The abilities a designer should have to make good design

I have background in architecture and my collage training is the best in Taiwan design education. I nearly never change the way I do design. When I did interaction design in Taiwan, it is more like design with new technology and advanced concept. After CIID, I totally change the process I do design. In the thesis phase, I can feel more and more about the power of design thinking.

Here are thoughts of abilities which a designer should have to make a good design. It is a reflection not a serious report.

ASK GOOD QUESTION / DEFINE A GOOD DESIGN CHALLENGE
Especially for thesis, it is very important to ask good question. This defines how high and how good a design could be. This represents designer's vision and personality. It is hardest design skill to teach.

CREATE GOOD ENVIRONMENT THAT INSPIRING AND SECURING CONCEPT
For my personal experience, every design decision is based on the resources now, so it is important to have rich resources to lead to a good decision. User research, brainstorming and prototype are great skill to create good environment to make good design decision. These skills are also great to failure earlier and proof of feasibility as earlier as possible.

PROTOTYPING
Prototyping is an ability to realize and evaluate the concept. It is similar to architect makes the model to visualize what is in their mind. Only through prototyping, we can failure earlier and evolve the design with evidence.

ABILITY TO CREATE INSIGHT
It is not only about creating insights from user research but also the insights of every phase of design such as brainstorming, prototyping. It is about seeing through the true values behind it or making a great philosophy to explain it.

ABILITY TO MAKE TOOLS
Design is about bridging expectation and resources with good strategy. Ability to make tools means that designer should have ability to design a design process according to the project.

Mobile Context

I want to do "Web2.0 application in mobile context". From my research, I found out we use the computer to access internet in a specific context. We will do it in a room, only focus on the using computer, individually and sit in front of the computer( see the chart in the first picture). Furthermore, use computer before or after an activity. In contrast, mobile context is more about outdoor, in an activity, with friends and on-the-go.

I made a little experiment in the afternoon open lecture to explore what we need in mobile context. There are few insights. First, before lecture we chatted and one classmate showed the iPhone app. This software is more about showing something not about finding something new. Second, I would like some software that can record this experience in simple reusable media. Third, I want to know what others opinions are in more casual way or opinion for specific section .

The second picture shows some mobile contexts to inspire me. Originally I made a attention distribution of the different mobile context scenario to understand the relationships of these context. I feel that there could be two kinds of the software used in an activity. One is the complement of the main activity. For example, in a lecture I have a device to record the experience. The other one is sub-activity that means a totally different activity parallel happens. For example, when biking, listen to music.

This week, Christena Nippert Eng from IIT(http://www.iit.edu/csl/ss/faculty/nippert_christena.shtml) is our visiting faculty. She gives me a great point of view about attention distribution. Attention should not be related to the different kinds of context. For example, if biking in the crowded traffic, user should pay lots of attention on it. Like the right side chart, it changes in different time not strongly relative to activity.

Small exercise - I want to know ......

My personal view point of Web 2.0 app is fulfill one human's curiosity. Digg is a platform for people to know what others are reading now and Twitter is a platform for people to know what others are doing now. Because every classmates are very busy for their own thesis, I do a small exercise for myself instead of brainstorming. This exercise is to write down everything I want to know about for inspiring.

In this phase, it is not easy to point out a direction only from this exercise. I do this for two reasons. I kept thinking something like this, so best strategy is to write it down and release some mental loading. This may not directly useful, but it aims to create a rich background with lots of similar activity. Once I have a great concept. It is easy to connect every thing to make a great design.

Mobile Phone Usage Diary

Many thanks to my good friend who did the cell phone diary for me every day. He is a PHD student and teaches at collage. He uses iPhone with unlimited subscription. I just take three days diary as example. The result looks most of the tasks are still phone function. There are two additional kind of usage: tool and social. Alarm and listening to music take phone as a tool. Originally we have alarm clock and walk man, now they are integrated into phone. The other finding is the iPhone is good to "show off" and invoke some social activity. In my plan, I want to see relationship between using cell phone and context. There is no astonishing findings, but it is great to visualize the true usage pattern.

20090514

0730 wake up alarm (home)

0830 check facebook and app store on iPhone (home)

0930 received a phone call from father (home)

1040 received a phone call from a commercial company (home)

1100 Sync iPhone to PC outlook (home)

1108 Set up laundry alarm on phone (home)

1220 received a phone call from a commercial company (home)

1700 check facebook on iPhone

1710 Play app KiDoWi on iPhone

1830 make a phone call to a friend (home)

1900-1950 Listen music on iPhone (dinner out)

1950 received a phone call from father (home)

2030 received a phone call from elder sister (home)

2300 make a phone call to a friend (home)

20090513

0730 wake up alarm (home)

0820-0840 download an app,(郵政資訊), from app store (Starbucks)

0850 Received a phone call from father (Starbucks)

0900-0920 Received and make few phone calls to co-workers (Starbucks)

1000-1130 Received and make few phone calls to co-workers (home)

1330 Received a phone call from a friend (home)

1430 make a phone call to a friend (home)

1700-1800 Received few phone calls from co-workers (gym)

1700-1830 Listen music on iPhone and workout (gym)

2050-2150 Received few phone calls from co-workers (home)

2300 make a phone call to a friend (home)

20090512

0730 Wake up alarm (home)

0930 Received a phone call from father (work school)

1008 Received a commercial phone call (work school)

1150 Received a phone call from a friend (work school)

1430 Received a phone call from a Student (work school)

1630 make a phone call to a co-worker (work school)

1850-1910 demo iPhone apps to co-workers (work school)

2300 download a app from App Store (Home)

2330 make a phone call to a friend (Home)

Interview with internet heavy user

I interviewed with three people, one boy and two girls, who are from Taiwan and study master degree at Denmark now about their internet usage behavior. They have been addicted to internet for more than 5 years and surfing internet is the routine every day . The main applications they use is BBS (Bullet Board System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system) which is super popular in Taiwan's college students and has existed for 15 years. It has its own sub-culture and they often invent new proper noun. The repondants also use some popular social network applications such as facebook and blog.

Here are the quotes:
"My new boy friend and I host a new board on BBS to collect our memory"
"I love to share information on bbs than facebook or blog, because it is faster to deliver information"
"I don't have time to see NBA live on TV, so I will see NBA board on BBS where lots of people will live broadcast through post"
"When there is live NBA game, lots of people will share the free link, watch online together and discuss. It is super interesting to watch them arguing"
"I can't help eliminating the new article sign of the board"
"When I browse the article, I will start from most responded one"
"Facebook is the place gathering friends' information"
"The most amazing board on BBS is beauty board. For example, some one saw a beauty at architecture department and post it on board. There are always someone know the girl"
"I like the group shopping board. We buy goods together for cheaper price with strangers"
"I like facebook can tag people on photo. It is great to collect my memory"
"The great restaurant board on BBS is my favorite. Once people found new restaurant near the school. There are always lots of people provide reviews"
"After using BBS for three years, I only brows my friends board now"

Brianstorming - what others are " "ing now?

My thesis focuses on "Web 2.0 Apps in Mobile Context"

What is Web 2.0 App? I have a very personal and not well defined view point that it is a platform satisfying human's curiosity. For instance, digg is a platform that you can know what others are reading now. Twitter is a platform that you can know what others are doing now. Facebook is a platform that you can know how and what your friends are doing now.

The Web 2.o Apps now are developed for the unique context for instance we use it at home or office individually and only focus on doing it. There are increasingly people using mobile phone to access internet. The context we use internet is dramatically different for instance accessing internet is more on-the-go, within a event or with others together. There should be some essential difference between accessing internet on mobile phone and pc.

Web 2.0 Apps in Mobile Context means a platform you can know something others are doing now in mobile context which is different from context using pc. Therefore, I want to do a brainstorming what do you want to know others are doing now and in what context? This could be very simple, for instance I want to know which store nearby sells great and cheap vegetable, which restaurant has good "today special" or which art piece is popular in the museum.

Brainstorming questions:
Please write down your favorite web services / applications with one sentence that it makes you know what. ex Twitter is a platform that you can know what others are doing now.

In the mobile context which means on-the-go, in the activity or with friends, what who how and why do you want to know about? ex I am curious about the pictures every one took in my wedding. It is the important moment in my life and I want to know every detail.

User Research Plan

There are two phases in my user research plan: traditional user research and intrusive user research. The intrusive user research is in between user research and prototype. It aims to observe how people change their behavior by objects we give than existing behavior. Because most of the web 2.0 apps are not based on existing user needs, intrusive user research is to bridge this gap.

The first phase is traditional user research. There are three things need to be observed: internet usage, mobile phone usage and normal life. Understanding internet usage is to catch some trends of relationship between internet and user. Understanding mobile phone usage will more focus on the context people use phone and internet by phone. Try to understand how and why accessing internet by phone change qualitatively by context. Observing the normal life will focus on how people communicate or interact with others and information, and some urban life or events such as transportation, cleaning trash..

For internet usage, there are two things to do: analyzing online behavior and analyzing screen behavior. Analyzing online behavior will be done by carnivore (http://r-s-g.org/carnivore/) which will surveillance all internet traffic and be visualized by processing to see the usage pattern. This will let us know more about how we use internet. Analyzing screen behavior will be done by shadowing someone using computer and try to identify the task they do and visualize it. Or find a software that can record the screen.

For mobile phone usage, I will find some users who use 3G with smartphone to record everything they do on it with the format below.
When: 2009/05/01 3:00
What: call
Who: to student
Why: for video exhibition
Where: home
Note: we talked for ten minutes
Then, visualize it by processing and try to find out the relationship between using phone and context.

For the normal life, it will be conducted by interview. It is hard part for me. How to get inspiring data is challenging. There should be two rounds of pilot interview to get the good interview questions.

After traditional user research, I hope there will be some interesting ideas and then use intrusive user research to get deeper understanding of what it means and what it could be.

What I want to do with mobile phone

This week, there is a open lecture by James Haliburton, TAT (http://tat.se/) . They did great job about improving mobile phone UI through gesture, sound, tactile and try to go beyond wimp user interface. These are definitely fascinating to explore. However, these projects make me sure that I am more interested in how people interact or communicate with others and information than new mobile phone input methodology.

Service design course opens my eyes and it shows me how innovation could be by users. In my past design, I always tried hard to get insights from my own experience. It is weird that designer can do any design before really understanding the users or context. The mobile phone applications now seem almost all come from technology such as gps plus map goads lots of social network around location. I think we need to zoom out to view how "mobile phone always online" weaves into our life pattern deeply.

After digesting all thoughts across my mind, I want to focus on "Web 2.0 application in Mobile context". This means I want to do something that improves people's relationship, generates some valuable information such as twitter or creating a new behavior / verb named as application name sush as google this.

In this phase, Simona, head of CIID, encourages us to have a big vision, even it is not clear or we don't know how to achieve it. She took The Duomo of Florence as example. At the begining, italians just want to make a huge church that is astonished and makes everyone remember it and they took two hundred years to make it happened. It is really helpful@@

Initial Thesis Statement/Mission

I want my thesis to …

• I want to build my own philosophy of design and my own way of design process which is fit to my personal character.
• I would like this thesis could represent what I am thinking, my personality and my ability.
• I want to get a design consultant job that could challenge design paradigm through this thesis.
• I need to write a conference paper.
• I would like to submit the thesis to red dot design competition.

I’m interested in/inspired by…

• I am also very interested in what happened if mobile phone can always online, know where we are by GPS and know our status by accelerormeter. How does this reshape our urban, architecture and our lives?
• I am interested in design process. Can “design thinking” be improved?

During my thesis I would like to challenge myself in…

• The clear design thinking and smart design strategy is my goal. Do the design with just enough prototype not to be fascinated in making working prototype. Make the best of communication of my design with proper media. Do things step by step not to be too ambitious at beginning.
• Do good user research. Inspired and co-design with user.
• Make good document of the process.

Who would you like your adviser to be?

Please state a first option and a second option.
First Simona
Second Vinay


Comfort zone:

• software programming: processing, flash action script 3, python, pys60, reactivision
• hardware: arduino, button hack
• design skill: architecture, product design, urban design, photoshop, video prototype

Risk zone: (H: highly risk M: middle level risk L: Low level risk)

• software programming: H android sdk(mobile phone), H google app engine(web site), Flex
• design: L illustrator, L flash as2 (rapid prototype GUI), CSS, FLEX
• hardware: M zebee networked programming

Entry point of thesis

The hardest part of doing a thesis for me is to give myself a brief. What should I do with the last chance that I can do what ever I want? Basically, I want to make mobile phone applications which may success on apple store or nokia ovi store. However, what is the issue inside it? It could be design methods of making mobile phone application, focusing on one application, or from a big theme such as next social communication app on the mobile phone context. I can do well in each way, but I hesitate to chose one because how high a design can reach depends on the initial vision.

The diagram is visualization of what I have thought so far. There are there catagories: How, Who, Why and I list what acrossed my mind. This three cagetories are questions that every design should answer: why this design is important, who it is for and how it works. These could also be there entry points to my thesis.

As you can see, technology category is longest and this is also the reflection of industrial actuality. Most of the innovative design comes from new technology and then marketing people try to focus potential users. At this moment, unless I can build something from fundamental hardware, there is no new technology. Too many people has done many interesting innovative projects in lab.

About the user group, I am more interested in organizational relationship. For example, the elementary school is composed of teachers, students and parents and there are some subtle interactions between these stakeholders. For web 2.0 spirits, these kind of relationship is easy to spread out a app.

Personally, I am very interested in the movement of next generation communication app. From digg, facebook to twitter, they hit or invent some essential human needs. Maybe, it is good to start from a theme, what is the next communication app on the mobile context.