personalized prompt v2

DESIGN INVESTIGATION: BUDDY LISTS IN VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

Buddy lists are a main feature of virtual third place environments and have the potential to do more for its users, especially since these virtual communities are being sought after to fill the void of the depleting physical third place. I question the design of tools, like the buddy list, and whether or not they are compatable with how participants are using the space. This design investigation starts to wonder how these tools could be different? What other functions could the buddy list space privilege (in addition to online status)? What could this information look like and how could it facilitate connections in online communities? I approached this query as a spatial investigation centering on how users relate to their friends and how the friends relate to each other.


the current graphic standard
As of now, these iterations keep the same minimizing and messaging controls of original buddy lists.


I. friend connectedness
Here the contacts tab in the virtual environment is a structurally dynamic container - where online participants move around, and offline icons are static. Friends that are connected are automatically pulled closer in proximity, so the arrangement of the buddy icons constantly react to other people's online activity. These instantaneous groupings reveal commonalities among your contacts that are currently unseen.



II. online time
This format privileges the amount of computer activity spent in the virtual community; longer durations of time result in a placement closer to the front of the line on your friend’s buddy list. I am not necessarily focused on motivating people to invest more of their time in virtual communities, but it would be interesting to see if a buddy list format could encourage a specific behavior. Would users consciously/subconsciously stay logged in for longer periods of time to keep their place in line?



III. audio clips
Buddy icons are given the dual purpose of being an identifying image and self recorded sound clip. Users would be able to make public updates or private messages with the advantage of using their own voice. These recordings are a small level of exposure that still protects anonymity and works harder (than what is being currently used) to connect friends. If anything, it finally reaffirms that Sheila is not really a guy.



IV. virtual location
This format acts as a map that constantly lets you know where you are in relation to your friends. Not only does it say who is online, but where you can go to meet up with them. Users would be forced to explore the space in order to see where their friends are, which could potentially encourage the assembly of groups - since popoulated areas would be visible on the map.

SYMPOSIUM WEBSITE LAUNCHED :)

http://www.ncsu.edu/graphicdesign/GradSymposium2010/

PERSONALIZED PROMPT v1

I came into this design investigation questioning the current role of Oldenburg's third place. Researchers Nicolos Ducheneut, Robert J. Moore & Eric Nickell from the Palo Alto Research Center agree that, "Online games are promising environments that could be designed to replace or, at the very least, supplement the third VIRTUAL ‘‘THIRD PLACES’’ places of the physical world." Surprisingly - and against Oldenburg's intentions - physical and virtual third places are being used similarly by the public. The biggest difference between the two spaces is the computer mediation that virtual communities require to communicate. Does this hinder a participant's ability to establish authentic human connections online? How human centered was the original design of the digital vernacular that is now standard?

For the investigations shown below, I wanted to take online conversations out of the confines of the scroll box and see how it would look and feel integrated into the environment, while taking on characteristics of spoken language.


I. Visualizing a litteral exchange of words :


message input


receiving message


view of other person receiving your message


II. Scale indicating order of dialogue:




III. Layers giving a sense of time:


message received


message input


new layer added

After getting feedback from critique, I want to keep looking at enhancing interactions in virtual communities, but where achieving a level of physical replication is not the focus.

PERSONALIZED PROMPT

current area of interest: Examining third places in the modern world

In the year 2000, PlayStation 2 ran a two year ad campaign that designated themselves as The Third Place. This statement caught the imagination of the public, even though people weren't clear on what it meant. Is the current use of the term "third place" being redefined, or are Ray Oldenburg's ideas from 1989 unscathed? If third places are adapting digitally, are these virtual spaces used in the same way by the community or does the shift to the digital realm leave behind too many particularities (like face to face contact or food) to resemble its physical predecessors? At what point are we expanding on the original concept or just talking about something new?



On a side note: I enjoyed this parody from theonion.com on the World of World of Warcraft. :)

SYMPOSIUM FORAY v3

For this project, I looked at branding as a design strategy unable to effectively connect with consumers. Seeking a clear and engaging expression, I explored various project formats that included a poster series, animation and game.

Final iteration as a flash game (intended to be played):



Unfortunately, I focused more attention on the form than the idea driving it. It almost seems contradictory to be so exploratory and experimental within a project without pushing the limits of the original concept. What might be physically engaging for a reader, like the game, does not necessarily mean that it is going to generate conversation or self reflection. I am going to work on pushing my ideas, getting more out of my class readings, and making sure to find the fun in it all. And it wouldn't hurt to stay on top of the dishes too...

SYMPOSIUM FORAY v2

This is a short animation I made that starts to visualize the relationship branding strategist have with consumers.



At the recommendation of my classmates, I am going to be investigating some demonstrative (as opposed to illustrative) approaches in order to clarify my ideas while maintaining the reader's interest.

SYMPOSIUM FORAY v1

After a lot of investigation, I focused on "branding" as a design strategy relative to the rhetoric of authenticity. I was fascinated by the contrasting variables that need to stay under consideration (e.g., consistency while being relevant and fresh) in order to ensure a long-term sustainable value. Since a misstep at any touchpoint could easily weaken a consumer's brand confidence, there are endless amounts of resources used to try and piece together the perfect branding strategy. My intent with this project was to visualize the difficulty/misalignment brands have communicating their objectives. This disconnect is physically shown with seven 8.5 x 14" one sheets. They are spaced out to imply groupings whose content you are supposed to investigate as a dialogue.

After reading the name of the piece you are confronted with the first set of posters. There is a blank sheet of paper juxtaposed with an image of a heart bleep - signifying the "birth" of a brand. I made this a part of the dialogue to give my narrative a beginning full of possibilities, in contrast to the end of the series.

A brand's effort to meticulously align with a person's perceptions, beliefs and attitude is the focus of the second set. I chose to extend the line from the previous poster and use rigid geometric shapes, coming from one source, to symbolize the branding effort, while the fickle emotional state of humans took shape as unpredictable organic waves (I sound like an alien from another planet, haha). These two elements are reaching out to each other, but their physical differences hinder the possibility of a good connection. Measuring the positive resonance of a brand or even ensuring loyalty is extremely difficult - now that consumers have the whole world to shop from with the internet - and the lack of contact shown here is partially speaking to that. But, it is also difficult to connect the brand's objectives with the people who are doing the branding...

The last set of posters is a commentary on differentiation as a main branding purpose. I extended a hand from the previous poster to represent an individual's belief that what they are outputting is going to make them stand out, even though most of the time they are just falling into a river of trendy sameness.

Interestingly enough, the gaps in dialogue between my three sets is where I think the designer's role is most pivotal (trying to connect the brand to people, etc.) and I am considering making this a visible addition. Thinking about the context of this symposium, I was unsure about how direct my point of view had to be. Without any annotations I know that these visuals could easily be read differently than I inteded, but I kind of like the idea of leaving the posters open for interpretation. I am curious to know if you think it is still too vague. I definitely tried to run with my most wild and crazy idea, so if you think I need to pull it in or jump farther, please let me know. Thank you in advance for all of your input!

CURIOUS...

While loading a pdf, I was able to read the text before it fully uploaded. I just felt like this should have been harder, since the text was so obscured:



And it made me think back to the Cambridge word scramble study:

"Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

Even though I've heard this wasn't a real study, I still love how these kind of occurrences make me (re)appreciate how the brain works.

INITIATION TO _______. REFLECTION

It is apparent that finding a design strategy that works with this assignment is illusive. According to "The Rhetorical Act", by Karylyn Kohrs Campbell and Susan Schultz Huxman, the challenge as a rhetor is, "attempt(ing) to overcome the obstacles in a given situation with a specific audience on a given issue to achieve a particular end." Would the simple fact that I am an outsider be my biggest obstacle? Is being a human designing for another human enough, or am I unwillingly inadequate at designing for a community that I am not a part of?

For me, Project 2 became an initiation of the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society (RARS) to an extension of Twitter using morse code. The goal was to adopt RARS' existing visual conventions, while harmoniously/arrestingly introducing new visuals. The following are key questions and problems that I addressed during my process:

What constitutes an initiation?

What could I initiate my community to that would be a logical extension of their current interests?

Which conventional formats and visuals should be borrowed in the design of the initiation?

How could I create a design that felt authentic to my target audience when unfamiliar visuals were being introduced? (Which, I later realized, was an unnecessary constraint I gave myself.)

And how far could I divert from what is "standard" and still be effective?

I tried to create an operator's manual that took in consideration my audience's biases, values, expectations and knowledge. The "twitter circuit diagram" annotated with ham acronyms was an important feature of the manual that concreted my initiative mission, but this blending of twitter and RARS still fell short of the projected goal. The initiation could have been pushed farther away from the safety nets of "how a manual works" and "how twitter works". I had unintentionally given myself parameters concerning authenticity in an attempt to make the project more explicit, but ended up stagnating exploration. I really liked Tony's suggestion of Twitter CW becoming a metaphor for the lapsing time frames that exist in morse code. Although I was previously apprehensive about the complexities of that correlation, addressing the function of the interface would not have been my problem. Instead the project could have taken shape as a solely diagrammatic manual on Twitter CW that visualized twitter messages interacting with time and space.

I am trying to relinquish my approach as a practical problem solver, and let grad school nurture uninhibited theoretical exploration. Making this conscious effort to refocus my attention to the possibilities and what ifs will deter me from targeting a fully designed, functioning end product. Seeing the different interpretations of the same assignment really reveals the subjectiveness of the design process, and the difficulty in finding "the right" approach. One of the things that struck me during critique was how the assimilation of new visual methods into the initiations recurrently sacrificed legibility, conviction or incentive. As students liberated to manipulate visual conventions, what defines our success in these assignments? Does a project have to be realistic and consumable by the real world or does pushing the boundaries of comprehension show a greater strength?

INITIATION TO _______. v2

INITIATION TO _______. v2 (FALSE START)

I have been going full force trying to wrap my head around a way of using the visual rhetoric of my community in an initiation. I decided on a pamphlet format as my immersive delivery of universal signals of distress...

When I found out that my weekend could potentially be full of boring publication layout I had a little voice in my head that said "Get out of there!". My community is math and science centric, so reflecting dry schematics into the delivery would be effective, but really boring for me. That's not what grad school is about! I want to get excited about my projects!!

So, I got as far as these cover spreads:





Now that I got that out of my system, I can move on to more interesting outlets :)

INITIATION TO _______. v1

Our project is to initiate a community into something of our choice. My community is an amateur radio society located in the RTP area. In my first attempt I made a poster initiating them to universal signals of distress. After critique yesterday I came away with a lot of great feedback to use in my second attempt.



These are the questions I need to ask myself on my second go around:

How can I make the process more immersive?

How can the signals be instructional/in-depth and make people want to remember/do?

How can I speak "through" the community and not "at" them?

How can I use the visual rhetoric that is dominant on the typography (ie: call signs) to speak more directly to the community?

What fonts, symbols and formats am I choosing that would feel most "authentic"?

I was also surprised to be approached after critique by someone in my class who is a certified amateur radio operator and I got a lot of great feedback from him! I can't wait to see where this one will go in the week to come.

CULTURAL PROBE v2

After careful assessment I still felt like there was merit to my original idea, but wanted to find a way of making it more perceptive. The retrieval of information about the customer’s relationship with Cup A Joe (as a third place) could be more directly approached. I spent a majority of my time figuring out how the probe could be redesigned to motivate action and coming to terms with the fact that while the photos were potentially not giving me the kind of semantic indicators I thought, they could still be used to gain insightful information in other ways.

When a customer walks into Cup A Joe the probe will be visible on the back wall of the smoking room seen through the connecting doorway. It can also can be seen in the window from the street. Since the shop is separated into two rooms, there would be table tents holding photos and prompting people to take action in other areas of the space.


The table tent prototype is purposefully DIY looking to blend in with Cup A Joe's existing collateral.

My aim is to investigate how/why/what is it about Cup A Joe that people self-identify with, so I am prompting them to reflect on their relationship within the space.

Knowing that the next step after taking the photo is a required drawn self portrait makes the participants more conscious of what they take a picture of (they’re thinking “Where in Cup A Joe do I see myself placed?”). This makes the backgrounds of the photos more purposeful than arbitrary. It is hard to make further assumptions about the photo’s assessment because I can’t control the final results. I feel like this cultural probe is setting up an opportunity for the customer to tell me about themselves in relation to the third place. The collection of photos as a whole would offer the most insight, after I’m able to look at the patterns and anomalies of what people are taking a picture of, how they use the photos bottom margin, their tone and verbiage. This kind of probe works well for Cup A Joe because of its relaxing lounge environment, and there is an eclectic customer base who self-identify with the coffee shop (ranging from smokers to non smokers and professors to angst ridden teens). Since the coffee shop uses it’s walls to display local art, this project might come off as an artistic installation.

This probe was designed to motivate participation by speaking to a person’s relational needs: competition, excellence, curiosity and affection. Seeing a collection of rare polaroids on a billboard with the cameras nearby would spark curiosity. Also, a collaborative work that is publicly displayed gives the regulars a chance to be a part of something bigger than themselves, fulfilling their desire to be a part of a community. It is easy to fully engage with the probe since all of the tools are intuitive and user friendly.

After thinking about this project for so long, it felt like getting the information from the participants was too complicated. Finding out what a person wasn't conscious of "saying" through their drawing left me without an accurate assessment of the data. There is definitely still some problem/solution issues to work out with the idea of an effective cultural probe.

CULTURAL PROBE v1

I am happy to start my documentation of grad school, starting with our first assignment:

After writing thick descriptions of a coffee shop, we designed a cultural probe to elicit information about ritual. I approached ritual on a macro scale, and wanted to investigate Cup A Joe coffee house as a "third place" environment, finding out what needs were being fostered there (aside from the obvious brewed beverage).

Ten regulars at Cup A Joe would be given my cultural probe kit, and then instructed to take pictures of places they go to when they're not at home or work. Included would be guidelines that would direct participants to the right kinds of locations. Once the photograph develops, they are asked to immediately draw themselves into the photo. This project would take place over the span of a month, during which time there would be a drop-box located at Cup A Joe. Afterwards, I would meet with them to retrieve the camera and debrief.

An assessment of the conscious and subconscious semiotic indicators from the drawings would give insight into the participant's relationship to third place environments. I felt this would be more effective than if the camera had been turned on the test subjects in all the photographs.

This coming week we will be refining our probes, so I'm curious to see where this can go.

WAR OF THE WIRELESS

I got a laugh from someone's wireless network name, so I made mine a witty retort. I hope some more people from the neighborhood get in on this.

MEMORY BOOK

Last year I handmade a memory book for my mom's 50th birthday. The book featured two of my favorites: french folded pages and japanese stab binding. The background textures were fabrics from my childhood and my dad and sister got involved with the inclusion of their personal letters. I could not wait to finally document it while my mom was taking her walk down memory lane.

MY DOGS ARE MY WORST CRITICS

Berkely and Otis keep getting to my undergraduate school projects and tearing them to shreds throughout the apartment. If they don't like my work, I wish they would just tell me!

HOBBY ETC.

More monster sewing projects - with a face only a mother could love.





Gaines' new site had to be quickly finished and uploaded. His Gallery Up reception was creeping up on us, so I still have a few kinks to work out. It is a big improvement from his previous portfolio site!

I HAVE A MONSTER HOBBY

His mugshot.



He's sad that I made him wear this shirt.

STARTED A NEW HOBBY.

I finally purchased a sewing machine today.



The result of my first experiment was a one-armed hook monster! I'm already looking forward to these fun and creative sessions.




I think my little cilantro plant was trying to tell me something <3