The computer pioneer J. C. R. Licklider wrote a famous essay titled “Man-Computer Symbiosis” in 1960, where he predicted a close coupling between humans and electronics in the future. He anticipated that we would be able to interact with computers in the same way we communicate with our co-workers whose skills supplement our own. It…
Amazing Female Graphic Designer– Susan Kare
Many women in tech have helped shape the modern world, such as Ada Lovelace , Hedy Lamarr or Annie Easley. Today, I wanted to honour a particular woman in tech who’s had such an immense impact on our lives. She is Susan Kare. Susan Kare is a graphic designer who designed many of the interface elements…
Grandfather of Video Games: Miyamoto Shigeru
Shigeru Miyamoto is Japanese artist, video game designer and game director who is well known for his work with Nintendo. He was born in 1952 in the city of Sonobe, Japan. Graduating from Kanazawa Municipal College of Industrial Arts in 1970 with a degree in Industrial Design, he originally intended to design for toys and…
Early design techniques
The great early designers such as the Eames, Gerstner and Sutnar were so good at what they did because they used the iterative process to create designs that put human functionality before form. They also wanted to design ways to bring quality at an affordable price. The Eames chair evolution was evidence of this. Using…
Ruth Bhavsar – Midcentury Bonus Writing
Mid-century designers participated in a wide-array of practices, all of which ultimately supplemented their viewpoints and work. Their expansive ways of teaching can show us how design in our world is an ecosystem of products working together and riffing off of each other’s features. It’s not enough for a product to be stylistically pleasing; functionality…
Ruth Bhavsar – Midcentury Designers
The Eames couple, Gerstner, and Sutnar were pioneers of Interaction Design techniques, and their work spanned a wide array of disciplines. All of them put the user and usability at the center of their work, and made integral breakthroughs when combining form and function. Ray and Charles Eames designed and iterated a prolific amount of…
Human Factors in Design
Dreyfuss published The Measure of Man: Human Factors in Design; He pioneered the idea of human factors affecting design. Dreyfus learned about people, their tendencies, their reservations, their ambitions, and their unbridled passions. He used functional through products that people interact with. Discovering opportunities for rapid innovation is understanding “people,” not “users.” Thus a sound…
A Better Designer…
One of the reasons for the difficulty to pin down these Mid-Century into one discipline is because they were not constrained in just one aspect or area of the design. Instead, they were considering how to finesse the human experience all around. One thing that inspired me in Charles and Ray Eames’ creative process is…
Observation-a must for design research
Behavior learning is a key part of design research nowadays, and I would like to strongly mention observation. When Dreyfuss and his team realized that the users won’t just stay in where the phone was placed, they reduced the weight of the princess phone and made it portable. The insight is based on observation. Here…
Measuring human bodies!
As a designer with an industrial design background, I just couldn’t imagine how important the measurement of the man, woman, kids, and those with special needs are. It definitely is a milestone for design, for all industrial design products used by humans are more or less need the measurement standard from the human factors. The…
Midcentury Design mindset that needs to be remembered by interaction designers
Henry Dreyfuss is the founder and founder of ergonomics. He insisted that the design of industrial products should consider highly comfortable functionality. He once put forward the design principle of “from the inside out”. Later, he began to develop the research of ergonomics and established the discipline of ergonomics for the design world. Dreyfus became…
The True Spirit of Design
If we Google the word “design”, it is both a noun and a verb. As a noun, it can be interpreted as, a “plan,” “fundamental structure,” “proposal.” As a verb, “to design” indicates ” to craft something,” “to feign or simulate,” or “to forge strategically.” To trace back to its origin, etymologically, “design” means to…
Exploring Connections between Humans and Products
In my view, a designer should act as an intermediate person between the people and the products or works rather than a server. In other words, designers need to explore relationships and connections between humans and other subjects. As such, designers will not be limited and restricted by existing frames in particular subject fields. Bill…
Design is a Verb, not an End-Product
In consideration of Mid-century pioneers, and the various field of designs on which they have explored and left their impact on, I am reminded of my past summer semester in which I took classes on various subjects. Among these courses included topics such as comic books, soundscapes, and writing; none of which have direct relation…
Looking Back to Look Forward
Henry Dreyfuss’ work is a result of extensive research on the human body, and highlights human-centered design in terms of the physical capabilities of users. If the user is unable to utilize a product, it does not provide users with an adequate starting point for discoverability. In fact, Dreyfuss measures a product’s “success” by its…
Seeing the Bigger Picture
By thinking in a way that is expansive in my opinion means to think of more than just the aesthetics of a product. Henry Dreyfuss once said, “on the other hand if people are made safer, more comfortable, more eager to purchase, more efficient—or just plain happier—by contact with the product, then the designer has…
Design is a multiple disciplines in many ways.
After going through Eames, Gerstner and Sutnar brief and they all had the same expansive ways of thinking. That being said it is a skill set that most designers have even today. The ability to wear different hats is crucial in design work, especially designing for people. With consistent working and collaborating on different projects,…
The influence of Eames, Gerstner and Sutnar techniques on Interaction Design
The Eames Creative Process has a crucial impact on the practice of Interaction Design for the following. First, hundreds of iterations to bring a product to life and keeping improve beyond it. A room for failure is very important in design work. A third element is research. Most of the apps that we interact today…
Think, Reiterate, Recreate
Dreyfuss, Eames, Gustner, and Sutner all had different views but were impactful to the field of design. Each one of them wanted to create a finished product that put the user first. After reading and watching videos about their design philosophies and practices, I can take away that each one of them reiterated and made…
The Legacy of our Predecessors
The techniques used by Eames, Gerstner and Sutnar are all different fields. The Eames were a partnership and helped each other fill in for their individual mistakes. If one made a mistake, the other would point it out and make sure their ideas are on the right track. In present day, we would consider their…