The semester is really flying by. Everyone was back in class and it was nice to see everyone again.
Kim discussed “The Design of Everyday Living” and small groups of 2-5 people were given an hour after the break to discuss their 2-5 minute projects which well present next week. Mine happened to be working with Arl and Jeff about “What is ITEC?” I’ve been handed audio duties for our presentation, which I’m working on this weekend using GarageBand.
Marcus Pon also stopped by to show the group his ITEC 830 final and how it’s currently being used. Interesting.
Some of Kim’s comments about “The Design of Everyday Living”: (the group brought in several objects/pictures etc. showing objects that have good and bad design points/flaws)
Affordance: what’s it used for by looking at. If it’s good design, the item/object does what it is supposed to do. It invites one to use!
Causality: cause and effect
Information Design: functionality and aesthetics are important!
- Perceived affordances
- Causality
- Visible constraints: limitation of the actions possible or perceived from an object’s appearance
- Mapping: the natural relationship between controls and displays/a set of possible relations between objects
- Transfer effects
- Idioms and Population: stereotypes
- Conceptual Models: people have mental models of how things work. Models, it should be noted, my be wrong.
- Individual differences
- Why design is hard
- Many so called human errors are actually errors in design!
- Human factors became important as human performance limitations reached when handling complex machinery.
Final Projects: Kim mentioned our final projects would be something we’d do on your job or to help others solve problems, or maybe it’s a problem you might have which you want to solve. 30-40 hours spent (possibly) on your project with about 4-5 weeks to complete them. Please discuss with Kim if you have any questions.
