Friday, December 10, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
On: Bjorn Again? Rethinking 70s Revivalism through the Reappropriation of 70s Clothing
By Nicky Gregson, Kate Brooks and Louise Crewe
This article covers 2 different reasons that groups in England in the early 90's were adopting 70's clothing and how one side was for play while the other was a symbol, ad advertisement, of one's knowledge and respect for the design. I see in it the hunt of youth for knowledge, respect, and reputation. It was entertaining.
This article covers 2 different reasons that groups in England in the early 90's were adopting 70's clothing and how one side was for play while the other was a symbol, ad advertisement, of one's knowledge and respect for the design. I see in it the hunt of youth for knowledge, respect, and reputation. It was entertaining.
Same Ol' Same Ol'
On Pruitt and Adlin's Personal Life Cycle (Tanner Thompson).
On second reading of this chapter, I couldn't let go of a phrase that I recently heard a design researcher say to me "Once you have a persona, you don't need a new one. People are people, and new technology isn't going to make them any different, it's only going to alter which object they use to carry out the same behavior. My boss can make me go out and check to see if there's anything new, but I'm going to see the same thing: wow, people use their phones instead of their alarm clocks, computers, and newspapers. New object, same action."
So I'm reading this Tanner Thompson persona, and I'm thinking about how it's slightly dated, and how I watched this PARC talk about how teenagers are using 2-4 internet/entertainment devices at the same time now days and how crazy that was and how web designs need to be integrated with the idea that no one will be entirely focused on your page, so non-irritating alarms are being added. And I'm wondering how -even though his goals would remain the same- if Tanner's persona would need an update for more than just to keep the interest of a designer. Hmp. Think. Think. Think. I get back to you.
On second reading of this chapter, I couldn't let go of a phrase that I recently heard a design researcher say to me "Once you have a persona, you don't need a new one. People are people, and new technology isn't going to make them any different, it's only going to alter which object they use to carry out the same behavior. My boss can make me go out and check to see if there's anything new, but I'm going to see the same thing: wow, people use their phones instead of their alarm clocks, computers, and newspapers. New object, same action."
So I'm reading this Tanner Thompson persona, and I'm thinking about how it's slightly dated, and how I watched this PARC talk about how teenagers are using 2-4 internet/entertainment devices at the same time now days and how crazy that was and how web designs need to be integrated with the idea that no one will be entirely focused on your page, so non-irritating alarms are being added. And I'm wondering how -even though his goals would remain the same- if Tanner's persona would need an update for more than just to keep the interest of a designer. Hmp. Think. Think. Think. I get back to you.
On Fournier's Consumers and Thier Brands:
Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research
I'm lucky that since this article came out (1998), many of the concepts Fourier discusses have been adopted into marketing and brand concept strategies (at least, where I am earning my degree). I found that this article also somehow re-enforced something Abby Margolis once taught me about objects and brands in relationships: people are not always looking for who they are, but sometimes, a balance of who they think they'd like to be in context... ie: sometimes, a teenage girl wants to feel just a little like a responsible woman (when she's washing her face?), which means that marketing a brand to someone doesn't always mean trying to pretend to be like your audience, but remembering to provide an authentic representation of the value delivered by a product: sometimes soap is better seen as responsible than fun.
The life stories provided by Fournier were hard for me to get through, and I worry about where any border between storytelling and data is supposed to exist... are the soft sciences about interpretation with a back-story of data? (I need to interview more design researchers about this.) When tabled-out, the relationships were delightful and so humanistic that I was forced to subject my neighbor to a long and drawn-out conversation about how his relationships with brands fit into this type of table. Super fun.
I'm lucky that since this article came out (1998), many of the concepts Fourier discusses have been adopted into marketing and brand concept strategies (at least, where I am earning my degree). I found that this article also somehow re-enforced something Abby Margolis once taught me about objects and brands in relationships: people are not always looking for who they are, but sometimes, a balance of who they think they'd like to be in context... ie: sometimes, a teenage girl wants to feel just a little like a responsible woman (when she's washing her face?), which means that marketing a brand to someone doesn't always mean trying to pretend to be like your audience, but remembering to provide an authentic representation of the value delivered by a product: sometimes soap is better seen as responsible than fun.
The life stories provided by Fournier were hard for me to get through, and I worry about where any border between storytelling and data is supposed to exist... are the soft sciences about interpretation with a back-story of data? (I need to interview more design researchers about this.) When tabled-out, the relationships were delightful and so humanistic that I was forced to subject my neighbor to a long and drawn-out conversation about how his relationships with brands fit into this type of table. Super fun.
On: Products and Practices: Selected Concepts from Science and Technology Studies and from Social Theories of Consumption and Practice
by Jack Ingram, Elizabeth Shove, and Matthew Watson
Of all the articles I've read about in creating personas, it was this one that really helped me hone-in on how I wanted to describe my use-cases for my study. The group's six themes (acquisition, scripting, appropriation, assembly, normalization, and practice) were much like something I think I read recently in Donald Norman's newest book about emotional design [cognitive psychology, yum.], but when I read how they applied basic social psychological concepts to the motives for a stage, I was more than on board.
I found myself taking notes about each of my personas- how did social comparison fit into "Lisa and Greg's" lifestyle, was "George" subject to the Diderot Effect? Were the three of them beginning to Specialize, and how/why had Self-Identity through new objects taken a back seat to a whole generation of people? Had "Anna and Susan" Scripted their objects into a role that was at risk of being in opposition to the sustainability movement? How could new designs alter their behavior without confusing, irritating, or alienating who they felt they themselves were while also assembling into the group of older more emotionally charged but perhaps less sustainable products?
Also, and I'm not sure exactly how this fits in at all, but after having read so much about Martha Stewart's Living, I am drawn back to the Donna Hay and Real Simple magazines that I loved before Stewart became part of my vocabulary. How do sections in their magazines that celebrate new uses play into the "themes" set out in this article? What happens when that which establishes a (if even somewhat fairy-tale-like) status quo embraces an old technology over a new one that may be advertised on the next page? Do the "30 things you can do with a paper clip" ever really get used, or are they simply party tricks for the imaginary house wife?
I am officially in love with this article, and only hope that I can one day implement these incredibly valid issues into my own work- whether academic or applied.
Of all the articles I've read about in creating personas, it was this one that really helped me hone-in on how I wanted to describe my use-cases for my study. The group's six themes (acquisition, scripting, appropriation, assembly, normalization, and practice) were much like something I think I read recently in Donald Norman's newest book about emotional design [cognitive psychology, yum.], but when I read how they applied basic social psychological concepts to the motives for a stage, I was more than on board.
I found myself taking notes about each of my personas- how did social comparison fit into "Lisa and Greg's" lifestyle, was "George" subject to the Diderot Effect? Were the three of them beginning to Specialize, and how/why had Self-Identity through new objects taken a back seat to a whole generation of people? Had "Anna and Susan" Scripted their objects into a role that was at risk of being in opposition to the sustainability movement? How could new designs alter their behavior without confusing, irritating, or alienating who they felt they themselves were while also assembling into the group of older more emotionally charged but perhaps less sustainable products?
Also, and I'm not sure exactly how this fits in at all, but after having read so much about Martha Stewart's Living, I am drawn back to the Donna Hay and Real Simple magazines that I loved before Stewart became part of my vocabulary. How do sections in their magazines that celebrate new uses play into the "themes" set out in this article? What happens when that which establishes a (if even somewhat fairy-tale-like) status quo embraces an old technology over a new one that may be advertised on the next page? Do the "30 things you can do with a paper clip" ever really get used, or are they simply party tricks for the imaginary house wife?
I am officially in love with this article, and only hope that I can one day implement these incredibly valid issues into my own work- whether academic or applied.
On: Material Attributes of Personal Living Spaces by Gosling, Craik, Martin, and Pryor
After having read this work, I know 2 things.
Thing 1: However beautiful information can be, it needs to be visually stimulating to pull a reader through, lest he get exhausted by fig. 4... pages and pages of raw data are best left to the appendix. In other words, I need to know my data so well that I can visually communicate the story to my audience. Story. Hm.
Thing 2: The idea to have the interviewees rate and agree to being rated on their openness was brilliant. It's beautiful when data can tell you something we all already see in a new way: Andrea Gibson says "The key to falling in love is f***ing up the pattern."
I'd love to use this paper to study the results after my photo sort to see how Baby-boomers' objects imply their openness... I wonder if there's a link to sustainable practices and the variety of objects owned by a Boomer within his or her personal living space. Ideas. Ideas.
Thing 1: However beautiful information can be, it needs to be visually stimulating to pull a reader through, lest he get exhausted by fig. 4... pages and pages of raw data are best left to the appendix. In other words, I need to know my data so well that I can visually communicate the story to my audience. Story. Hm.
Thing 2: The idea to have the interviewees rate and agree to being rated on their openness was brilliant. It's beautiful when data can tell you something we all already see in a new way: Andrea Gibson says "The key to falling in love is f***ing up the pattern."
I'd love to use this paper to study the results after my photo sort to see how Baby-boomers' objects imply their openness... I wonder if there's a link to sustainable practices and the variety of objects owned by a Boomer within his or her personal living space. Ideas. Ideas.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
On Dianne Harris’ Clean, Bright, and EVERYONE White:
Sometimes I can’t get around my critical eye. As a poet, I am so accustomed to creating stories through creative exploration of an individual, but when something becomes official- when it becomes a scientific statement… whether of a soft or hard science, I have trouble buying into the certainties with which some authors make assertions about a time or culture. Such is the case with Harris’ article about the 1950’s white post-war era aesthetic.
Harris writes with conviction and uses an incredible wealth of resources (namely architectural magazines) to describe how architects of the era created a “white” aesthetic, but, although I can see the correlation, I cannot see the causality that she does.
More than her point, I saw an echo of the 1950’s in today’s Green movement- how the Sustainable aesthetic has been adopted into a clean and modern one, how the two are married to a predominantly “white” perspective, and I wonder if that comes from the nostalgia wrapped in the 1950’s that the “modern” look brings with it. Her comment that “The houses and gardens are portrayed as clutter-free environments, when in actuality they were jammed full of new consumer goods,” threw me back to my interviews with current interior designers. How appropriate.
Finally, because I am currently studying the Boomer population in terms of the home and sustainability, I was fascinated to read about the homes that Boomers grew up in- ones that had a heavy emphasis on the privacy, the closed-off back yard, the pride in ownership, that Boomers have undoubtedly carried with them as they’ve aged. It makes sense to see a culture who wants to leave the apartments of a pre-war era, but could the Boomers’ disgust with apartments only come from a nostalgia? Hmph. Reasearch.
Harris writes with conviction and uses an incredible wealth of resources (namely architectural magazines) to describe how architects of the era created a “white” aesthetic, but, although I can see the correlation, I cannot see the causality that she does.
More than her point, I saw an echo of the 1950’s in today’s Green movement- how the Sustainable aesthetic has been adopted into a clean and modern one, how the two are married to a predominantly “white” perspective, and I wonder if that comes from the nostalgia wrapped in the 1950’s that the “modern” look brings with it. Her comment that “The houses and gardens are portrayed as clutter-free environments, when in actuality they were jammed full of new consumer goods,” threw me back to my interviews with current interior designers. How appropriate.
Finally, because I am currently studying the Boomer population in terms of the home and sustainability, I was fascinated to read about the homes that Boomers grew up in- ones that had a heavy emphasis on the privacy, the closed-off back yard, the pride in ownership, that Boomers have undoubtedly carried with them as they’ve aged. It makes sense to see a culture who wants to leave the apartments of a pre-war era, but could the Boomers’ disgust with apartments only come from a nostalgia? Hmph. Reasearch.
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