Verplank's Interaction Design summary

Bill Verplank’s Interaction Design Sketchbook offers four primary sections in describing the design process. These are Sketching, Interaction, Design, and Paradigm.

            Sketching is introduced as the as the first step in design, and as an essential way of understanding that separates people from other animals. Sketching can be detailed or general, physically representative or ideational. Sketching offers a visual understanding of a subject that can then be referenced and edited to develop systems, ideas, and forms.

            Interaction introduces three important questions. How do you do, feel, and know in relation to actions and stimuli you are presented with. The “doing” aspect deals with the physical actions we associate with tasks or the results of those tasks. The “knowing “ aspect recognizes mental maps we make of not only spaces, but ideas, and how we connect them to one another based on personal and cultural expectations. The “feeling” is associated primarily with the physical stimuli that suggest what we should do based on what we know. Feeling is also important in how we group and divide things, not only in terms of rough and smooth surfaces, but also connotations such as hot and cold colors.

            The idea of design, in interaction design terms is the arrangement of displays and controls that coincide with the assumptions that come with how a given people ‘knows,’ ‘feels,’ and ‘does.’ This design process is acknowledging these common assumptions and arranging information and tasks so that there is an easy subconscious understanding of what is happening and what needs to be done.

            “Paradigms” is the section with the most examples in this reading due to the more obscure nature of the subject. In essence, paradigms are the conceived metaphorical groupings between people and the objects they interact with based on the purpose the grouping has. They are patterns that we observe and utilize based on our situation. Clothes are tools to keep us alive and comfortable physically, they are fashion to express our preferences, and they are vehicles in that they provide a perceived comfort in our ability to assimilate with a notion of what is appropriate for a given situation, eg. Black clothes at a funeral, expressive clothes at festivities.

Parking garage floor plans

some key points in the Mississippi garage

Applicable Solutions (Illustrated by Janae Hall)

Some Prototyping Ideas

CoCA Wayfinding response

The CoCa website will surely be helpful in reviewing how we've approached our prototypes and testing. CoCA wayfinding presents a detailed checklist for things to keep in mind when designing all manners of wayfinding tools. An interesting point to me was the standard method for inclusion or omission of capital letters, as well as strategies for spacing in text based on the font that is being used.As with so many things, the devil is in the details, and issues such as legibility are something that may be overlooked, even though they are very important. Reading through the list of suggestions made me realize how few places take into account even half of the entire system laid out by CoCA, and how we often generally resign ourselves to doing the best we can when it comes to finding our way in these awful systems.

Ethnography Response

     Upon reading about ethnography as a practice, its procedure, or seeming lack there of, and the work that goes into creating ethnographic understandings of a situation it really sounds like one hell of a job! To have an occupation that requires you to immerse yourself in a situation and not only observe, but also participate in the pursuit of gaining a true understanding is really getting paid to live a rewarding life. It seems to me that training to observe like an anthropologist, without the procedural boundaries, and with more personal interaction is a good way to keep creative and honest, and therefore generally in a designerly mindset.
     I think this is what I really drew from the articles. More than anything, when it comes to wayfinding or any other design challenge, I need to focus more on being a present and active observer, and spend more time just "doing" with whatever material good or space I intend to modify. It is easy to listen to suggestions and explicate the immediate logistical short comings of any given situation, but good design requires reading between the lines of an object or space, its cultural connotations, its relationship to people, and its traditional aesthetics in the pursuit meaningful connection. More than anything I know now that I need to spend more time in the interacting phase of ideation, a feat difficult at this point so late in such a short project, but I suppose that is a lesson learned for future problems if nothing else.
     Secondly, I need to form a habit of data collection. this is a habit/ritual/addiction/obsession of so many successful designers, and it comes down to being able to quantify trends, movements, connections and subconscious messages. This is probably my weakest point as a designer due to my dislike of organizing said data, but all that means is that it needs to become my greatest focus, and a focus that could be assisted by an ethnographic mindset. To stay in an observational mindset, and to record observations in a truthful, consistent, and detailed manner is to gain creative insight, which is the greatest tool of a designer.