I would like to work somewhere that:

What your ideal company culture would be like by describing what an average day on the job would for like you. What would it look like, feel like, be like?

In a recent interview, Michael Jordan was asked the following question –

“You have won 6 NBA titles, 10 Scoring titles, 5 MVP Awards, 9 All Defence Awards, 14 All Star Games and 2 Olympic Gold Medals, in one word how would you describe your career?”

Without hesitation, he replied “FUN.”

As set out in the RSA Animate video, research has shown that enjoying what you do is a better motivator than money rewards. So, obviously, my ideal job would need to be enjoyable. Ideally, my company would allow its employees to be involved in the client and project selection process. Clients and projects would be selected based on factors the employees deem to be relevant, rather than allowing money to be sole driving factor.

The Company would not have standard hours and there would definitely be no requirement to clock-in or clock-out. Job titles would not be standard titles such as manager and junior designer; rather they would be creative such as “guy who likes to nag” and “girl with fresh ideas.”

If you work on a project, you get credit for your work on the project and are involved in all discussion relating to the project regardless of your role.

Hiring, Firing and promotions would be a team decisions. No one man or women would have such powers.

With all the above in place, I cannot image how work would not be, as Michael Jordan put it, “FUN.”

Also as set out in the RSA Animate video, the Company would pay its employees well as to not have to deal with financial stresses.

The work environment would be extremely divers as this will help the exchange of ideas.

With all the above in place, I cannot image how work would not be, as Michael Jordan put it, “FUN.”

Converging or Diverging

Do you think design disciplines are converging or diverging? Consider analogous industries, such as medicine, to inform your point of view.

I believe design disciplines are rapidly converging. Hardware products and software product are more intertwined today than ever before.

For example, 15 years ago the designers behind making a music player (whether it be a tape player or cd player) were primarily hardware product designer. Software designer had little to no input in the end product. However, today, a music player, such as an ipod or MP3 player, involves both a software designer and hardware designer. A user interface ( the product of a software design), which was completely absent in music player 15 years ago, is now in my opinion equally or more important than the overall hardware design. One of the driving factors behind Apple’s great success was its ability to combine the hardware and software design, in which the design of hardware depended on the design of the software and vis versa.

I believe design disciplines will continue to convert as more and more hardware products shy away from physical buttons and turn to virtual “buttons.”

In addition, I believe the constant wave of product integration can only lead to a spike in design conversions. Home products are becoming smarter and more integrated. For example, there are now multiple applications for you computer, phone or tablet that will allow you to control everything in your house from your thermostat, tv, lights to your oven. Many of these products will naturally obtain their own user interface which will, design wise, need to be consistent with other user interfaces including the controlling computer, phone or tablet software. This trend will likely expand to non-home products, such cars and vending machines( Which had already started), as well as industrial products. The result of which, in my opinion, can only products a conversion in design disciplines.

Why does everyone think they can do interaction design?

Why does everyone think they can do interaction design? Do other design disciplines face this challenge?

As discussed in class, there are many people that think they can do interaction design. I believe this is the product two primary issues - (1) the success of the design is looked at subjectively and (2) cost is rarely considered.

As the saying goes, “you can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.” When it comes to interaction design, you will always have people that are not pleased with the design. These non-pleased people will typically think they could have done the design better. However, they rarely think about the amount of research and trials that went into the design. Sometime, these people may be 100% correct and their design idea may be more intuitive. But, the majority of the time, these people simply basing their critique of the design solely on personal preference

In addition, people rarely look at the cost and availability of the technology  associate with their proposed interaction design. With high competition and expensive patents, some interaction designs are meant to be done on a budget and, as such, are not intuitive as the could be. Interactive designers often have to dumb down their ideas as the hardware component simply can not handle it. However, this is rarely taken into consideration by people without a design background.

I believe the same challenges exist within graphic design and branding. People typically will look at graphic design and/or branding from a subjective mindset and not take into consideration that the design was meant to reach as broad of an audience as possible and the design will undoubtedly not reach, impress or be relatable to everyone. Just like interactive designers, graphic designers are routinely limited by the amount of time and cost that can be incurred on a project. Moreover, with software like Indesign, photoshop and illustrator becoming more and more user friendly and automated, many people start to believe they can do as good of a job as a graphic designer. They can simply take existing designs, copy them, make minor tweaks and believe that is all that goes into being a graphic designer. Besides potentially breaking trademark laws, these people rarely are able to do the job correctly as they are unable to look past their subjective views.

If I was a Goldman Sachs employee

Blog on what you would do if you were an employee of Goldman Sachs who didn’t have the option of quitting - what would you say to your clients, friends and family who read Greg Smith’s letter?

I find this questions extremely difficult to answer. Obviously, I would first need to determine whether or not I agreed with Greg Smith’s letter. I am firm believer that every story has two sides. If I disagreed with Smith’s position, I would tell my friends, family and clients the truth and give them the full story.  

If I agreed with Smith’s positions, I would try to make a difference and consider the negative points in his letter and Improve them in my work. I am not sure how much I can implement this idea, but I would try my best to gain my clients trust by giving them the best advice and making them see why the advice it for their advantage not the the companies. But overall I find it very hard to work in a company that share different values than mine. In some cases depending on the company size or position in a company one can make a change but I believe it will be very difficult to make a change in a company like Goldman Sachs. Therefore, I would resign from Goldman Sachs. In the past, I turn down a very promising  job offer from a well known advertising agency in spite of being a recent graduate based on the fact that I would be working on an account for one of the largest cigarette companies. It was an extremely difficult decision to make as I had no other job offer at the time and, moreover, it was during the peak of the financial crisis. Morally, I could not promote a product that I vigorously oppose. I personally would not stay with a company that had different values.

Engaging Social Networks

Blog on which social network you currently find most engaging and why?

Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, Behance and Instagram are all social networking platforms that I find equally engaging. I find it difficult to pick the most engaging out of these networks because each one provides a different approach to social networking.

Engagement has two sides to it. One is the interface that connects people and the other one is the interface that the user engages with. I believe both of these sides are equality important in making a network engaging. For example Pinterest is the most engaging social networking platform for sharing images of what we find interesting, allowing the users to create boards and categorize their interests. It also has a very simple user interface for pinning images to the boards. Therefore, Facebook is not going to be as successful as Pinterest.

However, when it comes to connecting with friends and keeping them updated about what they are doing and how they feel, Facebook is the best Social Network available today. The same idea applies to LinkedIn. It is a perfect social networking platform for connecting professionals. I would not add anyone I don't know into my circle of friends on Facebook unless I personally know them, but on LinkedIn I feel comfortable accepting anyone within the industry, because they don't have access to any of my personal information.

Past Present & Future

What’s your pet app idea? Based on the tools and processes that Aaron shared, discuss the minimum essential features, as well as elements that are not essential that you would want to add after launch.

what I would like to explore more, is tracking the amount of time each person spends daily thinking about the events that already took place in the past, planning the future and  focusing on what they are doing at that moment.

I am interested to learn how much of our time we spend on thinking about other things other than what we are doing at that time. I believe the data collected can be helpful with many psychological issues. Moreover, it may also be helpful in tracking our focus and productivity.

I conceptualized this project in my Design History class and would have loved to learn more about it had time permitted.

In order to track this data we need two essential things. One, a headset that can tracks and distinguish the different waves sent by the human brain and, second, an app to monitor and document the data received.

While researching tracking devices, I came across a devices called NeuroSky. However, I am unsure if NeuroSky is capable of collecting the data needed. Nevertheless, lets assume NeuroSky or some other device exists that can track and distinguish waves associated with thoughts of the past, present or future.

I believe the application is the important part of this idea as it will take and transform the data into something that is understandable. The application can be in the form of a mobile app or a website, in both cases it will demonstrate the same thing.

I believe that the essential features to launch the app are as follows:

. A headset or other device that tracks and distinguishes brain wave;

. The headset or device will need to have bluetooth capability so it may transfer the data to the application;

. An easy translation of the data for the user to track the information; and

. A graph that shows the change during over a course of time.

I believe the above is enough to launch the application. However, in order to maximize the application’s potential, I believe it will need to include the following:

. The ability to set goals (for example the use is able to set goals in order to focus more on their daily activities)

. The application could have the option to make recommendations based on their activities and how to achieve their set goals;

. In cases involving psychological patients, doctors can have access to their patient’s data to track their activities and progress;

. Social networks and comparison abilities: this can give the user the opportunity to compare their results with others. For example, the user can compare his or her results with someone they admire.

There is no question that social interactions and networking is today one of the most important aspects of ever design. Nevertheless, I believe, based on the MVP list, that the social interaction and networking portion of the application is comes at the end of the list.

Prototype

Discuss one of the best prototypes you have encountered, either yours or someone else’s. Why was it great? What did you or its designer learn from it? What would the designer have missed if the prototype had never been built?

Initially when I decided to blog about this topic, I wanted to write about prototypes I had created while working as a graphic designer and their importance in avoiding future disappointments.

However, last week, I went on a tour  to The Long Now Foundation at Fort Mason and came across a fascinating prototype for their “10,000 Year Clock” project. This clock is meant to be an symbolic work for long term thinking. It is designed to tick for 10,000 years and is scaled to be as a monumental piece built inside a mountain in West Texas.

The scale and the detail of these prototypes is significant as it is made up of thousands of parts. in order for them to test and learn every step they had to divided the project into different parts and create a prototype for each part. Given the massive scale of the project, some prototypes needed to be built at a smaller scale just for the designer to test if the technical aspect of the project would works. Other prototypes were just designed to study human interaction with the project.

In addition, during the tour, I learned about the different levels of the prototype. As can be seen from the posted pictures, some prototypes are very small and made with cheap material, such as wood. For a project this scale, I don't think the designers will ever be able to build the final project without going through several prototypes.

Overall I was very impressed with the work and I am looking forward to see the final project especially so that I may compare the prototypes to the final project.