Comparing Patterns from a Pattern by Christopher Alexander and the Visible Body Works demo, I can see some similarities. For example, Alexander talks about the clusters of communities in the workspace. In the demo, the clusters are demonstrated in a virtual space as “nooks.” Alexander also talks about rooms, within rooms, within rooms, that allow…
Bauhaus and Interaction Design
I believe that the Bauhaus philosophy is important for current interaction designers. They preached the idea of objects created by technology and technology itself, or Modernism. As Interaction Designers, we depend on technology to create products. Additionally, the idea of affordances comes from the idea of Mies van der Rohe that form follows function. For…
Errors Found in The History of Books video
After fact-checking a couple of the statements made in TEDed’s video, The History of Books, I found a couple of errors. For example, the video said that Egyptian papyrus paper dated back to 4000 BCE, but according to Ancient History Encyclopedia, the production of papyrus paper went all the way back to 6000 BCE. The…
The Future of Smartphone Gaming
With the rise in popularity of portable gaming consoles, such as the Nintendo Switch and Switch Lite; cloud gaming, which allows users to play their stationary console and pc games, or just stream games to the cloud, like Google Stadia, Xbox Game Pass, Project xCloud, Amazon Luna Cloud, etc., onto their mobile device. We have…
Designs for Everyone
At work, we use a Square cash register with one screen for the employee and one for the customer. Although this cash register design is sleek and futuristic, even for abled individuals, it can be difficult to use with its lack of indicators so I can not imagine what this experience would be like for…
Biography of Timothy Bardlavens
Timothy Bardlavens was born in Greensboro, North Carolina but raised in Colombia NC. Bardlavens belittles his start as just being a gay black boy from the South and going to a state school no one has heard about, Coastal Carolina University. Bardlavens started as an English major. He wanted to become a Chief and Editor…
IA in IxD
As an interaction designer, I have participated in the process of Informational Architecture. For example, I have used task and user flows, concept and site maps to organize content and user stories. Design-wise, I have use wireframes to organize this content visually and hierarchical. This back-end design ensures that users will effectively be able to…
History of Adobe Fireworks
On March 10th, 1998, Macromedia Digital Arts Group released Fireworks as a free public beta; it was officially released that same year, on the 2nd of June. Adobe Systems later acquired Fireworks on December 3rd, 2005, and released to the public in 2007 in the Adobe Creative Suite CS3 release. (Could not find any of…
Gatekeeping not limited anymore
Comparing early Bulletin Board Systems to the communications tools we use today, we still use text as forms of communication, as in emails, text messages, Slack, social media, etc. Although, with advancements in hypertext—HTML/CSS and Javascript—we are able to form it more visually–hierarchical, use of images and videos. Additionally, with smartphones, we are now able…
Vivianne Castillo
Before Vivianne Castillo was one of the leading User Experience Research Speakers, she was a Counseling and Human Services professional for six years. Castillo concentrated her psychological expertise in battling shame, empathy, vulnerability, and compassion. Although she loved her job and loved helping people, she wanted a change in the profession and that is when…
The popularity of the Oregon Trail
When thinking about “groundbreaking” video games in the 2000s, during the game release announcements like Call of Duty, The Walking Dead, and games of that sorts, they would talk about “choose-your-own-path” games where every decision would have their consequence, and every consequence would create a new storyline. This would make it more interactive and life-like…
First PCs to Now
The first personal computers with graphical capabilities were Xerox Star (1982) and the Apple Macintosh (1984). They were revolutionary, in the way that they were computers meant for one individual, more graphical visual, and easier to use. When comparing the user interface and features of the personal computer from then to the ones used today,…
Interaction Spaces Within the Internet
Patterns from a Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander talks about the interactions between people in different spaces and architecture. One of the chapters, Work Community, closely talks about communities or gathering spaces in the workplace. Alexander talks about how a workplace should have clusters of workplaces, where each cluster would have its own public space,…
Biography of Doreen Lorenzo
Doreen Lorenzo started her career off as a filmmaker. She would produce a spectrum of films, in the early ’90s: from documentaries to commercials. Lorenzo foresaw that the internet was going to be the next media and communications channel so she jumped at the opportunity to work at a computer company, where she launched the…
Future Practice of Interaction Design
When Doug Englebart and the Stanford team were demoing, Doug demonstrated many examples of navigating throughout the system. One prototype that stood out to me the most was the errands map, where he had a prototype of a “map,” he would click on a location and a list of errands would appear, he could click…
Biography: Eduardo F. Ortiz
Eduardo F. Ortiz has over twelve years of computer engineering, user experience, and product design experience. Some of his most impactful works have been co-founding Project 100—an organization helping elect progressive women into government—-and &Partners—which teams up with organizations who are helping to improve their communities—, and was the Executive Creative Director for the US…
Pioneering Interaction Design
Both Charles and Ray Eames were contributors revolutionizing and simplifying interior design, with Charles’ architecture, Ray’s fine arts background—together, creating chic chairs. These successful design principles are used in interaction design. Layouts do not need ornamental designs if they get in the way of the end goal. Karl Gerstner and Ladislav Sutnar are pioneers in…
The Invision and Invention of Blogging
In the article ‘As We May Think’ by Vannevar Bush, 1945, he talks about his career and innovations. One such innovation he imagined was the Memex, which was a desk with a built-in “computer,” where people could create, share, and collaborate on articles with one another. As Dennis G. Jerz publicized back in 2003, this…
Abby Covert
Abby Covert is known for being one of the leading Informational Architecture Spokespersons. She started going to design conferences in her early years as a graphic designer. Covert recalled that she was so anxious that she would freeze during meet-and-greets and stay to herself. It was not until she moved to Chicago that she began…