Technological developments for the digital environment
7. Design Matters
- There are a variety of principle design imperatives:
- Behavioral: usability
& functionality
- Reflective: meaning
& orientation
- Visceral: emotional, pleasure, aesthetic
- The design should match the goals and demographic.
- That there are a variety of goals DOES NOT MEAN that one can make just anyway, any old way, and then depend on it just "finding its market."
- Technological designs often go wrong:
- Innovation is faster
than human evolution & adaptation.
- Aesthetics do not
equal usability.
- Designers are not
typical users.
- Designers work to
please clients, not end-users.
- Design is for every-person;
however, we are all special.
- Gulf of Evaluation
is too wide (difference between perceived and interpretable physical representation
of system and intended actions).
- Gulf of Execution
is too wide (difference between user action intention and outcome).
- Computer/software designs in particular often go wrong:break most
of the rules of good design
- End users can spend an inordinate amount of time working on devices and networks rather than
on solving problems and creating meaningful content.
- Creeping featurism.
- Worshiping false complexity.
- One can take steps to improve the outcome of technological designs
- Perhaps close
the windows: Right now, systems are designed for generalist use. Systems
might work better as they are pruned and designed specifically for a smaller
set of terms and functions.
- Proper balance of required knowledge in the head and knowledge in the world.
- Affordances (perceived and actual properties of objects which provide clues as to how they work)
- Visibility (state of device and action alternatives).
- Strong conceptual model (coherent, consistent, predictable system image).
- Good mappings (clear relationships among actions-results, controls-effects, system
state-actions-outcomes).
- Feedback (full, continuous, accurate info. about the results of actions.
- Test, retest, be flexible
- Use a "dumb terminal" or it's not a real test
- Plan back-from-the-deadline/back-from-the-goals to leave adequate time for testing (NASA handbook materials in FILES on CANVAS).
Concept 7 Application Analysis article: "How TikTok's anti-aesthetic has molded popular culture."
<https://news.yahoo.com/tiktoks-addictive-anti-aesthetic-already-140021383.html>
Want to learn more?
Grab the NASA Schedule Management Handbook, Jan 2010 from Canvas Files.
Grab Design Thinking or IDEO_HCD_ToolKit from Sakai Resources &/or Tim Brown and IDEO on creative processes and design thinking from Canvas Files.
Vinay Dabholkar: Design Thinking Resources
Shailesh Shirali: Creativity and Insight in Daily Life
Lev Manovich. Software Takes Command. Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
Software Takes Command is available free/online: http://issuu.com/bloomsburypublishing/docs/9781623566722_web
or here: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/software-takes-command/ |
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