1st Part of the Presentation Who you are / what you’re doing
2nd Part of the Presentation is a sort of mock presentation to the “client.”

Possible Design Models:

• Principles
• Frameworks
• Notions / concepts

So far this semester on the Theory channel…

• Philosophy!
• Designer / Designerly Thinking
• Relationship between the designer’s way of thinking and the design process
• What is a design and what is the outcome of design (evil, splendor, common good, etc.) – bigger picture / societal aspects

Today: How does a designer critique design?

• Realities of Design
• Do designers think of some of the core concepts that we’re discussing?
• Maybe… Most of them don’t think of them in the same light that we do as we work through the course.
• Very few people read the things that we read. We’re unique!
• The practical problem… how can I think about the design product?
• There are an infinite number of criteria or qualities to think about…
• There are an infinite number of proposals to tell you how to sort through the criteria.
• Do people buy it?
• What if there’s monopoly or market saturation?
• If they buy it, do they actually use it? Do they actually like it?
• One purchase doesn’t necessarily mean repeated purchase, or “like”
• By the way… are we talking about a market wide sample, or an individual client?
• What happens when a field evolves to the point that there are no clear performance leaders? Fashion
• If a product doesn’t sell… and the question of “Why” it didn’t is raise… we’re in trouble!
• Performance
• Usability
• Functionality
• Speed
• It just can’t be used
• Looks
• Now you can ask people who didn’t buy it why they didn’t buy it, and try to fit it into the above categories (or others.)
• Experience is being focused on in the field because it is believed that measuring experience (however you do that) can lead to an understanding of why people do or don’t do something, and why

Krippendorff

• “Form Follows Meaning”
• “For me, its all about the context”
• Operation – In context of how its being used / interacted with
• Breaks down into 10 variables… that will help to define, describe, and add meaning to the operation
• Sociolinguistic –
• Context of – Genesis
• Ecological Context –
• Argues that the designer and the user look at a product in a radically different way.

• Product Semantics should inform the designer to help create the artifact.
• The user creates / builds meaning
• What is the difference between meaning and aesthetics?
• Meaning infers something more than is typically seen / felt / experienced by others… i.e. “My Grandfather gave me this pen!”
• Aesthetics don’t have to be defined as the artifact relates to other entities… the artifact is what it is.
• Form / Meaning is also called Function / Experience

Interaction has everything that you find in film theory… It is temporal… there are rising and falling actions… different genres within interaction design…

An ATM for example is incredibly different than a sound board: The ATM is experienced in an entirely different, and often much more simplistic way than the sound board.

Literature Theory can lend to Interaction Criticism. You might go check out Jeff Bardzell’s blog