Assignment 3 Reflection
How People Work: Ricky Chen and Julianna Bolivar
Ricky and I (Julianna) are currently sophomores in the School of Design planning to join the Communications track. Ricky is interested in brand identity and the use of design in technology, and I am interested in animation and UX/UI. As designers both going into a track that is heavily dependent on visual and verbal channels of communication, we have found How People Work to be extremely helpful in realizing that we need to be more conscious of our own voice and perspective in our designs, while also being mindful of the various results our designs can potentially create in this world.
Personally, the class we’ve most enjoyed so far was Jonathan Chapman’s lecture. It related the most to what we do in C track, which is to create work that is visually appealing and can hopefully impact the user in a positive way, whether they simply enjoy the design or learn something from it. Never before have we heard someone claim that perhaps not all products, services, or experiences should be perfect, that leaving room for discomfort and complexity could elevate the design experience. It left us asking, how do you intentionally design something that isn’t made to be as intuitive as possible? We think some of this is reflected in the work we did for our poster projects; not all of our design decisions were made for 100% readability and understanding, but rather with an emphasis on style, boldness, and intrigue. And that not being completely intuitive and obvious at first glance could make the design more appealing as there are more layers to reveal over time.
However, in thinking about our class’ conversations on universal design, we’ve both come to realize that there are many struggles when figuring out how to incorporate this mindset into our own practice. Because the audience of design can differ and range from a wide range of conditions, we’ve come to the conclusion that the design of something can never reach a perfect state. We have found this occurrence in our studio work. Even when one specific condition or form of the design might be the most ideal for one user group, when thinking more holistically about all the potential users, you may often find that your design may not perform as well in those other scenarios. Because of this, we both realize as young designers that this is one of the intriguing aspects of design. The answer is never simple or easy to find as there are a lot of complexities within the practice, and that complete universal design is likely impossible, but we should always keep pushing ourselves to get closer and closer to it.
Although the approach to universal design leaves us with several questions to ask, we now have the capacity to step back and reflect. How do our own biases and worldviews influence our design, and how do we become familiar with the user’s obstacles and opinions? It can be easy to develop tunnel vision and design something that appeals to yourself, leaving the user experience as an afterthought. Additionally, it’s not good enough to think we have all the information and assume the problem space. We need to cross the boundary outside of ourselves and through research, learn from the user’s perspective to implement effective design decisions. And to not only think about people but also those without a voice — technology, animals, the ecosystem. This is perhaps the most difficult concept for us to apply to our work. As C students, we don’t see a clear connection between Posthumanism and communications. This concept seems most relevant to E students, Transition Design, and Service Design, but we would love to learn more about how it could apply to our own specific focuses.
