project #3: a filter for relevance—attempt #1...

My main thesis question is:

How can the design of an online information triage system support users in managing information and making decisions about nutrition?

My point of intersection between thesis and our symposium is:

Relevance (and triage, authenticity, credibility, trust, critical thinking, filtering)

My investigation for project #3:

How can a filter be designed to visually privilege relevance?

I decided to use the construct of a movie rental kiosk for my investigation. The system begins by asking the user for their three favorite movies. The system then creates a symbol to represent the user and create connections to all other movies.

Here are my investigative iterations....

Relevence Filter: Iterations... from Liese Zahabi on Vimeo.

In iteration #1, the amalgamated symbol generates a wireframe structure. Relevant categories and movies are located spatially upon the structure. The user would be able to interact with the structure and any information coming off of it to examine further.

In iteration #2, the categories and movies are arranged in space again, but this time relevance is shown by proximity to the user. Again, the user can interact with the information in a spatial way.

In iteration #3, the categories are arranged in a much more static way. This time relevance is shown by scale and use of the amalgamated symbol (color coded according to which favorite movie is most relevant.)

I still want to do more iterations and investigations, and want to build something out in flash to show how the interaction could start to work.

studio project #1: a cultural probe…

For our first official project, Denise assigned the following:

Project 1 : Anatomy of a Culture Probe

As you venture into "thick analysis", in studio we enlist your imagination to interpret and extrapolate from the explicit evidence you observe.

Based on observations culled at your coffee house:

Design a Culture Probe that aims to discover what/how/why ritual exists within the experience.

1. Speculate on the complete system that includes:
   1. Format
   2. Form
   3. Verbiage/Tone
   4. Locale
   5. Moment
   6. Delivery Mechanism
   7. Respondent
   8. Probe retrieval
   9. Archiving
   10. Assessment

Oy ve!

Nailing down a working definition of ritual seemed like a logical place to start, from dictionary.com:

• Set of actions performed mainly for their symbolic value. (Not arbitrarily performed/chosen by performer, or dictated purely by logic, chance, necessity, etc.)
• Any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner.

I also feel that ritual inherently has a sense of specialness or reverence…this is something set apart from every day operational action (although I believe that ritual can occur within the everyday).

Next I moved to some more online research and found some interesting articles about ritual. I discovered a conversation about the ritual-ness of the ways we use space—how we signal our defined space around us, signal power structures, and display identity through our use of space (i.e. in a workplace). This ritualistic use of space is certainly found in the context of the coffee shop. But how could I get at this notion with an artifact? How could I open up the user and encourage them to express some of their notions of space, and get them to define or label that?

The Idea
To provide customers with an array of small, tactile objects and encourage them to arrange these objects in some way (with very little instruction or prompting). The customer would then be asked to frame their arrangement in a photograph (using a Polaroid camera) and label that photograph. Then the polaroids would be hung together on a wall in the seating area of the store.

The Specifics
what's space got to do with it?

• I was interested in the notion of space and the way it affects ritual (for example, issues of privacy, proximity, comfort, trust, freedom, etc.)
• A way of getting at these ideas and perceptions is to engage the customers in a spatial way
• I really wanted to think about a probe that was centered on creating conditions in which users could express themselves, or tell stories, or do something unexpected
• SO my probe is a set of small somewhat abstract objects that the user would arrange in some way, frame in a polaroid photograph, label with a sharpy, and then hang in the coffee shop space.

so how does this thing work?

• Three sets of objects would be placed in the customer seating area, 2 sets in labeled boxes, 1 set in a small glass container
• A polaroid camera and some sharpies would also be accessible in the seating area
• The labeled images would be hung on the back of the large merchandise wall, so all the photos could be viewed from the entrance of the store and the seating area
• I really wanted the probe to be very open ended, I debated as to whether there would be explicit instructions included or not, and finally settled on having very brief directions that could still be somewhat ambiguous
• I spent a lot of time debating what the arrangable objects should be: wanted them to be abstract but be able to have some symbolic meaning, wanted them to be tactile and have some presence (weight), wanted people to be able to stack and build if they wanted to
• I tried to design this to not be from Starbucks, but still be of Starbucks
• I wanted it to feel more like a store specific phenomenon
• As to why people would participate, I hope by having these items on the tables (where normally just papers or computers are) people would be intrigued. They would also see all the photos on the wall and hopefully want to participate. Hopefully the unusual-ness of both the task and the use of the polaroid camera would be enticing.

and this is useful because...?
The images could be collected after some duration (1–even 6 months) and then analyzed. The assessment would consist of looking for patterns, anomalies, ranges within the set of photographs.

Some questions that could be considered:

• How did individuals respond to the materials and task?
  
• How did individuals respond to the arrangements made by others?
  
• How did individuals interpret space?
  
• Where did they set up their arrangement?
  
• How did they frame the photograph?
  
• How did they consider scale? Color? Juxtaposition?
  
• How does their written label correspond to their visual arrangement?
  
• Did they define the arrangement with seriousness? Humor? Confusion? Irony?
  
• How could designed artifacts fit into these spatial arrangements?
  
• What do these arrangements say about the use of space? About drinking coffee?

The Execution
Here is a presentation of my culture probe.

Starbucks Culture Probe 1A from Liese Zahabi on Vimeo.

Reflections on this project will follow in a later post...

seminar project #1: investigate a community…

We were asked to choose a community to deeply investigate over the course of the semester. This was the first project involving that community. We were to observe and examine the community according to Dori Tunstall's five characteristics (mentioned in an earlier blog post—historic consciousness, life goals, organizational structures, relationships, and agency) and organize this information into a 25 slide (no more, no less) presentation. The presentation is meant to be stand-alone (meaning I shouldn't need to stand next to it verbally expanding for a viewer to understand).

Because the content/context of my thesis will be food, I chose Discuss Cooking (an online cooking community) for my investigation.

Here is the presentation:

Discuss Cooking Community Presentation from Liese Zahabi on Vimeo.

I enjoyed this deep dive… Examining the community along these structured guidelines forced me to look at it from perspectives I probably wouldn't have on my own. And this structure actually illuminated more subjective qualities about the community and members as well.

We will use this community throughout the semester for both seminar and studio projects—so you will see more of Discuss Cooking. I'm sure you are waiting with bated breath…

coffee shop observations: a fiction…

For our first Studio project, Denise assigned the following…

Project 1 : Anatomy of a Culture Probe

As you venture into "thick analysis", in studio we enlist your imagination to interpret and extrapolate from the explicit evidence you observe.

Based on observations culled at your coffee house:

Write a story from the perspective of a player in the experience, i.e. a particular customer, barista, dishwasher, busboy, manager, delivery person, etc.

She gave us this assignment before we made our observations, which made that exercise something of a "double-dip." While I was observing for my thick description, I was also very careful to capture moments and details that could be material for a piece of fiction.

I have never tried to write a short story, and decided that it would be interesting to make an attempt for this assignment. I tend to overcomplicate both my writing and my design, so for this project, I worked diligently to consider every sentence, phrase, word and comma, and omit anything that seemed superfluous.

I also decided to mix my process up a bit. I found a random number generator online, and generated two different numbers—one that corresponded to a page in my paperback dictionary, and one that corresponded to a word on that page. I used this word as an entry point into my story, and then ended up building upon that stylistically with other words from the same page.

I submit to you, my first short story.

Resplendent.
He peered around the wall of merchandise carefully, hoping to see a corner of her face again. She was wearing pink today, with all that black and green, and it suited her. John was arguing with her about whether C-A-N was an abbreviation for "can" or "Canada." Frustration began to creep into her voice. He was sure her mouth was beginning to tense at the edges, thinning to sharp points as she bit off the ends of her words.

The chai tea was turning cold. He knew his presence in the tattered chair in the corner was growing conspicuous. How long had it been? He had forgotten his watch on the lamp-stand again. Forty-five minutes? Fifty?

He sighed a shade too loudly, and glanced down at his lap. Soft, supple fingers curled into a limp fist...skin tone foreign against his bright eggplant t-shirt. Why couldn't Carla have finished the laundry on time? The purple fabric was stretched tight against his paunch, and he noticed a small hole beginning to take shape near his navel. He must look ridiculous…an aging cartoon character of a man…the color of Barney the dinosaur. A groan of discomfort escaped him as he ran his hand over his bald spot…a nervous gesture he had established years ago.

The guy sitting at the next table—all dark hair and Run DMC t-shirt—glanced up and barely brushed his gaze across the space, immediately returning to his laptop universe.

"Hey, are you done with that paper?" Her eyes were dark slits against the sun streaming in behind him, flecks of gold flashing off the buttons on her hat. He choked on his spit, spilling chai tea onto the hem of her black pants. Four eyes turned down to the stain as it spread out over the top of her shoe, then slid back up to meet in the chilly space between them. Her lips were slightly parted, and she rolled her tongue to the side, tucking it into her cheek. Once, twice.

"Nice," she muttered under her breath as she floundered past him to the kitchen. Run DMC guy was staring at him now, a dark smirk teasing the corners of his mouth.

Resonant.

He manouvered himself up and out of the chair, and blindly threw his vestigial tea at the garbage can, missing it by nearly two feet. Tea and milk and cup and lid exploded against the wall, splattering the door, his cheek, the floor and the Run DMC t-shirt. He plowed forward, arms raised, windmills flying, and flung the door out and open—escape. He tucked his hands into his pockets, once, twice. Head ducked, quick steps toward the corner as he tried to slow his heart, measure out his breath, and somehow make it up the block.

He crossed the street and shook his head violently, making space for distraction.

Carla would have finished the laundry by now. He could rescue his Harvard t-shirt from the warmth of the dryer and walk up to the library. Ellen would be working today, her pale skin incandescent behind her oversized glasses, widely framing moist brown eyes. If he hurried he could catch her on her way to lunch, subtly brushing past her on the stone staircase. There would be books and chairs—crevices to peer out of, objects to hide behind.

Resuscitate.

Overall, I am pleased with this. It was an extremely valuable exercise for me, and I think the end result is a decent character study. One of my goals for the semester is to practice more restraint within my work. To ruthlessly edit and re-frame my ideas, allowing more space for simplicity and resonance. Hopefully, this is a step in the right direction.

coffee shop observation: a thick description...

We are focusing on the concept of community (and the ways we can get at culture through that lens) in both studio and seminar this semester. To do this, we are using a framework of qualities about community put forth by Dori Tunstall (design anthropologist). She posits that a community displays/contains the following five characteristics (in varying degrees):

• Historic consciousness — an understanding of where the community comes from
• Life goals—the things and values that really matter to the community
• Organizational structures—how decisions are made, how the community is arranged, and how members fit into that
• Relationships—the ways in which people connect and communicate and create understanding and trust
• Agency—the degree of control (or influence) an individual has within the community

We have also discussed the discipline of ethnography, and the ways in which designers can use the techniques of that discipline to engage and study specific communities. A thick description is something created by an ethnographer (or someone acting as one)—a detailed, rich and expansive description of people, actions, behaviors, objects, environments and other "stuff" observed in a culture.

Our first assignment was to observe the culture within one of the local coffee shops in Raleigh and create our own thick description. We are working in teams of four or five to bring together the observations of several people into one macro-description. I chose to observe Starbucks, and my team decided to make our observations at different times on different days. I went on a Saturday just after lunch, ordered an iced coffee, found a plush chair in one corner, and spent the next hour and a half scribbling furiously in my notebook, trying not to look too conspicuous.

It was fascinating (truly) to sit in a commercial space and just watch people (people watching is something I enjoy doing all the time) but this had a different quality to it, a more pointed purpose, a depth that regular people watching doesn't have.

After the observations were all finished, my small group came together and wove our separate descriptions together, looking for patterns, anomalies and points of interest. Rehashing and combining what we had observed led to insights and opinions we wouldn't have made through the initial observation.

Ultimately, what this assignment revealed is that observing people in an environment can lead to compelling information not easily garnered through a questionnaire or focus group. By carefully observing the ways people interact with objects, environments, products and each other, designers can look for the points of mediation within a complete experience and begin to see how design can slip into those points.

fall 2009: design as a cultural experience...

This semester we are talking about Design as a cultural experience. At the outset, I have many personal questions about the construct of culture...

How are artifacts read and understood (or not)? What are the cultural constructions societies agree on (or not)? Where is the place that design slips into the cracks of a culture? Or is it laid atop everything in multiple layers and overlapping levels? Can there truly be commonalities? How many people constitute a culture? How can cultures shift and change over time—how transient are they? Where does the notion of tradition rub up against culture—creating sparks of resistance and conflict? How does design shape culture—and of course, how does culture shape design?

Many directions and avenues to examine and explore. It will be interesting to see where the conversation takes us....

thesis prep: a stumbling/fumbling beginning to a nine-month journey...

And here it begins. Thesis. That six-letter word that we all knew loomed in our futures....but it almost seems inconceivable that the process has begun.

The amazing thing about the thesis journey at NCSU is that not only is there a tried-and-true system and method for us to follow, but we are being guided by Meredith Davis as we travel along the path. We met with her, back in May, directly following our final review (the day after)—and she attempted to prepare us to make the best use of our summer.

We were to read and skim through books that interested us. Make sure to look to the left and right of the books that interested us. To follow threads and make note of what caught our eye. We were to poke our heads up out of the design landscape and scan other disciplines and subjects for connections and ideas.

We were to make lists as well. A list of these topics and interests. A list of the ways we like to work. And a list of where we want to be after all of this is finished, degree in hand. I was impressed and excited to hear that all three of these lists would be taken into consideration when we crafted our researchable question in the fall.

So, here we are, a month into the semester, and these lists have evolved into questions. Big questions, sub-questions, partial-questions, awkward questions, redundant questions, and questions about the questions. My head is swirling with all these queries, and still foggy about exactly what it is I want to ask.

Here is what I do know:
• I am firstly interested in information science and how it relates to graphic design
• I am interested in the state of information overload/anxiety many people feel
• I am also interested in a process called "information triage," which is how people sort, prioritize and make connections within the flood of information they encounter
• I know I want to work with digital/online material—this is certainly where I feel the most overwhelmed by information
• And I know I want the context of my thesis to be food—I believe this will afford a great deal of options and directions for possible "info-triage," and it's a topic I know something about and in which I would love to learn more

So, this is where I am...Meredith seems satisfied with my general direction. However, I'm still struggling to write that perfect researchable question, and find those relevant and pointed sub-questions to fall beneath it. I will keep you posted...