Irene Au graduated from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor of science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. She went on to pursue her master’s degree at the University of Illinois, where she majored in Industrial Engineering/Human-Computer Interaction. After completing her master’s studies, she began her career as an interaction designer at Netscape…
People’s needs never change
In Cristopher Alexandra’s “A Pattern Language,” I found many connections between the social media we are using nowadays.I can see many patterns being applied to little features that blend into our everyday life. Especially #36 “degrees of publicness” and #14 “Identifiable Neighborhood”. In pattern #36, “degrees of publicness,” Alexandra talks about People are different: “the…
Digital community
I think the social media application is very similar to the architecture in our real society. Think about mural. When you create a group and invite others to mural, you will create documents in your own space. It seems that in real life, real estate agents sell land to people, and they build houses in…
Design Patterns of Christopher Alexander from Paper to the Digital World
Christopher Alexander describes #36 Degrees of Publicness using our personalities (introvert/extrovert) as a way of choosing where to live in a neighborhood. He states, “To make sure that the different kinds of people can find houses which satisfy their own particular desires, we suggest that each cluster of houses, and each neighborhood should have three…
Oen Michael Hammonds – IBM Design Principal
Oen Michael Hammonds is an experienced designer, advocate, and lifelong educator. For over three years, Hammonds has been working with cross-functional teams at IBM as their Design Principal. As the lead facilitator, Hammonds has designed across the gamut. From services and advertising to graphic and interaction design, Hammonds collaboratively directs IBM global employee experiences’ creative…
Forget the cubicles!
Whenever the word “workplace” pops up, the first image that comes to your mind might be a company with many square identical cubicles. But the modern workplace can be totally different as many organizations turn to mainly run on digital platforms. Stack is an instant messaging platform that combines chat and emails. According to Christopher…
Devices of the Future
This is how I imagine John Scalzi’s futuristic device looks like + his BrainPal
Self Care for UX Researchers – Vivianne Castillo
Vivianne Castillo is a UX Researcher with more than 8 years of psychology and research experience spanning multiple contexts, cultures, and industries. She has experience working as a UX researcher at Weight Watchers, Google, and Salesforce with a background in counseling and human services. She is also an active writer on multiple platforms like Medium….
The similar patterns in digital applications
Comparing to Slack, there are many similar key points in the “work community” pattern written by Christopher Alexander. In the reading, Christopher suggests that the workspace should contain a mix of jobs, such as desk jobs, craft jobs, and selling. In slack, we are able to create subdivisions(channels) that form different groups. In these Sub-groups,…
Xia Peisu
Xia Peisu, b. 1923 in Chongqing, Sichuan Province, came from a literary family. She is a specialist in computer science and technology. Xia Peisu started attending primary school at the age of four and a half and studied at home under a private tutor for six years, from the age of eight. Her excellent academic…
Hironobu Sakaguchi: From Zero to Game Hero
Hironobu Sakaguchi is a well-known Japanese game designer, producer, writer and former film director. He was born in 1962 in Hitachi, Japan. Although he started out studying to become an electrical engineer while attending Yokohama National University, he decided to drop out in 1983. He then began working for Square, which was part of Denyusha…
From Small Town Architecture to Web Apps – Design Patterns
The design patterns from the book A Pattern Language comes from Christopher Alexander’s observation of small towns that survived from the Medieval century. The way people construct the buildings falls naturally along with a certain set of rules, which sets the base of early architecture. In #41 Work Community, Alexander explores the physical and social…
Tomoko Miho
Tomoko Miho is a Japanese-American graphic designer, born in 1931 and spent her early years at an Arizona internment camp during World War II.1 After graduation at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, she worked for George Nelson, an American industrial designer known for being one of…
Humane Communication
Christopher Alexander presented case studies of human patterns. Degrees of Publicness claim to make a clear definition between three different kinds of people: extrovert, intermediate, and introvert by explaining planning houses placement. Facebook has a setting to make one’s profile visible to people. In the Friends tab, Facebook suggests people a user may know, accompanied by two responses:…
Kim Goodwin
Kim Goodwin is the author of the bestselling book, Designing for the Digital Age. Kim helps clients build their own product and design competencies and cultures, both through organizational consulting and through leading highly collaborative research, product strategy, and design engagements. You may also know Kim from her previous work as Vice-President, Design and General…
