television. Back to tribal involvement in tribal mood-mud. Last thunder = turbulent, muddy wake, and murk of non-visual, tactile man.

From Cliché to Archetype (1970)

A collaboration with Canadian poet Wilfred Watson.

Explorations, with Edmund Carpenter (1950s)

Week 05 - Presentation from "Screen" group

2008-02-21T23:32:00.008-05:00

BBCi and Steve Rogers

BBCi Vs. Google

1. Structure
BBCi : Google = publicly owned organization funded by government : business aiming to develop a product that will please individuals

2. Goal
BBCi : Google = tries to maintain a strong sense of local community and social reponsibility : strives to design for thebest reslts, while remaining politically and socially neutral

Steve Rogers and BBCi

He studied transportation design then moved into industrial design and got a job at Philips Electronics. At the height of dot-com boom in 2000, Razorfish offered him to lead product development team. But unfortunately, the crash of dot-com came too soon, he stayed with Razorfish for a year, then moved to BBCi.

BBCi's initial request to Steve Rogers

"Move from monologue to dialogue"
Moving from an old world broadcast environment, where you're talking at the audience, to a two-way dialogue with an audience.
(comments, email, live chats, message boards)

Steve's attempt in enabling interaction between people and BBCi

1. Understand the audience, for user centered design
2. Creating safe zone, fully moderated chat rooms for kids and self moderated chat rooms for adults

Major changes to the Homepage

1. Anchor point: a toolbar consistent throughout the site, as a browser or a widget. Sense of trust.
2. Graphical language: Trust worthy, professional, but engaging and intimate. Personal promotional images.
3. Digital patina: frequent visits pump up the intensity of colors, faded colors are used for the less visited sites. Personalized website.

Week 05 - Proposal

2008-02-19T00:56:00.050-05:00

Problems / Needs:

The Root of the Problem:

1. People who have guns can kill people
Guns, guns,.. Lots of Guns. There are way too many guns out available to public. Guns kill people? People kill people?

Columbine, Virginia Tech.. 46 notable school shootings, from 1966 to February 2008.
There had been 5 shootings in 2008, as of now. More info

2. Media
Media ranging from movies, music, and games influence public to become indifferent about violence. Sometimes media glorifies violence, and it can have great impact on our youth.

Movies:

Guns, Lots of guns.

Video games:

3. NRA
The National Rifle Association, or NRA, is a non-profit group for the promotion of firearm ownership rights, marksmanship, firearm safety, and the protection of hunting and self-defense in the United States, established in New York in 1871 as the American Rifle Association.
The NRA sponsors firearm training courses and events featuring shooting skills and sports.

Also the NRA is sometimes said to be the single most powerful non-profit organization in the United States. It bases its political activity on the principle that gun ownership is a civil liberty protected by the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and claims to be the oldest continuously operating civil liberties organization in the United States. According to its website, the NRA has "more than four million members."

Laws to limit individual handgun sales to one a month: Blocked by NRA

Laws to ban semi-automatic weapons that can be converted to automatic fire: Blocked by NRA

Observation:

Between 1994 and 1999, there were 220 school associated violent events resulting in 253 deaths - - 74.5% of these involved firearms. Handguns caused almost 60% of these deaths.

In 1998-99 academic year, 3,523 students were expelled for bringing a firearm to school. This is a decrease from the 5,724 students expelled in 1996-97 for bringing a firearm to school.

The National School Boards Association estimates that more than 135,000 guns are brought into U.S. schools each day.

America is losing too many children to gun violence. Between 1979 and 2001, gunfire killed 90,000 children and teens in America.

In one year, more children and teens died from gunfire than from cancer, pneumonia, influenza, asthma, and HIV/AIDS combined.

American kids are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times more likely to die from a firearm accident than children in 25 other industrialized countries combined.

Every day, more than 80 Americans die from gun violence.

Goal:

We need to create a campaign for awareness [1] to effectively persuade the public away from guns, [2] to educate the youth while media's corrupting their brain with guns and violence, and [3] to expose deeds of NRA and laws preventing abolishment of guns.

User:

1. Younger generation who is easily influenced with media
2. The Parents
3. Public who is not aware of the issue
4. Gun advocates / NRA

Solution:

1. Educate public with visuals (easy enough to understand),
2. Emphasize the negative effects and fatal incidents,
3. More accessible information (interactive online websites),
4. Public display / Art installations
5. Campaign videos (like truth videos)
6. Chris Rock's suggestion

“Everybody is talking about gun control. Got to control the guns. Fuck, that…. No, I think we need some bullet control. I think every bullet should cost five thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars for a bullet. Know why? Cos if a bullet cost five thousand dollars, there’d be no more innocent by-standers. That’d be it. Some guy’d be shot, you’d be all ‘Damn, he must’ve done something, he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his ass!’ And people’d think before they shot someone ‘Man I will blow your fucking head off, if I could afford it. I’m gonna get me a second job, start saving up, and you a dead man. You’d better hope I don’t get no bullets on lay-away!’ And even if you get shot you wouldn’t need to go to the emergency room. Whoever shot you’d take their bullet back. ‘I believe you got my property?’ That’s right.”

Interface:

1. Online video campaign
2. Interactive websites with visuals diagrams, polls, information, and links
3. Public display / Art installation

Precedents:

1. http://www.thetruth.com/
An effective method to create public awareness against corporations

Alpay's proposal

Week 04 - Reflection of Reading: Protocol

2008-02-11T17:35:00.004-05:00

Chapter 2: Form

"Protocols are an entire formal apparatus."

Repressive use of media vs. Emacipatoy use of media

A special relationship between computers and the human brain. It is a logical step to replace organic sense organs with computerized ones.

"Cybernetic system['s] virtues are balance, self-regulation, circularity and control."

"Memex, a nonhierarchical, associative machine for inputting and outputting information."

"Web seems to mirror several of the key characteristics o the rhisome: the ability o any node to be connected to any other node, the rule of multiplicity, the ability to splinter off or graft on any point, the rejection of a "deep structure," and so forth."

"The Net is not narrative-based, or time-based. The answer [to its magnetic power] is in the form."

continuity

"Internet is able to use the application layer to create a compelling, intuitive experience for the user. This is the secret f continuity."

"Continuity creates this pleasurable, fluid experience for the user."

Techniques of continuity

Conceal the source

Eliminate dead links

Green means go

True identity

Remove barriers

Continuity between media types

Prohibition against low resolution

Highest speed possible

Prohibition on crashes

Prohibition on dead media

Eliminate mediation

Feedback loops

Anonymous but descriptive

Record: it has its roots in the ability of physical objects to store informaton.

Object: it is the digital economy's basic unit. it exists only upon use

Protocol: it is a set of rules that defines a technical standard. it is a type of object. it is a universal description language for objects it is a language that regulates flow, directs netspace, codes relationships, and connects life-forms.

"The Internet is a delicate dance between control and freedom."

Browser

HTML: it is the Net's universal graphic design protocol since 1990. it designates the arangement of objects in a browser.

Fonts

"All unnecessary barriers beteen the user and the cotent must be removed. All content must be placed as close to the front door as possible. Often this means that the tree-like hierarchy of computer operating ystems mustbe subverted, in favor of a more flat interface."

Week 04 - Interactive Website

2008-02-11T17:32:00.001-05:00

the site

Week 03 - Reflection of Reading: Protocol

2008-02-08T01:12:00.001-05:00

Foreword: Protocol Is as Protocol Does

"[The early 1980s culture] was ... a culture of perceived conflicts between computer meg-corpoations and an emerging hacker subculture, both hatched in the midst of Reaganomics and the Japanese microelectronics boom."
"The development of the personal computer ... had a profound stratified impact on the wa in which social, political, and economic life is experienced."

social change is indissociable from technological development

power, control, and dcentralization

"Code is a et of procedures, actions, and practices, designed in particular ways to achieve partcuar ens in articular contexts. Code = praxis."

""Reading" code is thus more programming or development or debugging tan explnation."

information networks, computer software, and industry standardization

"A code is a series of activated mechanical gears, or a stack of punched cards circulating through a tape-reading machine, or a flow of light-pulses or bits in transistor or on silicon, r a vat of binding interactions between DNA fragments.

"The networkas real-but-abstract may involve "information" as an immaterial entity, ... thus, ... networks are not metphors."

networks as materialized and maerializing media

"A network is not simply a free-for-all of information "out there," nor is it a dystopia of databanks owned by ocrportions. It is a set of technical procedures for defining, managing, modulating, and distributing informaion througout a flexible yet robust delivery infrastructre."

"The internet is not a simple "ask and you shall receive" tool. It is constituted by a bi-level logic."

"TCP/IP enables the Internet to create horizonta distributions of information from one computer to aother."

"DNS vertically stratifies that horizontal logic through aset of regulatory bodies that manage Internet addresses and names."

"The founding principle of the Net is control,not freedom -- control has existed from the beginning."

"The examples of "software art," open source activities, and network politics, all provide examples of potentials for 'counterprotocol" practices."

"Its horizontaity (community networks; TCP/IP) ad its verticality (its stratification; DNS)."

"Every network is a network because it is constituted by a protocol."

"Power relations are in the process of being transformed in a way tat is resonantwith the flexibility and constraints of information techology. The Internet is not simpy "open" or "close" but above alla form that is modulated."

Chapter 1: How Control Exists After Decentralization

a diagram, a technoogy, and a management style

"The diagram is the distributed network, a structural form without center that resembles a web or eshwork. The technology is the digital computer, an abstract machine able to perfor the work of any other machine. The management style is protocol, the principle of organization native to computers in distributed networks. All three come together to define a new apparatus of control that has achieved importanc at the start of the new millennium."

1. sovereign societies of the classical era, characterizedd by centralized power and sovereign fiat, control existed as an extension of the word and deed of the master, assisted by vioence and other coercive factors

2. later, the disciplinary societies of the modern era took hold, replacingviolence with more bureaucratic forms of command nd control

3. after the disciplinary socities come the socities of control

TCP/IP allowed for cheap, ubiquitous conectivity

"At the core of networked computing i the concept of protocol. A computer protocol is a set of recommendations and rules that outline specific technical standards. The protocols that overnmuch of the Internet are contained in what are called RFC (Request For comments) documents. Called "the primary documentation of the Internet, these technical emoranda detail the vast majority of standards and protocols in use on the Internet today."

"Many of the protocols used on the World Wide web (a network within the Internet) are governed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This internatioal consortium was created in October 1994 to dvelop common protocols such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets."

"[Protocols refer] to any type of correct or proper behavior within a specific system f conventions."

"Now, protocols refer specifically to standards governing the implementation of specific technologies."

"Protocol is a technique for achieving voluntary regulation within a cntingent environment. These regulations always operate at the level of coding -- they encode ackets of information so they may be transpored; they code documents so they may be effectively parsed; theycode communication so local devices may effectively communicate with foriegn devices. Protocols are highly formal; that is, they encasulate informtion inside a technically defined wrapper, while remaining relatively indifferent to the content of informtion contained within. Viewed as a hole, protocol is a distributed management system that allws control to exist within a heterogeneous material milieu."

"Protocol is how technological control exists after decentraliation."

"Protocol is based on a cntradition between two opposing matchines: One machine radically distributes control into autonomous locales, the other machine focuses control into rigidly defined hierachies. The tension between these two machines -- a dialetical tension -- creates a hosptable climate for protocological control."

"TCP and IP work together to establish connetions btween computers and move data packets effectively through those connections, ... resulting in a nonhierachical, peer-to-peer relationship."

"DNS is a largedecentalized database that maps network addresses to network names."

"All DNS information is controled in a hierachical, inverted-tree structure. Ironically, nearly all Web traffic must submit to a hierachical structure (DNS) t gain access to the anarchic and radically horizontal structureof the Internet."

"The process of converting domain names to IP addresses is called resolutio. At the top of this inverted tree area handful of so-called "root" servers holding ultimate control and delegating lesser control to loer brunches in the hierachy."

"DNS system is structured like an inverted tree, each brunch of the tree holds absolute control over everything below it."

"The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, describes the DNS system as the "one centralized Achilles' heel by which the Web cn all be brought down or controlled."

"With the stroke of a delete key, whol countries can be blacked out from the rest off the net. With the "." [root file] centralized, this is asily done. Control the "." and you control access."

"Protocol's native lanscape is the distributed network."

"A distributed network differs from other networks such as centrlized and decentralized networks in the arrangement ofits internal structure. A centralized network consists of asingle central power point (a host), from which are attached radial nods."

"Shared protocols are what defines the landscape of the network -- who is connected to whom."

"Without a shared protocol there is no network."

"The old power of death that symbolized sovereign power was now carefully supplanted by the dministration of bodis and the calculated management of life."

1. When power takes life as its aim or object, tenresistance to power already puts itself on the side of life, and turns life against power.

2. Life becomes resistance to power hen power takes life as its object."

3. When power becomes bio-power resistance becomes the powerof life, a vital power that cannot be confined witin species, environment or the paths of a particular diagram."

Week 03 - The Proposal

2008-01-30T03:39:00.001-05:00

Week 02

2008-01-30T03:32:00.001-05:00

Enhancement of an existing design: Ear wax spoon

Criteria

Keep existing functionality

Modify object for screen, environment, or portability

Emphasize either visceral, behavioral, or reflectie level

User

Multi-national, world traveler, business person, 45 years old

Design accommodations for the user

More detailed look in his life:

The user is a multi-national, well-travelled, 45-years-old business man. From knowing what he does, money is not an issue for him, and over the years, he has learned to appreciate finer things in life. His experiences from traveling has gained him insights to different cultures, and is familiar with foreign customs. From other countires, he buys gifts and souvenirs for friends and family. Therefore, any belongings of his are small and portable.

What we learn from his life:

Portability is a must.

Importance of design: visceral, behavioral, and reflective, all must be considered in designing for the specific user. Like BlackBerry.

Visceral - He is a multi-cultural traveler, and his experiences has shown him many beautiful things in life. He has high standards when it comes to beauty / design.

Behavioral - His job requires him to multi-task, and quickly move him to one place to another. Ease of use and portability is a must.

Reflective - He thinks his belonging must reflect his lifestyle. His sophisticated lifestyle helps him carefully choose his possessions.

Design enhancements of the existing product

More detailed look at the existing design:

Ear wax spoon.

Pros: Simple, intuitive design from Asia. It digs out ear wax from your ear. The physical attributes are simply designed: one end for digging, and the other for cleaning. Material is bamboo -- which is cost efficient and known for ease of cleaning. Cost efficient for manufacturers and for users. Encourages human interaction, and the ritural not only relaxes the user, but also creates a special bond between the two.

Cons: It may cause injury. It is fragile, since the material is thinly carved out bamboo tree. You can't do it alone. It is unsanitary, if not handled with care.

Design Specifics

Problems:

plain color, fragile, un-ergonomic, dangerous, unsanitary, difficult to use

Accomodations:

1. Sleek, attractive portable casing

2. Universal Instruction

Solutions:

1. Ergonomically friendly design of the frame

2. Softer surface / texture for reduce injuries, new material, possibly rubber

3. Sturdier structure of the form

4. Use eye catching color palettes

5. For manufacturers, easy to mass produce

6. Find an easier method?

Remaining question:

1. Enhancement in structure, design
1. Innovative method to provide the same functionality, for one person? or for two?

2. Innovation: divide and conquer? Specify the functionality into sections, and develop the appropriate feature for the specific demographic? Will it be another innovation?

ear massager for relaxations, for tired, stressed business man on plane

Rough sketches, examples

rough sketches for ear wax spoon

rough sketches for casing of ear wax spoon

Week 01 - Reflection on Reading: Emotional Design by Donald A. Norman

2008-01-23T22:42:00.001-05:00

Three Levels of Design: Visceral, Behavioral, and Reflective

"Packaging is one answer [of distinguishing itself from another.]"

"The design becomes the product."

"[The packaging of the product] appeals to the powerful visceral level of emotion."

"[The package] can serve as reminder of the occasion when [the product] was ordered."

"[The package serveas mementos of those occasions, taking on a specal emotional value, becoming meaningful objects,...because of the memories they produce,...memories can trigger the powerful, long-lasting emotions."

Visceral Design

"We are exquisitely tuned to receive poerful emotional signals from the enironment that get interpreted automaticaly at the visceral level."

"The human preference for faces and bodies that are symmetrical presumably refects selection of he fittest."

"Visceral principles: bright, highly saturated primary colors."

"Adult humans like to explore experiences far beyond the basic, biologicaly wired-in preferences."

"All things that are viscerally negative but that can be reflectively positive."

"[Visceral design] is sensitive to cultural differences, trends in fashion, nd continual fluctuation. Today's sophistication rus the risk of becoming tomorrow's discard. Great designs, like great art and literature, can break the ruls and survive forever, but only a few are gifed enough to be great."

"At the visceral level, physical features -- look feel, and sound -- dominate."

"We love sensuous curves, sleek surfaces, and solid, studay objects. Because visceral design is about initial reactions."

"Effective visceral design requires theskills of the visual andgraphic artist and the industrial engieer. Shape andfom matter. The physical feel and texture of the materials matter. Heft matters. Visceral design is all bout immediate emotional impact. It has to feel good, look good. Sensualiy and sexuality play roles."

Behavioral Design

"Behavioral design is all about use. Performance matters. This is the aspect of design that practitioners in the usability communit focus upon."

"Four componenets of good behavioral design: function, undersandability, usability, and physical feel."

"The first step in good behavioral design is to understand jut how people will use a product."

"There are two kind of product development: enhancmentand innovation. Enhancement means to take some existing product or service and make it better. Innovation provides a completely new wayof doing soething, or a completely new thing to do, something that was not possible before."

"One cannot evaluate an innovation y asking poential customers fo their views."

Enhancements to a product: watching how people use, discover difficulties, then overcome them."

"Engineers and designers who believe they do not need to wtch the people who use their product are a major source of the many poor designs that cnfront us."

"The realhallenge to product design is "understanding end-user unmet and unarticulated needs." That's the design challenge -- to discover real needsthat even the people who need them cannot yet articulate."

"It is only after such enhancements are made that everyone blieves them to be obvious and necesary. Becuse most people are unaware of their true needs, discovering them requires careful observations in their natural environment."

""Learn once, remeber forever," ought to be the design mantra."

Three different mental images of any object: designer's model, user's model, and system image.

Designer's model: the image in the head of the designer

User's model: the image that the user hhas of it ad the way it works

System image: the image conveyed by the product and written material

"In an ideal world, the designer's model and the user's model should be idential and, as a result, the user understands and uses the item properly."

"Designers can communicate with eventual users only through the system image of a product."

"An important component of understanding comes from feedback."

"Negative emotionskick in when tere is a lack of understanding, when people feel frustrated and out of control -- first uneasness, then irritation, and, if the lack of control and understanding persists, even anger."

"Usage is the critical test of a product."

"Physical touch and feel can make a huge difference in you appreciation of their creations."

""Virtual worlds,"...although they hve many benefits, they eliminate one of the great delihts of real interactions: the delight that comes from touching, feeling, and moving real physical objects."

"Good behavioral design should be human-centered, focusing uponunderstanding and satisfying the nees of the people."

"[Engineers and desigers] know too much aboutthe technology and too litte about how other people live their lives anddo their activities."

"Most behavior is subconscious and what people actually do can be quite different from what they think they do."

Reflective Design

"[Refelctive design] is all about message, about culture, and about the meaning of a product of its use."

"Ugly art can be beautiful."

"Reflective-level operations often determine a person's overall impression of a product."

"Once the reflective system fails, then the appeal is apt to collapse as well."

Case Study: The National Football League Headset

The Devious Side of Design

difficult to buy the most desired items, and extremely easy for the impulse items.

Design by Committee Versus by an Individual

"Although reflective thoughtis the essence of great art,...appealing to the intellect is no guarantee of success."

Business versus Art or Literature

Week 01

2008-01-23T18:56:00.001-05:00

The object of good interaction design

Is it a tiny spoon for tiny people?

No. It's an Asian Q-Tip. I was having difficulty finding a proper English name for the tool. In Korean, people call it, "ear wax digger." It's a tool widely used in East Asia to take out any loose ear wax.

The 3 reasons why I chose this object as a good interactively designed tool.

1. The precedent Vs. The object = better results, in any condition

The cotton swabs and Asian Q-Tips are used to remove visible dirt and wax around the outer surface of the ear.
But the cotton swab is only effective when the area is moist. The ball shaped cotton swabs aren't the best shape
to sccoop out the dirt inside a narrow hole. The Asian Q-tip is designed in two parts; a scooping end and a fluffy end.
The scooping end conveniently dig out the chunks, and the fluffy end picks up the rest.

2. Cost Efficient

If it's used with care, you can use it forever.
You don't need to buy any more of disposable Q-Tips. It'll save you money.

3. Encourages human interaction

The tool can be used by one person, but the nature of tool encourages two people to dig ear wax off of each other.
It may sound disgusting, but in some part of Asia, it is a sign of affection / care / intimacy / kindness, and creates a special bond between the two people.

A quote from an Asian Q-Tip user: "Although occasionally painful (and quite dangerous if not done very delicately and carefully),
the ticklish feeling coupled with the overall sensation all over your body causes a relaxing and sleep-inducing sensation.
It's a similar experience to getting a massage done. Weird eh?"