Ye-Hwan Song
Ye-hwan Song is a designer and developer. She is working on creating a free and experimental website away from the framework of existing templates-based websites. When she looked up the websites at the early internet world, she was shocked to see websites. This is because the web was being used as a place of free expression without any rules (e.g., fast speed, user affinity, responsive, etc.), which are now taken for granted. From then on, she interacts with the user like a game. She wanted to design the web in different ways. She studied and found various methods over the years, and as a result, established her own design philosophy. [1]Ye-wan Song’s design philosophy is to create an expressive and unique website depending on the content, away from templates and user-friendliness.
Until now, I believed that the range of interaction designers was a little more extended, but while researching designer Ye-hwan Song, I thought that the designer of UX and the designer of interaction could be seen as completely different designers. As mentioned earlier, she intentionally avoids templates and designs unfamiliarly, not designs that are familiar to users. She had her reasons for this. Her best support, for this reason, is Anti-User Friendly. [2]Ye-hwan, a designer and developer, said, “Most designs are too templatized, so I think we’ve generalized users.” Then she said, “In the first place, developers generalize users and create functions, and users are forced to accept them indiscriminately. I thought I had to make a different voice as a coding person. I wanted to alert them that they might feel convenient because they are used to inconvenience.” [3]For example, when she shows advertisements on social network services, people do not look closely at what content is contained, but indiscriminately accept dangerous information due to the framed platform characteristics. Therefore, she wanted to create a content-oriented website, so she intentionally avoided templates and designed them unfamiliarly. This helps users pause and gauge before using the website. She actively tries to use various methods to design out of this framework. She starts with coding, puts designs on top of them, creates designs and then coats them, or brings elements of documentaries such as literature and National Geographic.
2When she designs, she is mainly inspired by things that move regularly. She stressed on the website that “interaction” is very important. Therefore, since a website is a place where certain gestures should be shown, observe closely what rules things usually have and how they move. If you look at her website, you can feel that there is a pattern in everything such as intro, cursor movement, and video placement. Her love of pattern can also be seen in the works on her website. 1‘Today I walk’, one of her representative works, plays a repetitive video of walking on an infinite path if you keep tapping the screen with your index finger and middle finger like a walking leg. In this way, many patterns can be seen in her work. What stood out in her work was not only the pattern, but also the interaction, which was quite fascinating. ‘Today I walk has no end of the road, and the same road repeats, but it seems addictive enough to play with it for quite a long time. I think the reason is that the length continues in the direction my finger touches. Also, if you look at one of her works, “the way we touch each other in 2020,” another finger appears on the other mobile screen when you tap the finger on the screen. Ye-hwan Song added these interactive elements to allow users to set up the user interface integrally, so that digital technology can move in the direction that users want. People can understand when they’ve look up her projects and all those features which is distinguished characteristic of her design, why she loves to design web not application. Because, web design can be very interactive, for example, all web design can be different (or various) design by device like, website for mobile, tablet, laptop, and desktop.
Ye-hwan Song is a designer and developer who allows users to participate in works, websites, and anywhere. The user’s choice determines the remote arrow moving along the direction of the mouse on the website, the image of the body reacting as it touches it, and all elements. As such, Song Ye-hwan is a designer who pursues direct communication between the work and the audience, and a modern interaction designer who helps them feel the intention of the project in person after allowing them to experience it physically.
[1] Ye-hwan Song’s Official website, https://yhsong.com
[2] Interview with Art& Design, https://m.post.naver.com/viewer/postView.naver?volumeNo=31604897&memberNo=48985185
[3] Interview with Girlsclub.asia, https://girlsclub.asia/meet-the-artist/yehwan-song/
