Schemas confused by a failure in design thinking

Last semester I taught a seminar course at NC State University’s College of Design where I asked the students to identify, as part of a weekly assignment, two instances: one where design thinking had thrived and another where it had failed. Towards the end of the course, students had collected a series moments that proved that only a simple nudge was required, many times at no extra cost to anyone, to set a series of problems right. Recently, I came across one such example.

Last week, due to the birth of my nephew Gonzalo, I got to spend some time in the maternity wing of the Auxilio Mutuo Hospital. It was indeed a short time, yet most of it was spent waiting for the baby to make its appearance. I had time to look around. A few things came to my attention, but this particular emergency door stood out the most out of anything else that caught my eye.

An Emergency Door in the Maternity Wing of the Auxilio Mutuo Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The subject in question is located on a hallway directly across from the nursery of newborns. As you can imagine, a lot of people congregate in this area. Upon further investigation, four things were of interest to me:

1) The standard, internationally used emergency exit sign;
2) An ink-jet printed sign which informs that this door does not provide access to the ground floor;
3) The familiar red sign that indicates to use this exit in case of an emergency; and
4) A photocopy which explains, in paragraphs, what to do in case of a problem.

Can you imagine what would happen, God forbid, if there was an emergency in this space?
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Swipe… review… sign… pay later [repeat?]

Swipe… review… sign… pay later [repeat?]
Understanding Martha Augustinos’ and Ian Walker’s approach to schemas and how it can aid a designer frame reflexive behaviors during a consumer experience.

Reflect about the purchases made in the last few days. Did any transactions involve checks, money orders, cash, or even a visit to the bank? Most likely the quantitative answer to this question will be low, if not zero. Physical currency no longer plays a major role in commercial negotiations. Items, information, and services can be acquired, and sometimes are required (try to reserve a vehicle without a credit card), through the use of credit-based-cards in lieu of tangible currency. The benefits of such a system are hard to deny: a credit card is often faster than paying with cash, avoids having to deal with change, offers an ever-present source of funds in case of an emergency, minimizes economically-based social judgments, and serves as an element that grants certain social power.

American critic Frederic Jameson, in Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, wrote: “Any return to the haptic and tactile… seem to hearken back to… the “late modern,” when building materials were expensive and of the finest quality and people still wore suits and ties. It is like the transition from precious metals to the credit card: the “bad new things” are no less expensive, and you no less consume their very value, it is the value of the… equipment you consume first and foremost, and not of its objects.” (Jameson, p.99) The credit card is not only a means to consumption, but it now represents consumption itself, and as such, it has developed its own set of appeals. The credit card is now a must and there is no turning back.
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Back to school: Fall 2008

It’s that time of year again… it’s back to school time! The adventures of my graduate class continue as we enter our second year of the master’s program. Exciting times are these…

Last year already came and went. The first semester was intense. The second was considerably busy. The third? I can’t wait to find out! I am not at all worried though, for Meredith Davis and Santiago Piedrafita are leading the way…

This semester is special though. Not that the previous ones were not, but this semester I begin to articulate my research interests towards the development of a final project. This experience will force me to concentrate my interests into a series of researchable questions which I will later investigate and work on. About time I got started on this…

Catching Up: Representation

My concept map on representation.

Betwixt being and non-being

Betwixt being and non-being
An ontologically altered perception through the personal blog platform

In developing an individual identity and its consequential representations, a human being, as a cultural, social, and psychological entity, interprets, uses, and garners information from its surrounding environments. In the process, contexts are synthesized and associations are established. The management of these intuitive processes leads to the creation of personal thoughts, views and perspectives which are later shared through various forms of exchange.

The emergence of social networking sites, instant messaging platforms, discussion forums, email, collaborative online games, digital worlds, and particularly blogs, have transmuted the nature of these exchanges. Introspection has now become projection. Private realities have now expanded into contemporary shared conditions of public life. These outlets of personality provide versatile ways of sharing internal, and beforehand private anecdotal information with others.

The introduction of online blogging platforms during the late 1990’s made it easier than ever to share, communicate and contrast one’s individuality with the ideas of others in similar techno-social realities. As of March 2008, Technorati¹ calculated an estimated 112.8 million online blogs worldwide, a datum that needs to be pruned carefully since online does not equal active. There maybe that many blogs, but that does not mean there are exactly that same amount of active content generators behind them. There is no precise quantitative data on how many abandoned blogs exist, yet the available data does suggest a parallel growth between that of new blogs being published and those being simultaneously abandoned. Due to the free-of-charge nature of the majority of blog hosting domains, most of the blogs, even after being abandoned, remain online indefinitely.

I will try to make that case that through this ever-lasting online presence, contemporary communication platforms, such as the blog, can extend our sense of being, even after we become non-being.
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Reflections on graduate school: At the end of the first semester

It’s here, the end of the semester is here. Contrary to undergraduate times, (when this was a time of exams, final projects and memorization as premonition of Christmas partying) graduate school’s end of semester calls out for (and brings about) reflection, introspection and self-evaluation.

Interestingly enough, I find myself in a sort of academic déjá vu.
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Seminar Paper, draft 2: Now that we can say more of our selves, are we saying less?

“The human experience of identity has two elements:
a sense of belonging and a sense of being separate.¹”

Now that we say more of our selves, are we saying less?

In 2006, for the first time in history, the Canadian National Census questionnaire made its way to the country’s 32.5 million residents. It included a new confidentiality question that asked Canadians to approve or disapprove of their personal information being included in the census. Historians feared that survey participants did not realize the importance of the option and initiated a publicity campaign to educate the country on the implications of such question, and on why people should care about it even though this census is released to the public in 2098. It was an education on how the information will be useful then, specially in regards to identity and the social way of living.

Contemporary digital environments have allowed a re-thinking of our selves and of how we relate, connect and present to/with others. The popularity of digital social networking sites, instant messaging platforms, discussion forums, email, the emergence of the blog as a publishing tool, collaborative online games, and live digital worlds like Second Life have transmuted the way personal identity is thought of and handled.

Online environments allow the users to digitally curate their own lives. The creation of these selves is managed through text, images and as of recently, video. Users can write/post/upload any information they want. Further depth can be achieved by having the digital content annotated, commented and further developed by others. This process is reciprocal in nature, for users can simultaneously act as others, commenting and annotating content. Someone’s digital public image is the product of the sum of individual interventions and social contributions. Personal and external texts are illustrating the image of who we become in a digital realm². Therefore, we exist by implication.
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IRL, RL, DL

] In Real Life ][ Real Life ][ Digital Life [

I keep exploring the landscape of digital vs real self. This is me in Second Life right now.  HAHAHA  

Seminar Paper, Draft 1

“Birth is when we get our identity.¹

“The human experience of identity has two elements:
a sense of belonging and a sense of being separate.²”

Our shadows played together as we walked, yet I am not able to tell you about it.

In 1976, two paleoanthropologists in a group led by anthropologist Mary Leakey, found, not far from the village of Laetoli in Tanzania, two pairs of fossils which today question the nature of those that existed before us. The discovery, as any of this nature, fuelled much debate. Some argue that the fossils, in fact footprints, were made by early hominids who resemble contemporary humans in stride and standing posture, while others, rooting their argument on the historical and artifactual record, challenge the idea that Laetoli marks were made by early iterations of us since there is no evidence of human culture or intelligence during that time period.

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] words ][ terms ][ ideas ][ 8 [

New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright.

] Objective [

The ideal state of being unbiased...

] Subjective [

Something that is particular to the view of an individual, hence the opposite of objective. A subjective view is understood to be personal, specific, and imbued with the values and beliefs of a particular person.
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] words ][ terms ][ ideas ][ 7 [

New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright.

] Simulation/Simulacra [

Terms most famously used by French theorist Jean Baudrillard that refer to a sign that does not clearly have a real-life counterpart. A simulacrum is not a representation of something, but is more difficult to distinguish from the real. Hence, it can be considered to be a kind of fake real that could potentially supercede the real. Baudrillard stated that to simulate a disease was to acquire its symptoms, thus making it difficult to distinguish between simulation and the actual disease. For example, a casino or amusement park simulacrum of the city of Paris can be seen as creating a substitution for the actual city, and can perhaps for some viewers seem to be more real than the city itself. The term simulation is often used to describe aspects of postmodern culture in which copies and realities get blurred.
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] words ][ terms ][ ideas ][ 6 [

New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright.

] Abstraction [
The quality of being conceived apart from concrete realities.

] Capitalism [
An economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth are held primarily by individuals and corporations, as opposed to cooperative or state owned means of wealth. Capitalism is based on an ideology of free trade, open markets, and individuality. In capitalism, the use value of goods (how they are used) matter less than their exchange value (what they are worth on the market). Marxist theory is a critique of the ways that the system of capitalism is based on inequality and exploitation of workers, allowing a few to prosper while many have only limited means.

] Flaneur [
A french term theorized explicitly by cultural critics such as Walter Benjamin, that refers to a person who wanders city streets taking in the sights, especially those of consumer society. In other words, the flaneur is a kind of window shopper, with the implication that the act of looking at the gleaming offerings of commodity culture is itself a source of pleasure wether or not one actually ever purchases anything. The flaneur is simultaneously in the world of consumerism and detached from the cityscape around him.
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] words ][ terms ][ ideas ][ 5 [

New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright.

] Spectacle [

A term that generally refers to something that is striking or impressive in its visual display. The term spectacle was used by French theorist Guy Debord, in his book Society of the Spectacle, to describe how representations dominate contemporary culture, and all social relations are mediated by and through images.

] Mass Media [

Those media which are designed to reach mass audiences, and that work in unison to generate specific dominant or popular representations of events, people and places.

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] words ][ terms ][ ideas ][ 4 [

New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright

] Objective [

The ideal state of being unbiased...

] Empiricism [

A science inspired philosophy that assumes that things exist independent of language and other forms of representation, and can be known unambiguously as positive truths independent from any specific truth. An empirical methodologies relies on experimentation and data collection to established particular truths, and is in opposition to theories that see facts and truths as dependent on the context and language system in which they take on meaning.

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] words ][ terms ][ ideas ][ 3 [

New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright

] Spectatorship [

A theory that emphasizes the role of the psyche–particularly the unconscious, desire, and fantasy– in the practice of looking. In the theory, the term spectator does not refer to a flesh-and-blood individual viewer, rather, it treats it as an "ideal subject".

] The Subject [

Or ideal subject, abstracts from real audience members and the experience of a particular film to refer instead to a construction.

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] words ][ terms ][ ideas ][ 2 [

New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright

] Text [
A term extended by Barthes to include visual media such as photography, film, television, or painting, to suggest that they are constructed on a basis of codes in the same way that language forms a text. Insofar as they are constructions, texts can be broken down into their component parts through the work of analysis. Barthes in particular distinguished texts from works, such as art works, to indicate an active relationship between the writer and reader or artist/producer and viewer. This is because the constructed nature of the text implies that its meaning is produced in relationship to the viewer rather than simply residing in the work itself. To treat an art work as text means that we read it through codes rather than passively absorb or stand in awe of it.

] Aesthetics [
Beliefs and theories about the value, meaning, and interpretations of things.

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] words ][ terms ][ ideas ][ 1 [

New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright.

] Means of production [

In marxist theory, the means of production are the ways in which a society makes use of the natural resources of the world around it to make useful things. In Marxist theory, those who own the means of production are also in control of the ideas that circulate in a society's media industries.

] Representation [

The act of portraying, depicting, symbolizing, or presenting the likeness of something. Language, the visual arts, and media are systems of representation that function to depict and symbolize aspects of the real world. Representation is often seen as distinct from simulation, in that a representation declares itself to be re-presenting some aspect of the real, whereas a simulation has no referent in the real.

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