Hello World
After a lot of sitting back and reading what other people have to say on-line, I’ve decided to join the ever-growing collective of people who write publicly. People have been doing it since the internet began, but now it has just gotten easy enough for a massive amount of people to take part. With Blogger, Facebook, and MySpace, there’s no longer a need to set up any web space or buy a domain.
While this means that more people can participate, it also means there’s a lot more to sift through in order to find anything meaningful. Which is why I feel the need to explain why I have decided to write and what I plan on this space being used for:
Topics
The first important issue is what will be discussed on here. I’m hoping the main overarching theme will be interaction design in its broadest sense. It will be about people, what they do, and what we do as designers to help them. Some posts might be more theoretical based, while I might talk about a specific products later on. Somewhat similar to how I’m learning right now.
Within interaction design, I’m interested in: how people adapt and re-purpose products, how technology changes people’s behaviors and how it can be used to fulfill people’s needs, ubiquitous computing, game studies, and a sprinkling of service design, among other topics.
1. Design Writing
The first reason is purely selfish, which is to help me learn how to write in general, and how to write about what I am doing. It’s important for people to know how to communicate clearly about what they do and how they do it. It’s also important to be able to tackle different topics within the discipline and be able to discuss them. At the very least, it can provide a springboard for more discussion later on. I want a place where I can write about design without the pressure of being completely proper.
2. Self-Reflection
I also need a place to keep track of everything. I might be walking to school and see something that triggers an interesting thought about people, but after a few days it escapes. I’m hoping this can be a place to hold some of thoughts and experiences. I also spend a lot of my consuming information whether it’s reading, listening to lectures, or just browsing online or in bookstores. I’d like to capture some of my own reactions and thoughts to information I encounter so that I can have a concrete representation of what I think.
3. Social-Reflection
On the flip-side, I also run into a lot of interesting people that I have great discussions with. Being at a design school, it’s easy to find classmates who are willing (most of the time) to geek out over design and other random stuff. At the same time, people are extremely busy and people need to get to work. It would be nice to explore some of the discussions and questions we raise further if needed.
4. Public Display
So why do I want to do this online? With everything I just talked about, I could just as well be writing things in a word document or in a private site. One reason is that I think what we learn and talk about at Carnegie Mellon is important for others to encounter. It’s likely I would not be going to school there if I hadn’t followed Dan Saffer’s blog and read about his experiences. The picture he painted of CMU helped me make a more informed decision about where I wold be be doing my graduate studies. Since I’m done with the all important first year, my discussion will most likely be less about the school itself and more about the themes I think are interesting enough to talk about.
Another reason is that I firmly believe in public discussion. Although the internet can really turn ugly with the anonymity that it enables, I think the potential for generating discussion is wonderful, and I would hope that people would challenge things I say and argue with me.
One of the dangers I’ve always felt with putting my words down is that it makes your ideas that much more rigid, since they become a record of your thoughts and feelings. I would like this to be more of a cross-section with room to contradict myself and change as much as I need to.
Quick and Dirty
Just to reiterate some of the reasons why I am doing this. I really think there is a value in being able to put something out into the world without the pressure and influence of peers, professors, or workplace. It takes less time to piece something together and see what people have to say than writing a full blown paper, and is more permanent than a casual conversation.
I’m hoping that future posts will be shorter and less wordy, since half the time people don’t actually read posts completely. I will also try not to bring in everyday details unless they relate to something greater that I find interesting.
Although, who knows? Maybe this will be the first and last post. Only time will tell.
