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Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Researching Technology Adoption
For Seminar, I'm writing an 8-10 page essay on how Design can help overcome barriers to technology adoption (113k powerpoint). I'm looking for papers and case studies related to this topic, so if you know of any, please feel free to suggest them.
posted at 10:30 AM in
papers
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miLife Research PresentationWe presented our initial research findings and implications (3.4mb powerpoint) to Microsoft on Monday for our miLife project. It was a not-inconsiderable amount of work to do, both in terms of the actual research, but also in distilling the raw data we had down to summaries and then, the implications of those findings. I'm particularly pleased with the model that arose from our research of people capturing small bits of information. I think that's a neat area to be exploring and it'll drive the next two months substantially.
posted at 10:15 AM in
projects
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Agnew Moyer Smith
We did a field trip for my Mapping & Diagramming class to the swank offices of Angew Moyer Smith on Pittsburgh's South Side. We went to meet one of its principals, Don Moyer, husband of our professor Karen Moyer and an information designer of some renown.As always, it's good to chat with working designers about their processes and projects, especially one as successful as Don. Don is also an interesting case because he's not only a designer, but a writer and illustrator as well, and the work he does reflects all those things. He emphasized the need for text with an appropriate voice to accompany images, which seems obvious but it's amazing how infrequently it's mentioned. He showed us some recent projects and went into detail about a diagram he did about RFID tags. Initially, he said, look for (and make a list of) the actors in the scenario (human or otherwise), then look at what those actors do. The actors definitely will, and the actions might, have to become visible in the diagram. These actions especially might need to be annotated in some way, either via text or a visual indicator. When researching, look for basic info ("for eight year olds"). Most topics don't require knowing everything about it. It's important to understand what Don called the engine: what is causing the change that requires people to need this document? Once you do your research and "wallow in it" for a while, it's always good to write your own brief for the client. This, Don says, not only impresses the client, it also checks to make sure you understood what the client said. It isolates the big ideas from the research and gets the client to agree. In the brief, be sure to include a one-sentence that states the target you are trying to hit. You also want to outline your "story elements:" the big ideas, main messages, and the things you want to cover. Do initial sketches roughly. Later you can "untangle the marionette" of lines and drawings, resolving the pieces spatially on a plane. You can write questions right onto the initial sketches; that way, the client has to respond. Don also emphasized what is really one of the central themes of design: you can't say everything, so you have to be smart about what is included, be it information, features, and details.
posted at 08:33 AM in
field trips, special guest stars
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Blogging and School
I was interviewed for a feature on elearningpost.com about the experience of doing this blog and how it has affected my graduate school experience.
posted at 07:13 AM in
meta
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Sunday, February 22, 2004
New RSS Feed
Taking a cue from my pal Rob, I am now offering two flavors of RSS/XML feeds for your reading pleasure. If you want the excerpts (what you currently get), do nothing: your current feed will remain the same. If you want the full entries, switch your feed link to http://www.celticknot.net/blog/cmu/index2.rdf
posted at 08:42 PM in
meta
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