婧妍的交互空间

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反思是件很有意思的事情。通常，一想到要反思，便有个很重的思想负担，希望找个合适的时机，地点，心境来反思——通常这样的机遇不是常见的，何况对于反思，人是有惰性的——以至适当的反思被不断推迟。

下面一篇文，是大概两周前我的reflection on designing的作业。主要是反思自己作为一个设计师的成长经历，以及描绘自己的未来。

自从我写下这篇文，确定了自己以后要在designing social interactions by physical products这个方向上发展后，接连在短时间内从几个地方接触到了相关的理论，文章和已经从事这方面研究的人。说起来，就是这两周内的事情。在这学期初，当我刚刚对自己说出social interactions这样一个模糊的命题的时候，曾经很迷茫，感到，相关领域并未有一个广泛为人所识的定义。应该怎样找到有兴趣的公司或者组织来做这样的项目更是毫无头绪。

说反思有趣，是因为看似它是个需要有强烈意识和集中力来完成的事情，但我又不认为，所有的必要的步骤都发生在这两周内而已。实际上，它应该是从我认定了social interactions的时候，就在潜意识中不断发展，在必要之处留下我的注意力了。这种无意识的积累确实是存在的吧，但尽管如此，适时需要逼自己以下，写下一些字，按照Woodear的说法，“码码字”，帮助自己理清思路——能够使这些积累到达一个新的高度。换一种说法，在潜意识的积累过程中，是大脑自然将某个命题与周围的事物建立联系的过程，而有意识的码字，是捕捉并强化这些联系的过程。

恩。。。

下面两处信息，给了我不小的帮助。

Towards relational design；这是关于relational design的另一篇，配有一些图片。

Sociable design by Donald Norman.

有兴趣的朋友可以读读。其中的关键词：Social, relational, contextual design.

以下是我的反思小文。

What makes me me as a designer

As I look back on the years I’ve been trained as a designer, I see occasions, projects, books, hobbies... which have been shaping my views and made me who I am as a designer.

The first thing I did, is to make cards. Each represents one of these important influences. My learnings from each, either positive or negative, are noted down.

One of the cards

I played with these cards, putting them on one table, looking for the connections among them, and trying to find out where they will take me to.

In the rest of this article, I write down some of the most important conclusions from this play.

You will never know if you never try
Life has been an exciting exploration for me, in which I’m passionately puting myself in different contexts, cities and cultures, and trying out different things. I like the feeling of how these new things stir and expand my experience. Also, from these try-outs, I gain better knowledge of what I like and don’t like. I enjoy leading a life like this, and the same applies for how I see design as a professional activity.

Design as a job
I believe there are designs that has to be treated very seriously, while there are also designs which are done as a relax. To me, designer is responsible for both the people he or she is designing for and the impact of products that has been developed. My dream as a career is to design for the many people, and bring quality to their life. In several projects and activities, I got to learn the basic facts of life and needs of farmers in rural China, the children with diseases and disabilities, or just ordinary people around. Looking for solutions for them gave me great pleasure and I see how a simple design might solve big problems. Many of the good designs are not affordable by normal people, some even becomes the previledge of the rich. I see this as a shame as a designer. I would like to devote my effort in my career to the better living of the people in need of basic facilitations which would make their lives a lot better. I was inspired and moved from the book How to change the world  and the stories of the social entrepreneurs. This is a serious goal I want to set for myself, which I can’t imagine I could do just by blowing my nose randomly. 

Design as a hobby
Of course there are designs I don’t do so seriously, in which I have the freedom just to experiment whatever I feels like to. It simply makes me relaxed and happy. I’ve been doing handcraft for some years, been to the i-Mart and have our own stand, where handcrafters sell their own designs. I like the atmosphere, and would like to build up my skills and techniques with different materials and products in the future. This hobby is why I chose to study industrial design in the first place, and I’m glad that many years later, I still keep this original love alive and undisturbed with all the new various learnings.

It is interesting that Design as a job and a hobby are compensating for each other, both in the subject and in the mood I’m in when I’m doing it. Personally, I think they could make a good balance together. Mixing job with my hobby is a dangerous thing to me.

Education and spreading ideas
I have the urge to let more people enjoy the benefits of something I know. Thus spreading knowledge is enjoyable. I experienced this by once translated part of Norman’s book Design of Future Things into Chinese. And I have the feeling for the first time that my effort and responsibility on transfering the knowledge would do good to the people in need. I would keep education as an interest in the future. Maybe I could once in a while, to go back to my old schools and give lectures, which would be really nice. By doing this, I could also do a proper summary and reflection of my own.

I love to write blogs. One of them is about daily observations on people’s interactions with their stuff and surroundings. I consider this observation is the essence of understanding people thus is very helpful in building up my knowledge and gaining insights and experience with designing. I will keep the blog running on and keep this way of observation and diary as a professional habit, and show the results to others.

Cultures


I’m mildly interested in exploring the difference between cultures and how people live in the contexts. This is the reason why I’ve been switching the places I do my studies. I believe this is one of the important source of inspiration: traveling and learning new cultures. I also enjoy learning new languages and communicate with the local people. In this sense, I’m thinking how I can apply this interest and the ability to a multi-cultural setting. It could be one of the possibilities of my future choices.

Users, Social Interactions and a love for physical products
I’ve been doing a few business projects and a SPD course, including the internship in Disney. These are nice tries, I have to say, while some of which has also been painful and out of my scope of interest. I don’t like it, that to do the business analysis and design for running the business well and to make a lot money. I didn’t reject it though, since I know it is important to learn the business models.

Technology is also not of my great interest. This may be an exaggeration, but some of the technology-driven companies make me sick. I recognize myself as a designer with high awareness of sustainability, while I also realize many of the technologies we talk about today are the source of the designs which we don’t necessarily need but adding good burden to the environment. Some still stay hungry at the other end of the
world while here people are talking about how to stir the sixth sense. I find this really funny and sarcastic.

DFI is the right path for me. I love to study different users, both in my work or in my daily life, their rituals, interactions with things around them and among themselves. I also feel most touched when I was able to see for myself their reactions to the bad or improved designs. It is just insightful and a delight to learn from them and finally do something for them. I have some good experience of projects like this in which I first study the users and then provide solutions just to fulfill their basic needs.

At the same time, my knowledge on psychology and sociology is building up. I consider these fields of knowledge important for what I want to achieve as a user-centered designer in the future.

I’ve been also striving to find solutions which just tackle the basic needs directly and appropriately, without an exaggeration of statement or unnessary “too much design”. I fall for simplicity in physical products, taking MUJI as an example. I believe people is at the core of design, and when a design is good enough, people are just so natural with it so it is transparent, which isn’t only the case with good interace design, but good physical product design in social interactions as well. This is what I’m trying to achieve in a course I’m doing now, form study, Zen. Just to remind myself again. Physical products can do a lot already.

To conclude, as my design philosophy also: treat the basic needs and be basic with the solutions. (I didn’t think of such a nice expression before this reflection, thanks!)