Module 1 – KICK-OFF

It is the beginning of year two. Today, we were introduced to interaction-driven exploration/design. We were asked to stay in the sketching/exploring side of the double diamond for this course, and not think about the suitableness of the idea for users, etc. Which is hard, because, from last year, we were “trained” to base our ideas on potential users’ needs, to solve a problem. This kind of a ‘exploring without any limits’ practice is obviously going to challenge us to be more creative as designers. It might be hard at first to switch from user-driven design mindset to starting the exploration/brainstorming process with something as vague and broad as interaction in mind. (Although, this characterization might be my own lack of knowledge on interaction at this stage.) But I wonder if we could have or apply such strategy in “real world” cases, when we are working for a company. Obviously, businesses/companies need money to be able to keep going, and that money comes from customers, which need to be satisfied and drawn to the product/service the company is offering. So, as designers, we need to keep the users’ needs and wants in mind in order to deliver something that will keep this cycle going. Unless, the product/service, that is deigned in an interaction-driven way, would also satisfy the needs of the customers. Which I guess it can be possible, but would need more time.

In the first module of the course, we have sound as the material to explore in the context of interaction. Programming and, specifically, JavaScript is the general material we have for this matter. In the first week, the plan was to unpack and explore the material to be able to understand its different qualities, as well as its limits. I needed to review some of JavaScript’s semi-basic terms and rules to be able to get started with the project, along with reviewing (and maybe going more into depth of) sound-related terminologies like amplitude, frequency, period, pitch, etc. The samples we were given to tweak and play with, had to get read and understood which takes a bit of time after not doing any programming for 5,6 months.

As seen in the image below, these concepts are pretty confusing!