nyandak_CCT333_Labs_2011

Lab 10 Ergonomics, which literally means the science of work, is the discipline concerned with the understanding of the human body and its interactions with the product/design in mind. It applies theory and methods to design in order to optimize human friendliness and overall system performance. Ergonomics is the science of making things comfy. To basically comply with the dimensions of the human body and design products so that there is minimal stress.

For example: A work area should allow someone to sit in a proper position, and to access equipment easily and safely, without creating strain. Physical ergonomic concerns also extend to things like the design of equipment, the layout of rooms, and the arrangement of lighting. In all cases, it is designed to create a workplace in which people physically and comfortably fit.

Lab 9 According to the slideshow by Sylvain Cottong, who is an employee at [|http://www.integratedplace.com] ,describe the tools and methods of 'service design' (2 paragraphs).

Tools and methods of 'Service Design': __Ethnography, User studies & Personas__ - This tool is used to find out the demographics of the users, including products and designs that they are particularly inclined to like. __Customer Journey Maps__ - This device allows the user to view the use and experience of a product/service that they are interested in through a visual map, showcasing the progression of use __Service Blueprinting__ - This describes the quantitative reasoning behind critical elements behind the product/service, these include concepts of time, logical sequences

__Ideation, context mapping & participatory design__ - The user takes part in a supervised workshop where the user's reveal their needs and what they are seeking, their wants etc.. __Service Prototyping__ - Story telling, scenarios and real world simulation. This makes it so that the creators of the product can feel the user's perspective, in order to comprehend the pathway of the product's usage from birth of concept to the death

From your personal experience, what would be a scenario in which these methods would be useful? (2 paragraphs)

Two summers ago, I traveled to India where the necessities required there were completely opposite to what is considered 'necessary' here in the modern world. In the village that I visited, I found that virtually noone had a laptop, only a handful had cellphones. In this way, I can see how Ethnography, User Studies & Personas is a good tool to follow when marketing to this particular type of community. By using this tool, you can develop the products/designs that cater to what they need, rather than blindly assume that their needs equate ours.

A scenario to which this tool can be applied is one that involves a basic necessity of life. Every morning, my cousins and I would fetch our buckets of water to the local tap, which by any means was not local. It was a good half-hour walk in the hot Indian sun. Instead of carrying keg-like barrels over our shoulders, there could easily be cheap re-designs that could make it easier for the people to fetch their daily water. Such designs can be made by using research models such as Ethnography, User studies & personas

Lab 8 Describe how Natalie Jeremijenko has based her research on "new technologies are an opportunity for social transformation" to perform "small actions that can amount to a significant effect to improve local environmental health". Tip: Opening up TED's interactive transcript is very helpful to understand her talk and also looking over her web site on the Environmental Health at Clinic at []. (2 paragraphs)

Natalie created a clinic where the focus and primary objective is not to help people with internal health issues, but rather address environmental concerns that the 'impatients' have and provide them with the information and direction needed to pursue and help solve the specific enivironmental concern.

An example of an action plan that she proposed was to build micro-plant communities on the curbs of New York in order to absorb the contaminants found on the street sides, while also sucking up the abundant CO2 emissions, thus segmenting some of the waste developed and found in cityscapes.

A social experiment talked about was on walking your own tadpole in a sealed walker with local water added. Tadpoles, because of their physiological structure and T3-mediated hormones, allow them to react to the quality of the water a lot more visibly than humans. In this way, people can ask each other "How is your Tadpole doing?" This is the social networking that Natalie is presenting. One that in which serves the animal/mammal community, in where you can check on how other organisms are doing and by referring to them, we can judge where we stand and how we can change our tactics to become more sustainable.

Lab 7


 * Describe how he defines 'design as a collaborative process', and cite two examples of how creators involve the people they want to create for in their work, according to Bill Moggridge's lecture. (1 paragraph each/3 paragraphs) **

Bill Moggridge is the designer of the first laptop computer and forefather of IDEO. According to Moggridge, 'collaborative process' is a device that companies use to add a sense of community involved action from people all over the world, which in turn allows the ultimate product/design to be much more worldly, accurate, and all-around better. In this way, people from all areas of expertise, be it business executives, interior designers, athletes, etc, can supplement and provide their own work.

One example is the Red Cross blood donor program. In order to make the individual person understand the situation behind donating blood, they show the human side of donating blood. People who have donated blood share their experiences throughout the process and how they felt about making a difference in someone's life. They also designed the blood donation truck in a certain ascetically pleasing way to encourage the donators to not feel intimidated or scared during the process. Both of these tactics open the doors to more and more possible donators.

Design has been stagnant for quite a while but recently it has been growing and changing. Moggridge explains that design nowadays is ever-evolving. Take for instance the massage chair. In order to develop this type of chair, designers had to investigate the physical attributes of an average person, along with the movement patterns of the human body, in order to make the chair ergonomically comfortable.


 * Find an online example of a product which utilizes his principles of collaborative design which involves people in it design. Cite its URL, and describe its design process in two paragraphs, and how it involved its user(s) in a a paragraph. (3 paragraphs) **

Website: www.wikipedia.com

Wikipedia is an online example of a product that utilizes the concept of 'collaborative design' which most definitely involves people in its design. It is a free web-based encyclopedia that allows and in fact, encourages people to monitor and give their own input on articles.

Wikipedia is designed in mind to introduce the average reader to a wealth of information, trying at its best to be accurate and reliable, however its also teetering on the border of being bias because simply of its user-contribution, and how they can possibly have their own hidden viewpoints and agendas.

 A benefit of Wikipedia is that it allows users to edit the page if the user is a member of the site. Because anyone with access to the site can change its information, information about the recent event can appear on the website at a very short fast rate. When changes to an articles are made, they usually become available immediately before getting any review and this is a debatable issue and it could be a good and a bad thing.

Tutorial 5: Lab 5 On group member's wiki. Already submitted

Tutorial 4: Lab 4

Write six paragraphs, one on each stage of the 'materials economy', and define its interactions. (6 paragraphs/one stage each paragraph)

Extraction In essence, this is the stage of taking all the resources from the world and how we are using too much. We're not at a point of sustainable extraction, which is what the goal is. The way to take resources without hindering the chances of future resource replenishment. In the past three decades, one-third of the planet's natural resources have been consumed. If everyone consumed at U.S. rates, we would need 3 to 5 planets to sustain life and preserve our planet.

Production  At this stage we use the energy mixing chemicals with natural resources which in turn creates unwanted contaminated products. The reality of the situation is that there are many airborne and underwater toxic chemicals that surround us in everyday life, but we aren't given the proper information to safeguard ourselves from the majority of said chemicals.

 Distribution  The stage and process of sending the products from the manufacturer to the middle man or directly to the consumer. By cutting the salaries of co-workers, benefits, and other social programs within the corporation, it saves money by keeping the inventory flowing in and out, by using management techniques like just-in-time delivery services.

 Consumption  The demand and the ultimate consuming of the products by the masses. For example: From the housing market crash, people are urged to buy more as it stirs the economy and eventually kick starts the economy back from its recessive state to a recovering boom. This is business and economics 101 as there are inevitable ups and downs, all driven by consumer demand and consumption.

 Disposal  The final stage of where the product is inevitably thrown out and disposed of. Usually this garbage is burned up to a crisp and thus more airbourne diseases are created which causes even more decay and destruction. Everything we buy usually gets thrown out, and the garbage is taken out everyday, creating an endless system essentially creating an unstoppable cycle.

Tutorial 3: Lab 3

1. Describe Jan Chipchase's prior job (he now works at frog design []) in relation to his work at Nokia. What are the two names he is given in the article? (3 paragraphs)

Jim Chipchase worked as a "human-behaviour researcher" and a "user anthropologist". He spent a decade exploring the intersection of technology, people and culture for Nokia, and specializes in turning insights into opportunites. He was a user researcher and studied around the world on how people behave, communicate and interact with each other. His strategy includes researching early signals of new trends with culture and combinging that knowledge with the understanding of where technology is heading. His focus is to know your potential market/customers, their wants and needs and use the information to produce a product for them.

Jan Chipchase’s previous job was visiting different countries across the world and understanding how mobile phones can affect people’s lives. Throughout his journeys, his goals were to watch how other people live their lives, what they had difficulties in doing, and what was needed to help improve this part of their lives. In this way, he can develop designs for mobile phones that would suit a given community and perform how they would want it to perform. The use of cellphones varies greatly from country to country, especially when considering countries that are highly developed vs the under-developed countries.

Although more than half of the world has and uses mobile phones on a daily basis, there are still almost 3 billion people without mobile phones, be it through lack of access to them through little to no electricity or the lack of money to support having one. This is an issue that Chipchase focuses on. The need of a certain design to create utility for people in under-developed countries, yet still be cost-efficient for them is quite a challenge, but one that Chipchase and Nokia is trying to solve. Eventually, he dreams of a world where everyone can have access to the mobile phone, be it in this decade or the following century.

2. “It’s really quite striking,” Hammond says. “What people are voting for with their pocketbooks, as soon as they have more money and even before their basic needs are met, is telecommunications.” (World Resources Institute) In the spirit of this quote, describe four instances of how owning a cellphone enables users to better their lives. (4 paragraphs/ one for each instance)


 * It allows anyone, anywhere to communicate with anyone else, untethered. This in itself is quite revolutionary and something that we as people seemingly cannot live without. Imagine yourself having no cellphone. This means that you are unavailable to anyone who wishes to connect with you, be it through talking, texting, or video calling.
 * The use of mobile banking is incredibly useful as it provides the user to instantaneously manage their funds, without having to have access to a laptop, or heading to your local bank branch. Especially for those on-the-go, such as business executives who have to manage funds quickly, or check on their stocks and savings.
 * The inclusion of mp3 playback makes it so that phones today are able to technologically converge into mp3 players as well as serving their original purpose. Now, one doesn't need a separate mp3 player alongside with their phone, it is essentially in an all-inclusive package.
 * A new industry in phones is gaming. The gaming industry, once dominated through home consoles and portable game systems like the Nintendo DS are now somewhat shifting to a more mainstream, broader audience. Just take one look at the Apple app store available to apple consumers, which provide thousands upon thousands of unique games and applications. One game for example that has taken mobile gaming by storm is Angry Birds.

Tutorial 2: Lab 2

Part 1

The Lifestraw device is by far my favorite prduct in terms of its deisgn and its purpose. Speaking of design, it is very simplistic and straight forawrd to use. The only removable sections on the product are the cap and the string attached. Other than that, it is pretty much the shape of a pen or straw if you'd like. It is something tat fits in a pocket, allowing the user to use it convienently anytime.

When around half the world is suffering from waterborne diseases, a product like Lifestraw, which purifies the surface water into drinkable fresh water is quite amazing. Never before really was there a way for an individual to easily drink water without having to worry about the diseases that could be present. Water is the essence of life, and Lifestream helps provide that needed source to people who do not have access to clean drinkable water.

Its uses are not only to make things convenient for people in their daily lives, this device actually takes part in saving lives. It provides the needed clean water to people all over the world where they need it. If a Lifestraw was available to every person in a village, that village could ensure that their water supply would be disease-free. Having a sustainable source of free water for everyone in a village is a miraculous thing and can be easily done with these straws. Imagine having enough for a town, a city, or even a country.

Part 2

Education is a category that interests me as it is a critical and fundamental need in any country in order for their people to progress. Think about the lack of education in certain countries, there are tons of them, and are behind in the information world which is where we are today in the western world. Improvements in education would decrease birth rates in places where birth rates are rampant. It would encourage the people to move further intellectually, thus improving literacy rates in both reading and writing. By laying foundations of solid education in any country, you allow the people to have a choice in life. It allows people to pursue their choice of life in whatever study they see fit. That is something that is taken granted for here in western society.

Tutorial 1: Assignment 1

Jonathan Ives is a London born designer and senior vice president of Industrial Design and Apple Inc. He is the chief designer of the iMac, PowerBook G4, Macbook, unibody MacBook Pro, IPod, iPhone, and iPad. He has spearheaded Apple’s design since 1996 and is widely acclaimed for his unique simplistic design approach of “undesign.”

Ive’s take on design is completely focused on taking away the arbitrary physical characteristics from the device. Ive’s theory of “undesign” is presented when he shows how light on the PowerBook will only be visible when necessary, and will disappear when not needed. Another aspect on Ive’s undesign is to work and solve problems on functionality which in turn provides the user with simplicity. Ive’s design of iMac (2002) highlights this branch of undesign in the way how the exterior monitor mimics photosynthesis of plants and can be adjusted easily rather than the stiffness of current monitors. His use of industrial design is apparent as his end products have all proven to be both very intuitive and aesthetically pleasing to the eye, while having a very minimalist exterior structure.