Design Confusion

The product i have chosen for this assignment is the humble guitar tuner. The guitar tuner that i have is small and compact and due to the minimization, multiple functions have been assigned to a single button. The mode and power button are one in the same, which means the user must press and hold the mode button for 3 seconds to either turn it on or off, there is no visual clue as to which this is needed to be done creating frustration. Also the pitch button can only increase in frequency it cannot decrease meaning the whole tuner must be turned off meaning you need to start all over again.

The Story of Stuff

Watching the story of stuff opened my eyes to the vicious cycle the world goes through to make more an extra buck. We take for granted the products we use and seldom think about how it ended up in our hands.

We live in a society that is driven by consumerism where users like you and me are obliged to get the latest model, keep up with trends, and strut in the latest fashion; this is also known as perceived obsolescence whereby users are pressed to keep up with the latest trend and become conformists, let’s face it a lot of people don’t want to stand out, they want to have a sense of belonging. So keeping up with the latest fashion will allow them to fit in and assimilate with others. Another design strategy that I learnt about was planned obsolescence. This strategy is where a product is designed to be thrown away and replaced like plastic bags, paper cups, but it was more surprising to find out that planned obsolescence was applied to bigger products such as computers. Although it does make sense as a majority of the electrical goods we throw away are still usable it just costs too much to repair then to buy a new one which adds to the vicious cycle.

With all these products being made you’d have to wonder where they came from. The life of a product goes through is a linear one.

Extraction-production-distribution-consumption-disposal

Since the system is linear it’s not possible to continue on this linear line on a finite planet. The United States of America alone which encompass 5% of the world’s population consume 30% of the world’s resources and contribute to 30% of the worlds waste and that if every nation consumed at the same rate as the US did we would need five planets to sustain our needs. After hearing these facts from the video it makes me wonder how long before we start to go interstellar and mine resources from other planets.

Don Norman on Emotional Design

Creating new products have come a long way in the world of design. In the past, designing a new product would have meant making it function more efficiently. But what if the function of the product is at the peak of its existence; at its prime? Beauty and fun versus function; the latter is becoming a dying breed in the design world. I feel that this is true as we are coming to a time where modern technology is allowing us to create products which are highly functional. This is why emotional design must be considered when designing a product.

Donald Norman discusses how he used to design for usability…for function but then the aesthetics of the product would not have been in decline. But now his ‘new me’ attitude focuses on beauty and emotion and being fun.

“Pleasant things seem to work better”

From the quote above, Donald Norman describes how emotions allow people to react differently to certain products. The example he gave about 2 groups of students in a room trying to solve a problem of tying two strings together was interesting as he explained that when under anxiety neural transmitters are realized into your brain which makes you more focus and depth first. This explained why I always performed more efficiently when under pressure. Whilst when in a happy positive state, dopamine is squirted into the pre frontal lobe which makes you a breadth thinker making you think outside of the box. This level of thinking can be represented into products; if the products are appealing the mind becomes curious to how it works and becomes attracted to it.

Donald Norman Divides the emotional experience into three processes which include a Visceral, Behavioral and Reflective process. The Visceral level is the most basic and is set within us through biology and years of evolution. It includes our senses our attraction to different smells, textures, sights, noises and etc. An example of this is when a person buys a visually appeasing water bottle. The user doesn’t buy because of the water but because of the visually attractive bottle that they could use for decoration.

The second level is Behavioral which is feeling in control which means usability and function of the product. An example is the Rondavel tilting teapot, there’s 3 stages which include a lying down, tilted and standing up right. The teapot evokes and emotional response and communicates to waiters that the pot if out of water when it is lying down. It gives the users control of when they want their tea and how strong the tea to be.

The final level is reflective and is the level where that little voice in your head resides. The voice that tells you things are going to be okay, the voice that says this is good, that is bad and etc. An example is buying an environmentally safe car, even though it’s very expensive. You want to show other people that you care about the world.

As designers we need to consider the emotional hierarchy so that we can evoke an emotional response in our target markets so that they will be inclined to interact with our designs.

Task 4: Design Excellence

Human Centred Design

After watching the on video ‘Human Centered Design’ by David Kelley I was fascinated at how designing products have changed in the past eighteen years whereby products are now being designed to consider human behaviours and personalities. This is because of society’s advancement on Maslow’s hierarchy where human wants are being put into the equation as their needs are being met. David gives several example of how human centred design has been weaved into designs during 2002 which included Prada, ultimate cubicle and the spyfish.

In the Prada project advancements in technology allowed the shopping experience at the London Prada store to be more exciting and enjoyable. To help the consumer shop around the store, RF tags have been placed onto every single product in the store. Accompanied with a staff device the staff is able to find out the different sizes and colours that are available in the store without having to go check on the computer by scanning the product and even show how the item looks when worn on the run way on multiple screens within the store. This allows the consumer to feel a more free flowing shopping experience. I have never seen technology used this way before and it was inspiring to watch how innovative one can be.

It was amazing to see how different technologies have been fused to create different products. In the changing rooms of Prada liquid crystal displays have been integrated into the doors of the changing room so that they become opaque at the press of a button and become clear with another. Also a ‘magic mirror’ that has a 3 second delay allows the consumer to view how the back of the outfit looks like without having to break her neck doing so.

The design of the ‘ultimate cubicle’ for Dilbert (the comic character) went through some preliminary designs where one of the scenarios was all 4 walls coming to life and hugging Dilbert, this scenario showed how human interaction was needed in the office. The ultimate office had more emotional ties compared to a normal cubical. The top of the walls are orange lighted which represent the sun with green carpet as the grass. It always has stress relievers, ie boxing bag which a face and a flower that wilts when u go and rises when u enter. These design factors that have been accompanied in the cubicle have been.

It’s cool to see how technology allows people to now scuba dive without actually having to go in the water via the spyfish. This allows users who are not good at swimming or those who are scared of the water to enjoy the depths of the sea without worrying their heads off.

It’s pretty amazing to see how design has evolved so much. The video itself is only from 2002 yet i was awed to see some of the designs that have been out for a while now. I think human centred design is necessary as it creates an emotional response with the user.

Task 2: My Design Career

Ever since I was young I have always been fascinated by how objects were made and put together. I would always enjoy pulling apart broken products and reassembling them to its former state and trying to fix it while I was at it. With my curiosity of how things worked I pursued a career in engineering.

So for the first one and a half years of my tertiary study I’ve been studying engineering, gruelling away at maths and physics… I was getting bored of it and at a fast rate and wanted to pursue in something else but I had no idea what to change to. But during one of my units in engineering we needed to work with students from other faculties including construction management and industrial design as they are all closely bonded. After having a guest lecture from an industrial design coordinator talk to us I was very intrigued at what industrial design was about and wanted to learn more, since then I’ve always seen industrial designers as being aesthetic engineers. The more I looked into industrial design the more I wanted to do it. I’ve always wanted to do something that was hands on and design based so industrial design was a perfect choice as you get to do design products and make models.

As I was transferring during mid year there was only one uni that offered industrial design which was at UWS. Since I didn’t want to spend the rest of the year doing nothing I spent the time studying at UWS. While I was there I learnt how to do perspective drawings, use photoshop/illustrator and learnt about different material processing techniques.

After studying a semester at UWS I wanted to transfer to UNSW seeking a better social environment and better teaching. Other reasons for choosing to study at UNSW was because I’ve always had the idea that it was one of the best universities for design as they homed COFA the College of Fine Arts.

In the future I see myself working for a big time design consultancy designing products for the public, it would be such a thrill to see everyday people interact with products that I have designed, it would be a dream to build up my own design firm and work freelance.

Task 1: Shape of a Scent

In our group of six we were tasked to characterize the scent we were given in order to create a bottle/sculpture that captures the essence of the smell out of plasticine.

For our groups scent we received a perfume which had a very strong initial smell which faded slowly, it was floral and feminine. When first smelling the perfume it reminded me of a field of flowers softly being blown by a summer breeze.

I tried to capture both of these elements in my design by giving my sculpture a curved feel. To capture the strong to subtle smell i opted to divide my sculpture into equal parts where i would use patterns to interpret the different levels of smell. The bottom layer was scored with jagged lines which resembled the strong in your face hit, the next level up was circular lines which shows how it slowly transcends while the next level up are waved lines which resemble the subtle softness of the smell.