INFO I502 Class Notes for 04.17.2008

INFO I502 Class Notes for 04.17.2008
- Metaphors and Design - "Thinking the Unthought"
  - What is a metaphor?
    - A comparison between two things, on the basis of some similarity
    - Components
      - Tenor
        "The support person was .."
      - Vehicle
        "... as dumb as a rock."
      - Ground
        Stupidity
    - For our purposes in design, we ignore the distinction between simile and metaphor
  - Historically, people that only talked about metaphors were orators
    - Spoken of as if it were an ornament to language
  - Lakoff & Johnson
    - Metaphors are far more pervasive than we realize
    - KEY POINT: Metaphors structure human cognition
      - We cannot even think without using metaphor
      - Human though is rich and saturated with metaphor
    - Metaphors happen unconsciously
    - Metaphors help us learn concepts (which are abstract)
      - In order for us to understand concepts, we need repetitive exposure
    - Metaphor is fundamentally about relationships
      - Remember that experience is about relationships
    - Metaphor example from Lakoff and Johnson
      - Argument is War
        "Your claim is indefensible"
        "He attacked every weak point in my argument."
        "His criticisms were right on target."
        "You disagree? Okay, shot!"
      - If we change "Argument is War" to "Argument is Dance", we lose meanings
    - "The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one king of thing in terms of another."
  - KEY POINT: Metaphor is fundamental to how human beings things, in particular how they deal with
    - Concepts
    - Complex Abstractions
    - Fertile Experiences
  - Function Metaphors in Digital Design
    - The bad thing about metaphors is that they sometimes prevent us from thinging about things originally.
    - Examples
      - The Shopping Cart at Amazon.com
      - In an E-mail application
        Mail Icon
        Book Icon (Address Book)
        Notion of an Inbox
        Junk Mail
        Folders
        Envelope
      - Tactile Metaphors
        Wood Surfaces
        Knobs
        "Refelctive" surfaces
        Sliders
        Why?
        Makes objects look more familiar
        We use metaphor to communicate basic affordances
  - Using Metaphor in Project
    - We are already using metaphor in the project
    - Be mindful of them
    - Reflect on them; use them as strategy
  - A lot of the really good metaphors are suggestive without being overdeterminate
  - Suggested book:
    - Steven Johnson
      - Interface Culture
- Jeff's Final Lecture
  - Typically, designers look at an existing artifact and only derive new designs from it
  - To do it right, designers should go through a more complex process
    - Components of Design criticism
      - Function: It Works
        Its literal value/features
        Whose functionality?
        What a design does or what can a user do with it?
        Is an unintended use part of its functionality?
        How is functionality emobodied?
        User Tasks
        Individual interface features
        Organized system of features
        Economic features
        Cultural/Social features
      - Aesthetics
        Philosophical notions of "aesthetics"
        Art imitates and reveals truth/reality
        Competes with science
        Art arouses the emotions and causes pleasure
        Trivializes art
        Art serves a spiritual need, which is external to rational cognition and located instead to the faculties of imagination and judgment (Kant)
        Marginalzes art
        Formal Characteristics of beauty
        "Aesthetic beauty" is not in content, but rather in its form
        Formal
        Proportion
        harmony
        unity
        mood
        etc.
        Effects of beauty
        Emergence of taste
        self-transcendence
        Encounter with the sublime
        Improved soul
        Locus of Beauty
        Form
        The Work or "opus"
        Intention
        The mind of the viewer
        The community (Danto's "artworld")
      - Symbolism
        Its deep meaning or value
        Its "experience"
        What is the deep meaning in my lifeworld?
        What it personally represents to an individual
        The deep semiotic or psychological structures that ground the possibility of a person's response to and embrace of a design
        This is where user observation/interviews, etc. is important
    - So, how do we get at design criticism
      - Critical theory
        Theorists
        Dewey
        Gadamer
        Saussure
        Bolter & Grusin
        Barnard
        Concepts
        Aesthetic Experience
        Intertextuality
        Mythmaking
        Metaphor
      - Ethnographic observation
        Traditional and rapid ethnography and part. desgin
      - Traditional Design Methods
  - From Criticism to Insight
    - The purpose of criticism is not to yield overall judgments
    - It IS to explicate teh value of an artifact for members of a community
      - Concretely (because then there is something on which to focus)
      - Specifically (beacuse then you can talk about it)
      - Robustly (Because you want to see with multiple lenses)
      - Qperationally (because then you can use what you have learned)
  - What is a prototype?
    - A prototype is a material instatiation of your response to interaction with earlier designs.
      - Exposure to multiple artifacts and theory will help cultivate your response.
  - There is a discipline to this.
    - Deliberately using this strategy of design criticism --> insight simply provides a disciplined approach to what you have been doing all along and what you cannot avoid doing in the future.