The Study of Design: Brought to you by Rob

Architecture

2009-11-18T09:07:00.000-08:00

I think water faucet handles are bad architectural designs. The majority of water faucets have to pushed up to turn on the water, which is not a bad idea. I think that bad idea comes into play with the temperature of the water. The vast of majority of water faucets have to be turned to the left for warm water and the right for cold. I personally think that aspect of water faucets should be changed. Considering the fact that "Warm" has an "R" in it which triggers turning right and "Cold" has a "L" in it for left.
The hicks center in a well designed building for the most part. The building has a nice visceral design. The building is very attractive. Its structure is also behavioral. The building has a huge "K" on the building and the words "Kalamazoo College" which allows tells viewers that the building represents Kalamazoo College, unlike some of the other building around campus. I think the building should have a door in the front of the building that would allow people to walk into the second floor of Hicks coming from Trowbridge.
The major flaw in the design process is the feedback phase. The majority of companies don't have a feedback phase. Without this phase designers can test their designs until it's produced. This usually leads to the majority of bad designs.

Responses for the Advertising Group

2009-11-17T17:48:00.001-08:00

"Commercials..should be seen as works of art that have their own conventions" I too think that commercials should be seen as artwork. All commercials have be uniquely designed to appease a certain group of people and they usually do this very skillfully.The author realized that commercials can be broken up into categories. I really thought that it was interesting that the author saw commercials as art, and I also agreed with him.
The author's key points were: -The Economics of Marketing -The Manipulation of Advertising
The advertisers are very skilled in manipulation. They manipulate people into thinking they want what ever the see in the commercial, and if the advertisers have done their job right consumers will go out and get that item.

Fashion Design

2009-11-15T18:25:00.000-08:00

People feel the need to express themselves with the clothes they were. Everybody knows that you're clothes say something about you. People like for their clothes to portray whatever image they think of themselves. The only real reason that clothes are so reflective is because people judge you by the clothes you wear. For example, If someone wears a white t-shirt with a pair of plain blue jeans, the mast majority of people will think that he/she doesn't care about what people think or the clothes they were.
Fashion is constantly changing because of advances in technology and because the taste of society is always changing. Fashion has to continue to evolve, because that's what the people want.
Price, Materials, How it's created, Visceral Design, Behavioral Design, Is it in style?

Atlanta's Future

2009-11-11T22:17:00.000-08:00

The thesis statement "Atlantians had a hard time understanding any of this beyond the visceral level".
3 major points:

Building Downtown Connector
Georgia Regional Transportation Authority
Environmental Protection Agency

3. The state of Atlanta spends too much money on things besides it's visceral design.

Kalamazoo: The Downtown Version

2009-11-08T16:27:00.000-08:00

Overall Downtown Kalamazoo is a very interesting place to go. The area is very visceral, which helps to attract people to the area. Downtown is clearly designed better than the area around it. You can tell that this area is special because it stands out so well. The area seems like the stores are more expensive than it's surrounding area. The stores downtown also had very colorful signs. Everybody building had a very colorful sign, or at least an attention grabber, except for one and the one store stood out like a sore thumb. Downtown Kalamazoo did a pretty good job of mixing the essentials which are fun, food, and shopping.
I think that they should add a movie theater, stores that sell clothes aimed towards younger kids, and put something in that empty building.
" They tend to see streets and sidewalks strictly as a civic realm, a social environment where people meet and interact, and they tend to favor the sorts of attractive sidewalks and streetscapes that seem to promote sociability"- Steven Lagerfield The sidewalks of downtown Kalamazoo were very attractive. I notcied a large amount of people sitting on the benches while reading a newspaper or just sitting around talking with a group of friends. This proves that the sidewalks of Downtown Kalamazoo are visually appealing to the average vistor.

Constructing the Egg Container

2009-11-05T22:05:00.001-08:00

My partner was Brandon Casto. We meet in my room to discuss ideas of how to the egg could survive a three story drop. Our original idea was to somehow protect the egg with are air pockets. Then, we decided to slightly blow up sandwich bags and wrap them around our egg. We used about three or four sandwich bags. Next, we thought that by putting it in a box it would absorb some of the impact. After we had our creation we tested it by dropping it around in my room.

- Link to Brandon Casto's Page http://brandonsblogs88.blogspot.com/2009/11/cityegg-container.html

Whyte Vs. Gibbs: Who Will Win?

2009-11-05T21:35:00.000-08:00

Whyte and Gibbs have two major distinctions in there approach to city design. Whyte wants to manipulate people to do what he wants and Gibbs designs slightly persuades people to do what he wants. Gibbs try to over manipulate people by taking advantage of the things that he knows will distract people. Personally I don't like being manipulated, especially while I'm shopping. I think that he over complicates the shopping experience for the male percentage of shoppers, because the average male wants to get in and out with very little distractions. I think Gibbs in more convincing to the large majority of shoppers, because he design simply suggest you to look another way, instead of forcing you to go that way.
Elements that are particular attractive to me for an urban area are simplicity, cleanliness, parking, flow of traffic, stores that are offered. My ideal urban area would be somewhere where I could go to fulfill my minor shopping needs as well as food and amusement. I would be repealed from an area if it didn't have any stores that I wanted to go to or if roads were too complicated to drive on.

The City Shopper

2009-11-03T21:31:00.001-08:00

1. The authors key points in this chapter were behavioral design and controlling chaos. Whyte constantly discussed how the city was in complete chaos, because of the mass numbers of people who come in contact with it. Whyte feels that controlling this chaos is the key to success. He also focuses strongly on behavioral design. He feels that things should be simple and function easily.

2. Norman and Whyte essentially share the same ideas which are behavioral and visceral design. Whyte doesn't give too many examples of reflective design. Whyte shows example of visceral design, when he discuses sidewalks that are too visually appealing and they lead to the distraction of the shopper. This visceral design also helps to slow down the by-passer but it distracts them from the shops. Whyte using the ineffectiveness of the trash cans as an example of reflective design.

3. Checklist for Urban Areas:

Sidewalks- size and visceral design
Stores
Safety
Cleanliness
Parking

Strip Malls

2009-11-01T16:57:00.000-08:00

1. Robert Gibbs evaluates a Main street by: attractiveness, generators, stores, colors,incubators, big box retailers and power centers.

2. Main Street should be a mall because it offers the best selection for customers to purchase the goods they need. Gibbs plans on putting certain stores on certain sides of the road, because in his mind their is a coming home said and a going to work side. I also think that this is true. Consumers will not want to go out of their way to turn left as their on there way to work but they will be more willing to turn right. Main street would probably become the most consumer friendly street in existence.

3. The most important criteria for a main street are the stores and it's attractiveness. The stores is what originally draws people in. Then, the next thing they tend to look at is how clean and well kept the stores are.

How ironic is this packaging?

2009-10-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

1. Packaging is very important in the marketing of a product. The packaging of a product can decided whether I will buy the product or not. I like most shoppers tend to be swayed by attractive packaging. For example, When I go shopping for cereal, I come to the store with a general idea of what I want but sometimes I end up getting something different or two boxes of cereal. When I have no idea of what type of cereal, I'm definitely not picking the one with the plain boring box.

2. Alcoholic beverages have very iconic packaging. The producers of the alcoholic beverages do this on purpose, because they know that people pay attention to what the bottle looks like before they buy it. The manufacturers always take into to concern the "new buyers", which are people who have never bought alcohol before and they have no clue of what's good and what's not. They assume that the "new buyer" will be more tempted to buy something that's in an attractive bottle. They also take into consideration how the visceral design will mirror the reflective design. For example, If you're rich and you're going to buy alcohol you will want to buy something that's attractive and represents your wealth.

3. There are issues with usability of packaging. The main issues are it's materials, accessibility, and it's construction. Examples of bad packaging are anything that's air sealed in extremely thick plastic. These items are very difficult to open. Examples of good functioning packaging are anything that looks good and is easily opened without tools.

"Frayed" Analysis

2009-10-25T16:13:00.001-07:00

I analyzed "Frayed". This store markets to the average youth, ranging from 12-25.
The store had a very attractive appearance from the outside. I was instantly drawn into the store by its outward appearance. There was music playing in the store, I'm pretty sure they were playing the radio. The merchandise was displayed in a very creative way. I noticed that the more expensive clothes were in the back of the store. The men's clothes were on the left and the women's were on the right. The floor was tile as soon as you walked in, then it turned into wood. There were signs up everywhere talking about the special deals. There was a great deal of signs advertising the Western Michigan University clothing. The cashier area was the first thing as you walked into the store. It was located directly in front of the door.
This business is designed strictly to reflect visceral design. The image that the business tries to portray is kind of like the cool image, somewhat like "the place to be" or "THE place to come buy your clothes".
I noticed a lot of customers go towards the means section of the store first. I think this happens because the women's section is directly to the right and it's also in the buffer zone of the store. The female customers tend to go around the whole store clockwise.
In WMU section of the store it was designed as if it was part of an old western movie. I found this pretty interesting.

The Shopping Creeper!!!

2009-10-13T06:37:00.000-07:00

The most important points of this article are you want to make buying merchandise as easy as possible and the decompression zone. The best thing a business can do is make there shop easily accessible to shoppers. For example, At the Airport people tend to be in a hurry, but when they constantly see the news stands and shops on there right as they're going to the terminal, they just might stop and buy something on their way because they feel as if they aren't going out of their way to buy those goods. On the other hand, If someone id truly hunger and food is to their left they don't mind going out of their way to get something to eat, because they feel it's a necessity and not unnecessary such as the goods to their right. I also feel that the decompression zone is very important. The majority of customers don't pay attention to the items locate closest to the entrance as they walk in the store because they're always looking past it to see what's deeper in the store.
I feel as if I'm greatly affected by a store's design. A store with fantastic design will draw my attention even if I don't need anything out of that store. The opposite applies for a store with bad design, I don't like to go in stores that are badly designed unless I need specific items from that store. I feel as though a poorly designed store will frustrate me and ruin my shopping experience.
My checklist to analyze a store:

What brought me to this store?
What was the first thing I saw as I entered the store?
Did I see everything the store had to offer?
How long was I in the store?
Did I find what I was looking for, if so where was it located?

Web pages that suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-10-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

This reading relates to behavioral design. The reading discusses web sites that aren't user friendly, in other words they don't perform well. These web sites do not serve the desired function of the creator because they have made some very bad designing errors. This could be easily fixable, if they designer read a "How to for Dummies" book or two. Behavioral design is all about the user of a product, and how well the user interacts with your product. This is a big part of design that we discuss in class.
There are a few major points they could make or break a well designed site. Any user should be able to understand the main idea of your site within the first 4 seconds. I feel that the user shouldn't have to search for the true purpose of any site. The next biggest concept of a good web page design are navigation errors. Navigating through the site should be simple and concise. The author also talks about having heroin content. I think that must site crave the imaginary heroin content. Heroin content is the difference between a good site and a great site. More web pages need to find heroin content.
If I had to create my own list of important design factors for a web page they would have to be: Coherency, Usability, Simplicity, and Addictive Information.

Know It All

2009-10-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

The author's main point in this article was that Wikipedia is still a very young vast source of information which is still unreliable. The author gives examples of how Wikipedia information can be a liability, when he stated that every can become and user and add data to its source. They have precautions which obliterate all the obscenities found in its source, but those sources don't always find everything. The author also stated that compared to the Britannica, Wikipedia has more errors.
In the article, the author had a great display of supporting details "Wikipedia may be the world’s most ambitious vanity press. There are two hundred thousand registered users on the English-language site, of whom about thirty-three hundred—fewer than two per cent—are responsible for seventy per cent of the work". This passage shows that the author used data as his supporting details to back up his main idea. The main idea that's being supported is the fact that a small percentage of people are speaking for the majority. The author is saying that out of the all the registered users there are only a few who actually contribute to the encyclopedia, and this few provides an even less credible source.
Under the aspects of visceral design, Wikipedia has the Encyclopedia Britannica beat. Since Wiki is an internet source its visual appeal can be changed all the time, whereas the Britannica can only be changed whenever it's published. As far as behavioral design, the Britannica is a more reliable source which will always function better for the user. On the other hand Wikipedia is located on the internet which is easily accessible for users. Each form of the encyclopedia has its own reflective design. Some people like to own every version of the Britannica, because it makes them look intelligent and well educated. While as others want to use Wikipedia because they feel it makes them look cool and hip to the trends.

The area of Design that interests me most

2009-09-30T23:14:00.000-07:00

The area of design that I'm most interested in is reflective design. I feel like this is a very complicated subject that is hard to grasp. I would love to talk about this topic more in class, because I know that it will lead to some very interesting conversations and a lot different explanations for reflective design.

Organization and Preparation Tips

2009-09-30T23:05:00.000-07:00

I think the author's most important points were content, keeping it simple, and can you pass the elevator test. I feel that these were very important points mentioned by the author. Content is very important during a presentation, but it shouldn't be you're main focus. I feel to be a good presenter you have to keep it simple, listeners don't want to have to try to understand something you just said. Keeping presentations simple makes the audience more willing to listen. The elevator test in my opinion is a very unique idea, that can show how well a speaker knows their material.
I could apply his advice to my own presentation by referring to his article whenever i feel myself losing focus for my presentation. This article can be a very useful tool if you get stuck in part of you're presentation and don't know what to do next. This article can help you fix all of your presentation problems.
Presentation preparation and product design are both well though out plans. They also both devote a vast amount of time to the viewers or consumers.

For Wednesday September 30, 2009 Emotional Design (cont)

2009-09-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

In Norman's "Emotional Design" there was one passage that stood out to me and it was "Enhancements to a product come primarily by watching how people use what exists today, discovering difficulties and then overcoming them. Even here, however, it can be more difficult to determine the real needs that might seem obvious. People find it difficult to articulate their real problems".(72) In this passage Norman tries to explain the vast amount of difficulty that people have saying the things that they truly want and need, and that the only way to find out is to watch them while they're handling a product. The only thing that can be done to find out some one's true wants and needs is to watch them. and their every move.
These categories are very useful to me after I learned the meaning behind, but at first they didn't give me the over all concept of what they meant until I read the chapter. I think there are a couple words for each categories that would give future readers a clear understanding of what each category means. Visceral designs basically is a design that is meant to be visually appealing to consumers. Behavioral designs are meant to react fairly well to human reaction, this design is based on performance. Reflective designs are built off the status qou of an item. This is the type of product that you want because of the name brand.
A designer could easily decide if a design should be more visceral, behavioral, or reflective by examining the target market of the product and the uses of the productive. Although, It would be very difficult when deciding to make a reflective design. There are definitely products that are more visceral, behavioral, or reflective. Some products are made just to look nice, while other are meant to perform well. There are also products that people buy just to represent their "image".

Emotional Design- How do you feel about it?

2009-09-27T16:11:00.000-07:00

I feel the author key points were Visceral, Behavioral and reflective design. I feel that the author was trying to discuss the consumers reaction to design and the emotions that came along with it. Visceral design is basically the look, feel, sound, shape, and form of a design. A good visceral design has to look good and feel good. Behavioral design is all about how a design performs. Reflective design is all about the message, culture, and meaning of a product. It's basically the reflection of how the consumer receives the total design.
This chapter discusses more of all the aspects that are taken into consideration when evaluating a good design, as to the previous chapter that discussed just one major point of design which was behavioral design. This chapter went into great detail when explaining all of the different types of design.
A Rolex watch is a product that has succeeded in visceral design, because it has an extremely high price tag but it doesn't have anything inside of it that should make it cost that much. this watch is just extremely appealing to the the human eye. The water bottle is a great functioning design and it's an excellent example of behavioral design. The squeeze water bottle is very simple and easy to use. Marble tables are great examples of reflective design, because they have the total package. Marble tables look and feel good and they are also very strong and sturdy tables.

For Friday Sept 25, 2009 " The Design of Everyday Things" (cont.)

2009-09-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

In Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things", there was one passage that stuck out to me which was "The paradox of technology should be never be used as an excuse for poor design. It is true that as the number of options and capabilities of any device increases, so too must the number and complexity of the controls." In this passage the author discussed how the wave of new technology shouldn't allow poor design. Some manufacturers feel the need to incorporate all types of new technology in the items that they are producing, which can be a door way for poor design. When manufacturers incorporate this new technology they also have to make the control more complex, thus for making the product harder for people to understand, leading to poor design.
This book still continues to be influential today, because it goes into detail explanation between the difference of a good design and a bad design. A manufacturers can use this book to help them make their designs more efficient for the consumer. The basic concepts in this book never change.
Factors for evaluating the design of a product: visibility, feedback, mapping, simplicity, appropriate clues, and the usefulness of all the features.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

2009-09-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

The author's key points in this article were visibility, simplicity, appropriate clues and feedback. The author thought that these were important aspects as to why people get so frustrated with poorly designed everyday objects. Visibility is one aspect that Norman feels strongly about, he believes that if someone is to use something properly then the correct parts have to be visible. He also believes that some objects are to elaborate and need to be dumbed down so that it can become easier for everyone to use. Feedback is the main cause of confusion when dealing with new objects, because it's very hard to know if you're pressing the right buttons if you're not getting any feedback from the object.
I have a very difficult time using the locks on the mail boxes here at Kalamazoo College. I feel like the basic opening system for a standard lock is great, but somebody here at Kalamazoo College felt the need to change that. The design makes it difficult to use, because it's not standard. This item does suffer from one of Norman principles which are simplicity and appropriate clues. This item gives no clues that it's not the same as a normal combination lock, so there is no way to tell that it has some type of new strange combination system.
The makers of the ipod think that their product is perfect, which means they feel that it has no problems. They addressed the problems of visibility. The consumers think that the ipod should have a visible power button, but the creators responded by saying it doesn't need one. They also addressed the problem of appropriate clues, the creators felt that the scroll wheel covered all the appropriate clues needed to for somebody to operate the ipod.

The Creation of The Ipod

2009-09-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

This article illustrated the form of the Ipod. The article constantly talked about how the Ipod was designed and what it looked like. Near the end of the article they mentioned why the incorporated a scroll wheel on the Ipod, instead of plus and minus buttons. The designers thought that it would be better for scrolling through the songs faster. The article repeatedly talks about the form of the Ipod.
The factors that I would have to use to evaluate a "perfect thing" would have to be: simplicity, attractiveness, size, risk of damage, and how easily it can fixed. The "perfect thing" has to be simple and easy to use. If anybody can pick it up in use it, then it's perfect. For something to be truly perfect it has to be attractive in everyone's eyes. The perfect size varies depending on the purpose, thus for the perfect thing should be available in various sizes. The "perfect thing" should have a very low risk of damage and when it does get damaged it should be easily fixed.
The strengths of Ipod are it's simplicity and size. The ipod is very ease to use for the most part. Almost anyone can pick up an Ipod and listen to music or play video games on it. The Ipod also comes in various sizes, so people can choose what every size they want. The Ipod also has it's weakness's. It can be very hard to upload music onto an Ipod sometimes. The Ipod is virtually un-fixable. Once the Ipod is broken you only have two options; pay Apple large sums of money to fix it, unless you have the warranty and free repair plan, or buy a whole new Ipod.

It's Time To Introduce Myself

2009-09-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

I'm Robert Relief III, some people like to call me Big Rob or just Rob. I'm currently a student athlete at Kalamazoo College, member of the football team, and from the looks of it i should enjoy my time here. I'm from Detroit, but after I went away to college my dad moved into a town house in Southfield. I'm a cool and relaxed person. I was told to make this blog for my Design Intelligence. So let me know what you think so I can improve it.