Mapping & Feedback

Mapping and feedback have a fundamental part to play for the user experience. For your product to go on and succeed in their application, it will have to be very easy to use. The interface that your product will display would be the most principal feature in your design. With out a shadow of a doubt, this trumps how fast your product will respond, what shape you’ve chosen and even more so, the technology of your product itself. The implementation of an easy to use interface is paramount.

It’s not that hard to grasp, if you present something that is effectively difficult to understand, or even exasperating to use. Consumers on a whole would refuse what you wish to sell. The mapping of an interface should be simplistic in its approach.

This idea of mapping definitely resonates within the gaming community. One challenge that many gamers have to go through when purchasing a new games console or even a new game is the understanding of the controls on their chosen game. Sony’s Playstation which often competes with their rival Microsoft’s Xbox. Tend to have opposing controls, which is why once you go with one console, and begin to be accustomed to the interface of that specific controller. It is often hard to change.

https://www.callofduty.com/uk/en/hub

Companies like Sony, have been criticised for how they sometimes allow gaining manufacturers to have so many inconsistent button features to other games. One of the biggest multiplayer games across both Sony and Microsoft in Call of Duty. Because the game were played by masses. In turn, that came with being accustomed to the set interface. Which is why now through Donald Norman understanding of feedback.

Information that has aided what has happened – Donald Norman

Many other games have began to use the same control that were set by the predecessor in Call of Duty.

Bibliography

Norman, D.A. (2002) The design of everyday things. New York: Basic Books (AZ).

Citations, Quotes & Annotations

Norman, D.A. (2002) The design of everyday things. New York: Basic Books (AZ).

(Norman, 2002)

Stages of Action

There are two parts to an action: executing the action the action and then evaluating the results: doing and interpreting. Both execution and the evaluation require understanding: how the item works and what results it produces. Both execution and evaluation can effect our emotional state. – Donald Norman

The stages of action are divided into several divisions. When collating these all together we can begin to have an understanding of how these stages of execution and evaluation play a significant role into any design performance, simple or complex.

My role as a courier requires me to carry out a simple implementation of a collect and deliver service. The goal is to collect the placed order and deliver to the specified address. When questing how I realise this objective I go through the first stage of action. How do i do that? I could tell someone else to do it, I could ask for the directions to the restaurant. This is the planning stage. However, i still need to determine how to perform this stage of action.

Which takes us to the execution of planning. Choosing  a specified route of action. Let’s say that this is to use a navigation system to find the most efficient route.  Now we will perform. Being an experienced courier allows me to avoid separate components of my intended sequence. Such as pedestrians, pot holes and manoeuvres.

Once performing the bridge of execution. We enter a state of reflection, evaluating what has just happened. My perception of the world has changed, I have now delivered. What does that mean to me? Finally, did I execute the intended goal of collecting and delivering.

Bibliography

Norman, D.A. (2002) The design of everyday things. New York: Basic Books (AZ).

Citations, Quotes & Annotations

Norman, D.A. (2002) The design of everyday things. New York: Basic Books (AZ).

(Norman, 2002)

Authorship & Storytelling

At what point will you compromise you ethics and beliefs for design?

This question may on the surface seem very black and white, yet for many designers their morals and ethics are challenged quite frequently. Even-though, design has a level of anonymity, a sense of responsibility is bestowed upon you, for you are the producer of the work being outputted. For example, if you were commissioned or worked for a tobacco company as a graphic designer. You role for the company may consist of designing and perhaps glamorising the product through advertisements.

Tobacco goes without saying as one of the largest contributors of cancer. With this in mind, the glamorisation is definitely deemed immoral. However, your ethics and moral viewpoints will not have a bearing on outstanding bills as well as feeding yourself. Thus you are presented with a choice. Either walk away from your job, or find that grey area in which you can live comfortably.

In The Debate: The Legendary Contest of Two Giants of Graphic Design. Both Jaan Van Toorn and Wim Crouwel discuss their opposing views. This great showdown between these powerful heads of design opened the gates in design philosophy as we see it now.

Van Toorn focused his attention the the artists integrity. He believed that the artists personality were paramount in the narration of the body of work and played and integral part in the design. Crouwel had a polar opposite argument. He believed that designers should have no influence or representation. But that the design stands on its own.

Both theories have their positives and negatives. On one hand, you may have integrity in having your name attached to your design. The wok can be deemed subjective, ethical and idealist views can be presented. But accountability which can have repercussions come with it.

On the contrary, the backlash is minimal if you are not linked to your piece of work. Your design is unfiltered. There maybe a greater appreciation of your work, and bias is not taken out of the equation. The marriage of selected themes from both opposing views will help you  find a strong middle ground.

Bibliography

Crouwel, W. and Van Toorn, J. (2015) The debate: The legendary contest of Two giants of graphic design. United States: Monacelli Press.

Design Thinking

When thinking about how designer fit into a product based market, positioning yourself against or in the grain of that market. Consideration of competition should become paramount. Especially in the case of graphic designers. For instance, if we take a look into what has been a growing predicament for many designers. Competing against low rate five pound designers. How will you position yourself differently? The question becomes whether you are designer that is providing a skill or a product.

What sets you apart is the design process that you utilise. Every designer has a different and subjective way that they they use when exploring their route procedure. With each specialism comes an up to market approach. Nevertheless, there are some habitual actions  that designers share. The Double Diamond illustrates these commonalities perfectly:

Divided into these areas of execution, designers can segment their process thoroughly. We begin with expansive research acting as a vessel of your intended expedition on its voyage to delivering an outcome. The onus is thus on the designer to look at the world through a new lens. Striping away the aesthetics and context of the object and focussing fundamentally on the form. A great way to approach research is to learn from people. What demography of individuals will you be researching?  What are their characteristics, motivations, and emotional responses?

These distinguishing attributes will help you navigate your development stages. knowledge of your populace will help you find a pattern in defining where opportunities may arise. These traits will narrow what matters most. A clarity into what will essentially cater to the ensemble of people you’ve identified as your target audience.

Which leads us onto our development stage. Once you have laid the foundation of your design principles, be expansive yet critical on how tangible the solutions may have come from your primary research. What will work? What will not?

Finally, implement this into an outcome. If the goal you have reached at the end of your quest does not suffice. Iterate relentlessly. Prototyping is significant in the late part of your development stages. Using physical and digital methods to mock up your findings. Persistent prototyping will amount to a stronger piece in the end.

Bibliography

Daylight (2014) What is design thinking. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee4CKIPkIik (Accessed: 6 March 2017).

Harris, P. and Amberose, G. (2009) Design Thinking. .

i Stock (no date) The design process: What is the double diamond? Available at: http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/design-process-what-double-diamond (Accessed: 6 March 2017).

Citations, Quotes & Annotations

Daylight (2014) What is design thinking. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee4CKIPkIik (Accessed: 6 March 2017).

(Daylight, 2014)

i Stock (no date) The design process: What is the double diamond? Available at: http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/design-process-what-double-diamond (Accessed: 6 March 2017).

(i Stock, no date)

Harris, P. and Amberose, G. (2009) Design Thinking. .

(Harris and Amberose, 2009)

Does User Experience Really Matter?

“What makes people passionate, pure and simple, is great experiences. If they have great experience with your product and they have great experiences with your service, they’re going to be passionate about your brand, they’re going to be committed to it. That’s how you build that kind of commitment.” – Jesse James Garrett

When looking at how Experience Centred Design has an integral part of design, we have to then acknowledge the presence of the User Experience – UX for short. When designing a product for a consumer/client, one must take into consideration the interaction the user will experience when using their specific product and why choosing their product could potentially be significantly better than opting to use their counterparts.

User experience is in tune with how a individual perceives a digital product when interacting. Some factors that the user experience may encompass are the usability of ones design. The performance of a product and how it would react to under scrutiny as well   as inspection. The aesthetics are what most clients look for and sometimes as designers we may overlook, how sometimes aesthetics can change the way a product is being perceived by the masses. Even if the the principles of a design were met, aesthetics play into the most powerful aspect of design. Our visual experience of an object is most often the most integral part of our decision making.

This visual experience is most definitely vital when designing for the users experience. However, their are many more distinguishing senses that we also have to consider.

We have both distant senses and contacts senses. Our sight, hearing and possible smell fall under the category of distant senses. Our touch, taste and possibly smell fall under out contact senses. So when designing we have to take these integral parts of us as humans in to account.

Ecosystems

Some of the best ideas, derive from university and in some case your adolescence. But less focus more on university. Within the confines and space at LCC and universities in general you are constantly brushing shoulders with either your future competitors or partners. Networking begins now. Understanding that those ideas with the help of like-minded peers who have vested interests in other skills early can birth the dream job or help you work smoother around its gravity. Within these very swift three years the student hold use their emotional intelligence to know themselves and to build on an exhausting business or begin their own start-up. University is catalyst to propel you into the creative industry by working on your start-up, using facilities around you to bring those ideas to fruition.

The ecosystems we looked at in this session were devised into six general domains. There are of course many more, but to keep it relatively simple there have been six which may collide with one another or stay well apart. These six domains are:

• Funding and finance – With every business you’d want to put in a puns and make two back. But sometimes its hard to locate that pound so you would need to source the source of income elsewhere. This is where Micro loans, Venture capital funds, Angel investors: family and friends come into play. A majority of lenders would expect interest back or shares and equity into the business. However, some may lend to help you get on your feet such as your close ones.

• Accessible markets – You would need to know how to network with potential investors or friends of investors. Networking is key when trying to build a business or brand without having a foothold into how to realise an idea. Individuals would have to research into Multi national cooperation and who could get you in place to make those pitches.

• Human capital workforce – Running your own business / Start up takes a lot of time and dedication. As well as having these attribute, you would have to show that you could either employ labour to others and outsource the labour intensive work. Or do the work yourself. You’ll either be skilled or unskilled. But recognising that would help build your foundation.

• Mentor advisors / Support systems – A Start-up is built on infrastructure whether that be in the field of telecommunications, transportation and logistics, accounting or technical experts. Not necessarily in the early stages. However, surrounding yourself around people within those fields would not only make or break the business at hand but could also give you a massive leap.

• Regulatory framework and infrastructure

• Cultural support: Family and friends

(No Date) Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/danisenberg/2011/05/25/introducing-the-entrepreneurship-ecosystem-four-defining-characteristics/#1ba6d40438c4 (Accessed: 29 November 2016).

 

Age of disruption

It’s easy to disrupt – just pick an industry, say you’re the Uber of it, or the Airbnb of it, and get disrupting! How about creating something new? – Tom Hodgkinson

In the modern world of technology, with information and data being consumed more rapidly. We are learning earlier and quicker. With multi billion dollar marketing campaigns flooding the average consumer it is sometime hard to be isolated by it all. However having more eyes on your business, could come at cost. More and more business are being disrupted by competitors spectating what has been around for a while and recreating something better. Thus disrupting. For example, the black cab system has been around in the metropolis so long ago as 1025 by a certain Captain Bailey. However, it has taken almost a century for hackney carriages (known now as the black cabs) to come under strong opposition by its now rivals (Uber).

A Hansom cab, in Buckingham Palace Road, London, in 1933. 

Uber has a straightforward application period where as the history of the London’s black service would have their “Knowledge boys” (occasionally girl) spend as long as 3 to 4 years mapping out the streets of London. The average candidate would cover almost 20,000 miles within a six-mile radius. Now spending that amount of time learning the ins and out of the city, how quickly it would take one to get from a hotel to particular station takes time and dedication and that knowledge never leaves you.

On the other hand Uber prizes themselves on a completely different approach. Almost anyone can become part of the expanding business. Recent marketing campaigns, sell the dream of you being either 1500 miles from buying your next home, 300 miles from going on that trip that you’ve always dreamed of or just paying the bills at home. Students, self-employed business owners and even those who’ve retired and looking towards something to do to keep busy meets the requirements. In addition, the company lets you work when you want creating a flexible routine allowing drivers to handle more important matters first rather than having to work.

To close the chapter on the Uber experience, they work at a cheaper rate, meaning that driver do not make as much as the black cabbie. However the fares are much cheaper than their counterpart.

(No Date) Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/29/disruption-everywhere-uber-airbnb-creative (Accessed: 29 November 2016).

Beetlestone, I. (2012) The history of London’s black cabs the history of London’s black cabs. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/09/history-london-black-cabs (Accessed: 29 November 2016).

Pot holes

 

In this session we looked less at definitions and labels and more into creating an idea using those labels to see where fit our company would stand. The value creation system would be to alert road users to upcoming pot holes preventing damage to vehicles and themselves. When searching for who our consumers would be we were fortunate to have an idea that would cater to a majority of the group. Having owners of bicycles, cars within the group really improved what the experience would be like using this platform as a notification system. As well as the drivers and cyclists in the room, we also began to look at other road users and the branches of why this idea would cater to one over the other. Taxi drivers along with couriers fell into a category with drivers and cyclists trailing behind.

When briefly brainstorming the purpose of the platform, we came to understand that different road user may have different experience. We know that cyclist are more of a community based sort of network with black cabs just behind. However, drivers are more solitary so having notification system set would not have a great impact on the masses of drivers. The reason behind this is that black cab drivers and cyclist being community centric would more than likely notify fellow users alike to pot holes than their solitary counterparts.

The revenue stream would most likely come from traffic within the platform (the app) and by having mass traffic of users of the platform this now begins to branch out to advertising. Allowing brands to advertise their companies within the platform. We also looked at paid to be involved, having the users pay to use the platform. Lastly, looking to obtain government funds and grants. The pot hole notification system could serve as a crucial assets to cutting down cost in local councils. Pot holes only get bigger the longer you leave them, by having a platform where local residents can notify where a pot hole is this would allow councils to get them covered up much quicker, thus reducing costs.

Finally, a preferred route for funding would either be by selling all rights to another brand such as google. in 2013 Google acquired the rights to the israeli mapping system, Waze at a reported price tag of 1.3 billion dollars. Unlike Google, Waze has created a culture of user engagement. Similarly, our platform would do the same. The platform would act as an accent to the cemented brand of google, like an added feature to their update.

Cohan, P. (2013) Four reasons Google bought Waze. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2013/06/11/four-reasons-for-google-to-buy-waze/#65a668481433 (Accessed: 29 November 2016).

Intellectual Property

Intellectual property is more than just an idea. It does refer tot the creations of the mind. More so on inventions, literary and artistic works that have yet to be fathomed and explored into a tangible product. Intellectual property has the bearing to be and exclusive and assignable legal right. For example, copyright , patents and trademarks, which enable those to earn recognition or financial benefit from what they create or invent.

The creative process isn’t easy. And sometimes it’s down right ugly. So when things work out and you have a finished product, chances are you’d be pretty annoyed if someone stole it from you. Luckily we have a little something called copyright. Copyright is a legal term used to narrate the equity that the creators have over their literary and artistic works. Works covered by copyright range from books, music, paintings, sculpture and films, to computer programs, databases, advertisements, maps and technical drawings. (What is intellectual property?, no date).

This means from the moment you create something its yours, and your only. Whether you are a rockstar, an oscar winner or student making their dirictorial debut. The things you create belong to you. You have the exclusive right to distribute your works, display and perform.

Copyright also means being aware of and respecting the rights of other creators. This can be tough with social media and within the digitisation age. Make sure you have a understanding of what copyright does actually protect. Copyright can protect a ray of if different things. Music, visual art, literature, theatre and more. However some of the things that copyright do not protect are ideas, government work, logos/slogans, facts and figure etc.

Other forms of intellectual property are patents, trademarks, industrial designs and geographical indications.

 

When thinking about intellectual property one has to understand that a majority of companies and cooperation benefit on the basis of ones intellectual property. A companies values, project values, invention values are in that intellectual property. Most companies have almost 50 percent on their values vested within their intellectual property. For instance if we look at the Coca-Cola, they are entirely dependant on a large part of its ability to obtain legal protection for its intangible creations and intangible assets. Coca-Cola owns copyright in the design of its bottles, the design of its logos, its advertising, and generally anything it creates that can be considered an original work requiring creative effort.

The onus is on us with great ideas to keep them a secret until you whether have the resources to undertake. Small business alike need to know what intellectual property is and keep informed on how to trademark, copyright to prevent loss of their ideas to billion dollar cooperation, co-workers or even the neighbour who’s asks to many questions down the road.

What is intellectual property (2015) Available at: https://www.bl.uk/business-and-ip-centre/articles/what-is-intellectual-property (Accessed: 29 November 2016).

Zvulony (2010) About intellectual property law – Toronto intellectual property lawyer. Available at: http://zvulony.ca/2010/articles/intellectual-property-law/understanding-intellectual-property-law/ (Accessed: 29 November 2016).

What is intellectual property? (no date) Available at: http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/ (Accessed: 29 November 2016).

docstocTV (2013) What is intellectual property & why do I care? Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDKxuTi2Cmk (Accessed: 29 November 2016).

Convergence Culture

In 1969 the first large-scale computer built for the masses was created. This new wave f technology made it accessible for computer networks to connect contrasting types of computers together. This monumental breakthrough gave rise to the birth of the internet, thus revolutionising the world of information on an unprecedented scale in the history of  all humanity. Technological development has enabled the reach of the so-called digital revolution to permeate in all fields and all levels of society.

“We are entering an era where media will be everywhere, and we will use all kinds of media in relation to one another…” Henry Jenkins, Convergence? I Diverge, 2001 Tom, David, Lewis

Since entering this rapid wave of a digitalized world. Our digestion of information has expeditiously altered. We are now consuming our knowledge through new forms of media and technologies. Within these new methods, there are convergences. The breed of technological convergences allows the user to join multiple technologies together. For example, The mobile phone was specifically created by its innovator to communicate with others via text messages and phone calls. Nonetheless, with the speed of evolution within the digital sphere, they can now record data, images, play games and access the internet. Thus, allowing one media product to undertake various amounts of tasks.

Prior to its billion dollar net-worth Sony Cooperation made its mark in the 1950’s having built Japans first tape recorder. Since then, Sony have made efforts in vesting their interests in multiple technologies as well as integrating themselves within the entertainment industry. Like many cooperation seeking to build their brand they chose to economically converge to this space. Resulting in the transmedia exploitation of branded products. For example, the film rights to Spider-Man were sold to Sony Pictures Entertainment back in 1985 by Marvel. Allowing Sony to delve into a new market. We also see these with other sorts of branded products such as, Star wars, Harry Potter, Transformers and so on. All have other forms of media associated with the original product, in order to expand the potential audience and saturate the market.

These multiple forms of media convergence are leading us toward a digital renaissance – a period of transition and transformation that will affect all aspects of our lives. – Henry Jenkins

Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Lancaster, L. and 0000, 00 + (2015) Spider-man swings back to marvel studios with Sony pact. Available at: http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/spider-man-swings-back-to-marvel-studios-in-partnership-with-sony-pictures/ (Accessed: 29 November 2016).

current T and Museum, C.H. (2015) Apollo guidance computer read-only rope memory. Available at: http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/1969/ (Accessed: 29 November 2016).