The product I have choosen is a LG TV remote control, there are too many buttons that my mother can never get it right.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Task 5: Design Confusion
The product I have choosen is a LG TV remote control, there are too many buttons that my mother can never get it right.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Task 6c: Video Reflections - The Story of Stuff
24th July, 2010
The video “The Story of Stuff” by Annie Leonard is a great video that reminds everyone about the origin of the products we have been using, as designers, our job is not just design and product nice looking products, without a care of any other things happening around us, but the products we design have not just impacted the consumers, but also the environment, in Leonard’s video, she has broken up the process into five parts, Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption and Disposal.
As Leonard suggested, Extraction is just a name used to cover the word “trashing the Earth”, nowadays, one-third of the Earth’s natural resources has been “extracted”, in the US, there are only 4% of forest left and 40% of water became undrinkable. By watching how the people are “trashing the Earth” it is scary to just even think about how the future will be like.
And during the production, there are toxics putted to production of products, which means there are toxics during product productions, and the products itself, and people who work in the toxic factories are people that must work in there just to live, which I find it very disturbing and disgusting, people are not being treated like they should as human, and sometimes they are children who produce the product, they are risking their life in producing the product, instead of having a fun childhood, they are using their life to produce products we use. Thinking about it, makes me feel guilty in using products.
So after we used the products, the disposal of the product gets burnt to the air and produce toxics which pollutes the air environment, and some disposal get dumped in the ground which also pollutes the ground and the climate, leading the world to a climate change. There is why we need to recycle, of course, recycle can help, but it does not fully solve the core problem we are facing, because we can never fully separate a product and recycle them.
After watching the video, I realize how much waste we produce everyday, just looking at this video already get my concern about the future of this world we are living in today, so I suppose as a future designer, one of my concern will be the environment, because before I watch this video, my main concern is the design of the product, but this emotional video have deeply changed the way of my thinking.
The video “The Story of Stuff” by Annie Leonard is a great video that reminds everyone about the origin of the products we have been using, as designers, our job is not just design and product nice looking products, without a care of any other things happening around us, but the products we design have not just impacted the consumers, but also the environment, in Leonard’s video, she has broken up the process into five parts, Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption and Disposal.
As Leonard suggested, Extraction is just a name used to cover the word “trashing the Earth”, nowadays, one-third of the Earth’s natural resources has been “extracted”, in the US, there are only 4% of forest left and 40% of water became undrinkable. By watching how the people are “trashing the Earth” it is scary to just even think about how the future will be like.
And during the production, there are toxics putted to production of products, which means there are toxics during product productions, and the products itself, and people who work in the toxic factories are people that must work in there just to live, which I find it very disturbing and disgusting, people are not being treated like they should as human, and sometimes they are children who produce the product, they are risking their life in producing the product, instead of having a fun childhood, they are using their life to produce products we use. Thinking about it, makes me feel guilty in using products.
So after we used the products, the disposal of the product gets burnt to the air and produce toxics which pollutes the air environment, and some disposal get dumped in the ground which also pollutes the ground and the climate, leading the world to a climate change. There is why we need to recycle, of course, recycle can help, but it does not fully solve the core problem we are facing, because we can never fully separate a product and recycle them.
After watching the video, I realize how much waste we produce everyday, just looking at this video already get my concern about the future of this world we are living in today, so I suppose as a future designer, one of my concern will be the environment, because before I watch this video, my main concern is the design of the product, but this emotional video have deeply changed the way of my thinking.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Task 6b: Video Reflections - Emotional Design
17th August, 2010
Don Norman’s video on emotional design focus on the design of a product and the emotion gained by the user, good design doesn’t only focus on the overall look of an object, but how useable the object can be, there is no point for a design to look good, but hard to use or the user cannot figure out how to use it.
The first example Don Norman brought up was a lemon juicer designed by Philippe Starck. Which is designed to be a lemon juicer that is not to be used to make juice, because of the acid in a lemon and orange will ruin the plating of the product. But if the lemon juicer cannot be used to for its purpose, the product became useless. The user had to personalise the product and make it something else such as a decoration, and the ability of personalise something is what makes something yours.
As the world moves toward automation, computers become smarter and more human like. And it makes decisions for the user which is sometimes not what the user wanted, and limited the choice of the user, making a restriction. Which in terms is making it harder for the user, so automation does not necessary means better, if automation is overused, the user have less control of what can be done, examples Don Norman used includes cars, if the road condition appears to require extra attention, the car adjust the position of the driver, which may not be what the user want. Don Norman also suggested the Lexus camera system, if the driver appears to be not paying attention to the road, the car breaks itself, which might be able to save life, but it can also be more dangerous for the driver.
Also, sometimes the design itself can be useless, Norman used the idrive example, the car have the ability to do a lot of things include “a driver can adjust air conditioning and locate the nearest Dairy Queen on the same screen”, which is not a very useful design.
And the BMW has a lot of buttons and it makes the design of the car messy, and as Mercedes-Benz designed a completely opposite style to BMW, it also created problems, the design of Mercedes-Benz does look very clean, but the buttons are too close together and its making it harder for user to use.
It is the user and customers that wants more features from designs, the designers will have to throw in more buttons or computer screen, but as there are more of these things the level of complexity also increases, so that is the challenge designers have to face in future, to minimise the complexity but increase the features of products.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Task 4: Design Excellence
9th August, 2010
Motion C5 is similar to the product Ipad, but it is designed for medical use, which I think is a innovative great design, as it helps to reduce human error, hence leading to reduce life lost, also the technology used was never thought to be possible in the past, which can only be seen in movies, and the design have brought the “dream” to reality.
From the analysis of the product, I realize design and technology are tightly bonded together, a design is not just about making things look good, but it can also be used to makes life easier, and in the case of motion C5, it helps to save life.
Motion C5 is similar to the product Ipad, but it is designed for medical use, which I think is a innovative great design, as it helps to reduce human error, hence leading to reduce life lost, also the technology used was never thought to be possible in the past, which can only be seen in movies, and the design have brought the “dream” to reality.
From the analysis of the product, I realize design and technology are tightly bonded together, a design is not just about making things look good, but it can also be used to makes life easier, and in the case of motion C5, it helps to save life.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Task 6a: Video Reflections - Human centred design
2nd August, 2010
The world around us is rapidly changing, and so does the design world. In a design world, designers must keep up with the speed of the changing world and think ahead of everyone, developed new concepts and ideas which help human to have a better quality of life. Good designs are not just about the overall appearance of the product, but also how user friendly it can be. Designs are all around us, everything requires a design. David Kelley’s video Human centred design features the philosophies of changing design and analysis the new products designed by designers.
It is exciting to have the chance to see the new products he showed, the first design he talked about was the RF tag and scanning device for the Prada stores, the product is amazing as it is a new technology that was never seen before, Prada wanted a design that has a cultural role, and it can show the details of products by remotely pointing at the product, hence giving the staff a easier data gathering and management. Also the closet display in the Prada store is a 3D scanner which scans the RF tags in the closet, and the touch screen allows the customers to gain more information about the clothing in the closet. Prada store had also used the liquid crystal glass changing room that allows the person in the change room to switch the glass from transparent to grey and grey to transparent, this allows the person to have privacy in the change room, but also show others outside to review, which is convenient for both people inside and outside of the change room. There is also a design in the change room which is called the magic mirror, it is a plasma screen that enables the person to have multiple views of their clothes by has a 3 second delay on the mirror, which I believe to be a very intelligent design, as it happens around us, but yet the designer of it thought of the problem people have while trying on a cloth, and thought of a solution to solve the problem and making it easier for the user.
Another design that was mentioned in the video was the installation in a museum in London, it is about 16 meters tall, and it is a series of digital screens based on the London subway system, it shows the comments people made about the museum and can be read on the screens, which I believe to be a visual decoration, but the nicely designed room is a pleasure to view.
The cubical square in the office is an ordinary box which fits a person in there for working, but I really like the design of new cubical, it transform a ordinary office into a playful workspace, the colour choice was one of the main reason that it gave life to the environment, also the semi-transparent wall gives the room visually more spaces, and the use of wall as drawers are very space efficient. A nice working environment does not only make a room looks better, but the employees will be working more efficiently with better environment, and I do strongly believe that a design can affect the way a person thinks.
Another amazing design is the spyfish, which I believe that it can be a revolution to the science world, the aim of the design is to let person experience diving without having to get wet, but I see the design as a way to investigate the habitat of wildlife. But as it purpose is for, it is a good way for people that cannot swim to experience the life in the ocean, and learn the fun of being underwater. And it can dive to 500ft where light cannot possibility pass through, but the built in light allows the user to see what is under the water that cannot be seen with naked eyes by diving into the ocean, the concept of the product is interesting and I believe it will be used as a research tool for scientist in future, and be able to dive in deeper in the ocean, which can reduce the cost and danger of human diving in water.
Design is not just for developed countries and rich people, it can also help poor countries and change their life, in the video, David Kelley suggested a low cost pump, which is manually operated to grill wells. The target audience are farmers in Kenya, it is a agricultural based country which its GDP is highly depended on farming, and due to the weathering condition, the production of crops are highly restricted, but the design of the low cost well driller has generated 30,000 jobs for Kenya people, and the sales of the product has gone to 0.6% of the country’s GDP, which we can see how design can be a big impact to not just people, but to the economy of a country.
The world around us is rapidly changing, and so does the design world. In a design world, designers must keep up with the speed of the changing world and think ahead of everyone, developed new concepts and ideas which help human to have a better quality of life. Good designs are not just about the overall appearance of the product, but also how user friendly it can be. Designs are all around us, everything requires a design. David Kelley’s video Human centred design features the philosophies of changing design and analysis the new products designed by designers.
It is exciting to have the chance to see the new products he showed, the first design he talked about was the RF tag and scanning device for the Prada stores, the product is amazing as it is a new technology that was never seen before, Prada wanted a design that has a cultural role, and it can show the details of products by remotely pointing at the product, hence giving the staff a easier data gathering and management. Also the closet display in the Prada store is a 3D scanner which scans the RF tags in the closet, and the touch screen allows the customers to gain more information about the clothing in the closet. Prada store had also used the liquid crystal glass changing room that allows the person in the change room to switch the glass from transparent to grey and grey to transparent, this allows the person to have privacy in the change room, but also show others outside to review, which is convenient for both people inside and outside of the change room. There is also a design in the change room which is called the magic mirror, it is a plasma screen that enables the person to have multiple views of their clothes by has a 3 second delay on the mirror, which I believe to be a very intelligent design, as it happens around us, but yet the designer of it thought of the problem people have while trying on a cloth, and thought of a solution to solve the problem and making it easier for the user.
Another design that was mentioned in the video was the installation in a museum in London, it is about 16 meters tall, and it is a series of digital screens based on the London subway system, it shows the comments people made about the museum and can be read on the screens, which I believe to be a visual decoration, but the nicely designed room is a pleasure to view.
The cubical square in the office is an ordinary box which fits a person in there for working, but I really like the design of new cubical, it transform a ordinary office into a playful workspace, the colour choice was one of the main reason that it gave life to the environment, also the semi-transparent wall gives the room visually more spaces, and the use of wall as drawers are very space efficient. A nice working environment does not only make a room looks better, but the employees will be working more efficiently with better environment, and I do strongly believe that a design can affect the way a person thinks.
Another amazing design is the spyfish, which I believe that it can be a revolution to the science world, the aim of the design is to let person experience diving without having to get wet, but I see the design as a way to investigate the habitat of wildlife. But as it purpose is for, it is a good way for people that cannot swim to experience the life in the ocean, and learn the fun of being underwater. And it can dive to 500ft where light cannot possibility pass through, but the built in light allows the user to see what is under the water that cannot be seen with naked eyes by diving into the ocean, the concept of the product is interesting and I believe it will be used as a research tool for scientist in future, and be able to dive in deeper in the ocean, which can reduce the cost and danger of human diving in water.
Design is not just for developed countries and rich people, it can also help poor countries and change their life, in the video, David Kelley suggested a low cost pump, which is manually operated to grill wells. The target audience are farmers in Kenya, it is a agricultural based country which its GDP is highly depended on farming, and due to the weathering condition, the production of crops are highly restricted, but the design of the low cost well driller has generated 30,000 jobs for Kenya people, and the sales of the product has gone to 0.6% of the country’s GDP, which we can see how design can be a big impact to not just people, but to the economy of a country.
David Kelley concluded the video with a sense of humor by putting a digital cap on, which suggest to the basic idea of the fun you can gain from design, and the process of design is fun. The video suggest human centered design can be recognised in a lot of designs. This video is important for industrial designers to see, because it is important for designers to understand the world around us, and the changes the world is making nowadays.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)