Reflections from McCarthy and Wright: Technology as Experience.
Have you ever felt the adrenaline rushing through you in a movie.. or the sound of silence falling into the valley.. onto to rise into a crescendo, only to fall back into an inquisitiveness... that slowly slowly catches you.. comforts you.. and then .. then there is the sudden jerk of emotion again .. and the cycle keeps repeating itself again and again... You keep moving from one an experiences to another... In the end you say .. What an amazing Experience! Movies after movies , roller coaster rides after rides... and photo exhibitions after exhibitions..
Here we talk about the Rhythmic Dance of an aesthetic expression. Dewey previously mentions about the rhythms of life, tensions and releases of engagement, and feelings of vulnerability in the face of our own needs and desires. Thus "rhythmic flow of life is the basis of our experience of meaning and value in the world."
Basically there are four components to it. It has an internal, dynamic structure. Its called the Cumulation, the Conservation, the Tension and the Anticipation.
Roughly Cumulation is the build up of the experience in the absence of a priori information about the experience. This is a build up over time. The human capacity of deriving meanings over things increases in a temporal flow. Cumulation is a thing of the past, leading to the present. Without such a build-up there is no fulfillment and without fulfillment there is no aesthetic experience.
Conservation is the tendency to hold onto the some of what one has gone through before, in-order to make sense and a better experience of what is in present. Conservation is in the present. This takes cues from the past and is creating the experience along the present. An example for this could be you enjoy a particular kind of music more, if you have listened to that music before. Like say Jazz music.
Tension is where the fun begins! This is where movie makers make most of their money! Music invariably plays an important role in the tension. Tension refers to both the opposition of energies within the experience and between the people involved in the experience. Any resistance prevents immediate discharge and accumulates tension that renders energy intense.
Thus tension appears from this compressed energy that is seeking release. And when they try to do it, another form tries to block it. This struggle is the cause of tension. Analyze it this way, say in a movie, you are in a state of conservation.. enjoying the experience of the plot, and suddenly there is a gun shot. For a moment, you freeze.... its may be instantaneous, that time may be in milliseconds, but for that instant the hard pounds an extra beat. This creates that struggle within the energies that were already there with the experience you were having.
Then comes the anticipation. As one would guess, this is for the future with the knowledge of the present and the future. This thus occurs in two temporal phases. The first one occurs before the aesthetic experience is taken pace, and the other during the aesthetic experience taking place. Thus there is an expectation build up in this. When that expectation is met, the past is conserved as if the anticipation is molded into the experience itself. When it is not met, the conservation is breached. Often this would also lead to tension and then further lead back to conservation.
Thus, as Dewey says, a rhythmic dance connects aesthetic experience to its history and circumstances. This dance involves a continuous interplay between the past, present and future, each shaping and renewing the others.
Showing posts with label i502. Show all posts
Showing posts with label i502. Show all posts
Friday, February 01, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Kinds of Experience
Analysing Bruner's Anthropology of Experience.
So, which was the last movie that made you go wow! That was an amazing experience! For me it was "Taare Zameen Par", directed by Aamir Khan.
Which was the last photograph that you saw and made you go wow! This is great photograph. This was a series of photographs that I saw from the movie War-Photographer.
When was the last narrative that you read , that made you have a good experience?
Well... i am sure you would agree that the degree of experience is not the same in all of these. Most of the people would say that the movie watching is perhaps the best experience amongst all. I agree to that as well.
So getting a bit more into the anthropology of experience, we try to analyze why this is the case. Why a movie makes me go more wow as compared to a novel?
The answer lies in the way we define reality (what is there is there... ), expressions (how individual experience is framed and articulated) and experience (how the reality presents itself to the consciousness).
Experience is valuable only if its affecting the inner consciousness and that affect stays with us for long. Expressions or an experiences are short lived and we tend to get over it soon.
We know as discussed, that experience is a collection of a group of expressions or the "an experiences". Anthropologists and ethnographers aim at experiencing the cultures and look at retelling in their words. This often leads us to believing what they say. However,
there is a difference in the life lived ( the reality) , the life experienced (the felt) and the life expressed (the told).
Now there are two kinds of experiences. Felt experience and the Told Experience. More often than not, these two fail to match up. This thus, results in the an indifference in the way we interpret the experience and the way the person narrating the experience tells it. As Kapferer puts it, "I do not experience your experience, I experience my experience of you." This means that the actual experience of the thing is lost.
There are also some inexperiences that are called the inchoate experiences i.e. the experiences that we are unable to understand. Like many a times we say, I feel good, but don't really know why we are feeling good. These experiences are the ones that are the most often left out in the process of retelling and narration.
Quite often we tend to confuse between the experience and behavior. Experience is more personal, whereas behavior is what some outsider describes. Experience thus is more self referential. Therefore it is concluded that experience is also subjective.
Which brings me to my question!
How can we as designers of user experience, create designs that are objective in experience? How can we remove the element of subjectivity and try to look into a common thing amongst mind of users across a demographic, who will experience the design in the same manner in which I as a designer am experiencing?
There have been different ways of conveying experiences. The oldest way was perhaps Narratives. (Rosaldo, Bruner) This was often in the form of speech or written text. Story telling also forms a part of the narrative. However, if an incident has occured to the narrator, there is often a case of over emphasizing a certain chapter / portion in order to enhance the experience while saying it.
However, the narrator fails to understand that in the absence of an imagery, there is a picture in the mind of the listener that is constantly changing. Thus, the felt experience of the listener and the told experience of the narrator is not the same.
However if the context has been set, if the images (Fernandez, Kapferer) are used to give a clear indication of the culture in which the enactment had taken place, the listener (user in case of a design) is more likely to develop a better picture of what is being said.
And when this is attached to a movie, where we not only have a cultural context prior set, but also some parameters that help in increasing that experience. There is an enactment (Stewart, Babcock, Schechner) A movie is composed of those numerous expressions or say numerous moments of an experience. A movie makes us go wow, because these expressions are not just a collection, but a proper connected timeline of whats going on. This consummation of experiences over a period of time when presented to us, increases the felt experience thing and hence we get a better experience.
In a movie the reflexivity (Gorfain, Boon, Myeroff) factor also plays an important role. Here we couple the frames with our reflection with our own interpretation and hence the experience is enhanced.
As Kapferer puts it, we transcends individual experiences through the participation in the cultural expressions. While watching a movie, we are so deeply engrossed and our mind is full of these expressions, that we forget completely what is outside. This engrossment further enhances the overall experience.
Movies are thus, a field where the art of creating experience has been perfected!
It is now completely understandable why I watch so many movies!
Its for the experience!
So, which was the last movie that made you go wow! That was an amazing experience! For me it was "Taare Zameen Par", directed by Aamir Khan.
Which was the last photograph that you saw and made you go wow! This is great photograph. This was a series of photographs that I saw from the movie War-Photographer.
When was the last narrative that you read , that made you have a good experience?
Well... i am sure you would agree that the degree of experience is not the same in all of these. Most of the people would say that the movie watching is perhaps the best experience amongst all. I agree to that as well.
So getting a bit more into the anthropology of experience, we try to analyze why this is the case. Why a movie makes me go more wow as compared to a novel?
The answer lies in the way we define reality (what is there is there... ), expressions (how individual experience is framed and articulated) and experience (how the reality presents itself to the consciousness).
Experience is valuable only if its affecting the inner consciousness and that affect stays with us for long. Expressions or an experiences are short lived and we tend to get over it soon.
We know as discussed, that experience is a collection of a group of expressions or the "an experiences". Anthropologists and ethnographers aim at experiencing the cultures and look at retelling in their words. This often leads us to believing what they say. However,
there is a difference in the life lived ( the reality) , the life experienced (the felt) and the life expressed (the told).
Now there are two kinds of experiences. Felt experience and the Told Experience. More often than not, these two fail to match up. This thus, results in the an indifference in the way we interpret the experience and the way the person narrating the experience tells it. As Kapferer puts it, "I do not experience your experience, I experience my experience of you." This means that the actual experience of the thing is lost.
There are also some inexperiences that are called the inchoate experiences i.e. the experiences that we are unable to understand. Like many a times we say, I feel good, but don't really know why we are feeling good. These experiences are the ones that are the most often left out in the process of retelling and narration.
Quite often we tend to confuse between the experience and behavior. Experience is more personal, whereas behavior is what some outsider describes. Experience thus is more self referential. Therefore it is concluded that experience is also subjective.
Which brings me to my question!
How can we as designers of user experience, create designs that are objective in experience? How can we remove the element of subjectivity and try to look into a common thing amongst mind of users across a demographic, who will experience the design in the same manner in which I as a designer am experiencing?
There have been different ways of conveying experiences. The oldest way was perhaps Narratives. (Rosaldo, Bruner) This was often in the form of speech or written text. Story telling also forms a part of the narrative. However, if an incident has occured to the narrator, there is often a case of over emphasizing a certain chapter / portion in order to enhance the experience while saying it.
However, the narrator fails to understand that in the absence of an imagery, there is a picture in the mind of the listener that is constantly changing. Thus, the felt experience of the listener and the told experience of the narrator is not the same.
However if the context has been set, if the images (Fernandez, Kapferer) are used to give a clear indication of the culture in which the enactment had taken place, the listener (user in case of a design) is more likely to develop a better picture of what is being said.
And when this is attached to a movie, where we not only have a cultural context prior set, but also some parameters that help in increasing that experience. There is an enactment (Stewart, Babcock, Schechner) A movie is composed of those numerous expressions or say numerous moments of an experience. A movie makes us go wow, because these expressions are not just a collection, but a proper connected timeline of whats going on. This consummation of experiences over a period of time when presented to us, increases the felt experience thing and hence we get a better experience.
In a movie the reflexivity (Gorfain, Boon, Myeroff) factor also plays an important role. Here we couple the frames with our reflection with our own interpretation and hence the experience is enhanced.
As Kapferer puts it, we transcends individual experiences through the participation in the cultural expressions. While watching a movie, we are so deeply engrossed and our mind is full of these expressions, that we forget completely what is outside. This engrossment further enhances the overall experience.
Movies are thus, a field where the art of creating experience has been perfected!
It is now completely understandable why I watch so many movies!
Its for the experience!
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Expressions and Experience
Readings from Dewey's Art as an Experience and Bruner's Anthropology of Experience.
One of the things that is really important and perhaps necessary for us to understand is the theory behind creating an experience. As interaction designers we are constantly seeking to create designs that are going to give our users (humans) a better user experience. This thus means that everything needs to be joyous. Experience has a aesthetic quality and when we say a good experience, we mean a good aesthetic value to it.
There is a difference between the experience and "an experience". When we say an experience, its the significance of an instance of time when we felt that way. Experience however is
For example if we say that this lady in this picture:
On interacting with a person, when you say a joke, or say give a momentary joy, its called "An experience". Its a function of time. It has a beginning, a maxima and an end. It is very mechanical.
Experience on the other hand is a consummation of multiple "an experience"s.
Thus when we see a movie we are able to remember of "an experience". These "an experience"s are called expressions. In-order to have an experience its important that there is a satisfying emotional quality because it possesses an internal integration and fulfillment reached through ordered and organized movement.
Being creators of experience we often tend to design taking into consideration our experience. This is highly mistaking as experience is a subjective thing and varies from one person to the other. However, on the other hand we should be trying to design in a manner that the experience of the users will be the same as the felt experience of the designers.
One of the things that is really important and perhaps necessary for us to understand is the theory behind creating an experience. As interaction designers we are constantly seeking to create designs that are going to give our users (humans) a better user experience. This thus means that everything needs to be joyous. Experience has a aesthetic quality and when we say a good experience, we mean a good aesthetic value to it.
There is a difference between the experience and "an experience". When we say an experience, its the significance of an instance of time when we felt that way. Experience however is
For example if we say that this lady in this picture:
On interacting with a person, when you say a joke, or say give a momentary joy, its called "An experience". Its a function of time. It has a beginning, a maxima and an end. It is very mechanical.
Experience on the other hand is a consummation of multiple "an experience"s.
Thus when we see a movie we are able to remember of "an experience". These "an experience"s are called expressions. In-order to have an experience its important that there is a satisfying emotional quality because it possesses an internal integration and fulfillment reached through ordered and organized movement.
Being creators of experience we often tend to design taking into consideration our experience. This is highly mistaking as experience is a subjective thing and varies from one person to the other. However, on the other hand we should be trying to design in a manner that the experience of the users will be the same as the felt experience of the designers.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Waves of HCI
This is perhaps one of the important things that we need to know as an Interaction designer. The waves of Human Computer Interaction.
This is a precis and some of my understanding from the paper "When second wave HCI meets third wave challenges" by Susanne Bødker .
Roughly classified as the 1980s-first wave, 1990s-second wave and the 2000s-third wave and possibly a 4th wave in the 2010s.
So the first wave HCI dealt a lot with rigid guidelines, the testing of the guidelines against the products. There was a strong focus on the user and the user dimensions. Thus the fields like Human Factors and Ergonomics were the guiding forces. There was a notion of uniting everything on the desktop. The notion that the desktop is where all the work takes place and that everything on the desktop needs to be for the person using it. The machine centered notion was in place and almost everything was defined in this context. Things like usability testing and experimental psychology came into the picture where the emphasis was on the ways in which the users were able to complete tasks and what were the cognitive aspects behind performing each task.
The second wave turned out to be more context specific. The context played a huge role in the design of things. This was where the focus shifted from the desktop to the workspace. The office and the places around where the people did all the interactions with the computers. The focus also started to shift towards computers that were not a part of the desktop interactions.
The focus was now on "Humans" rather than "Users". The stringent boundaries between the workspace and the non-workspace started being discussed in circles and also emphasis on trying to design for the workspace. These boundaries were later to be broken in the third wave.
Here we also see the emergence of the design-as-a-science paradigm. The focus here was on methods too but it was too much rationality oriented. There was a seeking for a proper rationality behind everything that was done. Participatory Design became famous owing to its involving the users in the design process so that the contexts could be well defined.
In the third wave, the current wave, there are a lot of challenges. One of the most important of those is the role of the user, the humans or better to call the Actors. The roles that the humans now play in the design process is more than what it used to be ever. There is an emergence of the design-as-an-art initiative. But on the downside of it, many fear that this may well lead to design becoming too art oriented. Or as is mentioned in the paper, artsy-fartsy.
The focus in the third wave seems to revolve around cultures and ethnography. There is a non-rationale approach to design being adopted at times. The domain of looking is now expanded to a wider area that now covers homes, leisure places, homes. The whole aspect of tying emotions to design is really hot and forms a major chunk of the research.
interaction design is now no more seen for a single mediator (like the desktop as seen in the 1st wave) but as from multiple mediators. This I believe has a lot to do with the expansion of computers to a wider range of applications. The context is not so well defined in this wave, because it is not sure in what form the user will be interacting with the interface.
As a designer, it now becomes imperative to focus on the "lifeworld" and the gamut of our design space is large. Now everything around us revolves around design.
A possibly 4th wave could be coming where the user has completely different says in the whole design space. The whole aspect of the users defining the content like the Facebook, the Flickr, etc could form a major part of what would be termed as the 4th wave.
In the end as a designer, we should all remember and constantly try to answer the question, how is my design going to change people's lives. Is it going to be better? Or worse? Ultimately, we should ask ourselves... will the design bring about a smile to the people who will use it.
This is a precis and some of my understanding from the paper "When second wave HCI meets third wave challenges" by Susanne Bødker .
Roughly classified as the 1980s-first wave, 1990s-second wave and the 2000s-third wave and possibly a 4th wave in the 2010s.
So the first wave HCI dealt a lot with rigid guidelines, the testing of the guidelines against the products. There was a strong focus on the user and the user dimensions. Thus the fields like Human Factors and Ergonomics were the guiding forces. There was a notion of uniting everything on the desktop. The notion that the desktop is where all the work takes place and that everything on the desktop needs to be for the person using it. The machine centered notion was in place and almost everything was defined in this context. Things like usability testing and experimental psychology came into the picture where the emphasis was on the ways in which the users were able to complete tasks and what were the cognitive aspects behind performing each task.
The second wave turned out to be more context specific. The context played a huge role in the design of things. This was where the focus shifted from the desktop to the workspace. The office and the places around where the people did all the interactions with the computers. The focus also started to shift towards computers that were not a part of the desktop interactions.
The focus was now on "Humans" rather than "Users". The stringent boundaries between the workspace and the non-workspace started being discussed in circles and also emphasis on trying to design for the workspace. These boundaries were later to be broken in the third wave.
Here we also see the emergence of the design-as-a-science paradigm. The focus here was on methods too but it was too much rationality oriented. There was a seeking for a proper rationality behind everything that was done. Participatory Design became famous owing to its involving the users in the design process so that the contexts could be well defined.
In the third wave, the current wave, there are a lot of challenges. One of the most important of those is the role of the user, the humans or better to call the Actors. The roles that the humans now play in the design process is more than what it used to be ever. There is an emergence of the design-as-an-art initiative. But on the downside of it, many fear that this may well lead to design becoming too art oriented. Or as is mentioned in the paper, artsy-fartsy.
The focus in the third wave seems to revolve around cultures and ethnography. There is a non-rationale approach to design being adopted at times. The domain of looking is now expanded to a wider area that now covers homes, leisure places, homes. The whole aspect of tying emotions to design is really hot and forms a major chunk of the research.
interaction design is now no more seen for a single mediator (like the desktop as seen in the 1st wave) but as from multiple mediators. This I believe has a lot to do with the expansion of computers to a wider range of applications. The context is not so well defined in this wave, because it is not sure in what form the user will be interacting with the interface.
As a designer, it now becomes imperative to focus on the "lifeworld" and the gamut of our design space is large. Now everything around us revolves around design.
A possibly 4th wave could be coming where the user has completely different says in the whole design space. The whole aspect of the users defining the content like the Facebook, the Flickr, etc could form a major part of what would be termed as the 4th wave.
In the end as a designer, we should all remember and constantly try to answer the question, how is my design going to change people's lives. Is it going to be better? Or worse? Ultimately, we should ask ourselves... will the design bring about a smile to the people who will use it.
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