Kei+Ching+Lau

__**Case Study**__
Week 10 Article: Biomimicry: Janine Benyus and the Biomimicry Institute and Guild

Artist Joris Laarman designed line of furniture which mimics the structure of bones. Though partially hollow, these form a strong, almost architectural matrix of support. The polished aluminum chair was created using software that mimics the process by which bones grow over time. This kind of design approach has also inspired improvements in a wide range of products. Since bimimicry is innovation inspired by nature. I believe this design would definitely improve and reduce the need to use excessive materials to create components of designs in the future, since architectural matrix of support allows a design to become stable even when we use lighter materials and less materials

Japan's 500 Series Shinkansen bullet train is one of the fastest in the world. To enable it to run quietly at high speeds, designers emulated one of the quietest birds, owls. I really like this design is because it is very creative to abstract the birds' features to implement them into creating such a big innovative product, a train that picks up so many people daily. And another interesting factor of biomimetic design element is the train's nose cone, which is modeled after a kingfisher's beak. This allows the bird to dive from air into water with a minimal amount of resistance. The outlook of the train resembles the kingfisher's beak which looks more different than original trains. I personally hate to ride on trains that are noisy, therefore, by observing other living organisms' parts to design technological products should be a great direction for human to move into a more green future.

Sound Foresight, a small company in Barnsley, England, created the UltraCane. The high-tech device for the vision-impaired uses a sonar-like technology—similar to the way bats navigate in the dark—to prevent collisions. I really love this design because it provides the vision-impaired people another alternative to go to outdoor without carrying a guild dog. And it can also tracks the upcoming obstacle's locations, therefore, avoiding users to bump into obstacles. Furthermore, by applying the feature of bat to aid the vision-impaired people, the concept of biomimetic design can reduce the pollution while adopting nature to combine products within this technological advanced era.

**Week 9 Article** Design as a Collaborative Process
 * View the video of Bill Moggridge**. The founder of IDEO, at PICNIC08: Design as a Collaborative Process at []


 * Describe how he defines 'design as a collaborative process', and cite two examples of how creators involve the people they want to create for in their work, according to Bill Moggridge's lecture.**
 * Find an online example of a product which utilizes his principles of collaborative design, add its URL, and describe its design in three sentences.**

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Bill had mentioned that inventors/creators do not just simply focusing on one aspect of the whole design process. When Inventors/creators start the process,they cannot just simply create what they personally think is useful without considering facts such as cultural differences, human interactions and how the product serve its purpose to benefit human. When designing, designers are telling stories about interaction or communication to the audience. Furthermore, he defined that design as a collaborative process due to the reason that one person will not have expertise to complete all tasks in the design process, therefore, the power of a team is very important. In order to produce quality products, one designer is not enough to contribute for the whole design process. Therefore, an intimate and co-operative team must be formed to gather all variety of data to be reviewed together and work productively. In my opinion, by sharing the tasks of design process among the team, each designer would value such process to achieve a common goal in the end.======

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One example he stated in his lecture was a surgical tool for examining the internal area up to patients' nostrils. When forming the idea of this high-tech tool, the design team had involved the surgeons and patients of the hospitals as well. Because they would be the users/consumers of this new design, therefore, by participating into the design process, it would be more valuable and effective to produce a product that is useful and at the same time, convenient for the users. Since the experienced surgeons can provide ideas/opinions on how to form a better product so it is easier to apply on patients during surgeries. Together, the whole team developed a prototype using simply office supplies, like pens, papers that holds together as the "expected product".======

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Another example would be the Tangible Earth demonstration created by Shinichi Takemura. He had studied different cultures to create the new version of interactive digital globe. It can spin or rotate to any directions. It was scaled 10 million to 1. Some dynamic features is being able to see ocean currents, continents, and sea temperatures, air pollutants, global warming's acceleration. In addition, by using the magnifying pointer, we can even see what happens in specific locations, for example, it will show the pictures of those specific areas, like the enormous damages that the tsunami caused. This multimedia model relates to everyone on earth since we all live on this planet and we should all acknowledge the social impacts and worldwide information.====== 
 * An example of collaborative design ** - []

__**BBCI SHOWCASE FOR BBC**:__ BBCi has asked IDEO to design a concept for a publicly visible environment showcasing the ongoing generation of their interactive services. IDEO redesigned the ground-floor windows of the BBC's central London offices as a series of portals into the interactive and virtual world of the BBC. Within that space, IDEO designed a chat studio, a transmission control area, and a creative working space to house and demonstrate the various interactive media services offered by BBCi.


 * Week 8 Article **


 * Human-Centered Design Case Study of Cellphones in Developing Countries**


 * In three paragraphs, describe the role of Jan Chipchase in defining the role of cellphones in the developing world for Nokia, and the benefits of analyzing and defining cellphone use and design in different cultures as part of their market expansion.**

" Jan Chipchase and his user-research colleagues at Nokia can rattle off example upon example of the cellphone’s ability to increase people’s productivity and well-being, mostly because of the simple fact that they can be reached. " Jan Chipchase was traveling along with his research team to the less-developed countries to explore the level of telecommunications of the people living in there. He visited areas like Accra, an area in West Africa an Mongolia to identify the cultures and their opinions on the usefulness of cell phones in where they're living right now.

During a 2006 field study in Uganda, Chipchase and his colleagues stumbled upon an innovative use of the shared village phone, a practice called sente. Ugandans are using prepaid airtime as a way of transferring money from place to place, something that’s especially important to those who do not use banks. Chipchase has stated that this is “an example of grass-roots innovation, in which people create new uses for technology based on need.” His role was to explore how different culture would use cell phone as a communication device differently and what do they think would be the most convenient and effective cell phone to use. By identifying what those potential clients in developing countries expect and what functions of cell phone are most valuable to them, Chipchase can record down this whole research results and report to his company to develop or invent on phones that might be affordable to those people as well as suitable. (waterproof for people who live in monsoon/floods often areas)

A 2005 London Business School study extrapolated the effect even further, concluding that for every additional 10 mobile phones per 100 people, a country’s G.D.P. rises 0.5 percent. Some benefits of analyzing and defining cellphone use and design in different cultures would be having a more accurate research report on potential customers' preferences so that a more suitable phone model can be produced and distribute to those specific countries. Over several years, Chipchase's research team has spoken to rickshaw drivers, prostitutes, shopkeepers, day laborers and farmers, and all of them believe that their income increases when they have access to a cellphone. Therefore, but collecting the data on what the people with different cultures and job experiences in those developing countries, the market expansion plan would be easier to be launched without worrying the product would fail due to not be able to meet potential customers' expectations. Also, such high technological telecommunication tool should also be used in developing countries as to balance wealth equity worldwide. (since cell phone can increases the likelihood for people to get job more efficiently)


 * Week 7 article **

A). Mat Hunter had mentioned that photography is like building social capital and sharing ideas. In 1995, he thought that information technology should be extended to a degree that cameras can create more user experience by not limited to capturing images. By turning the films into digital data, He determined that inventing a digital camera that can review images, share photos, emailing the pictures to others or allowing printing the captured images would alter the original user experience with the old style camera. By developing the Kodak prototype, a big box that simulates the actual digital camera, it expresses what was going on. The overall degree of feedback has increased, because there would be direct feedback by viewing what have just captured by the digital camera. The DC210 Kodak was a remarkable digital camera that increases the user experience and efficiency comparing to the old camera models.

Rikako Sakai had focused interaction architecture relevant to her design of version 3 of the Photo-stitch software. Photo-stitch software allows the camera to capture one part of a building first, then moving the camera to further right, and capture it, and finally, to the furthest right to capture the last part of the building. However, this kind of software can easily confuse the users on how to accurately capture the whole building due to this system involves many steps. . Therefore, she also created an animation program which would be helpful to beginners of the kodak camera. Leading question is one that forces or leads audience into selecting a certain type of answer. It is easy to make this mistake not in the question, but in the choice of answers. For example, by providing the reader an YES/NO answer question limits their choices to a minimal degree. The audience is forced to pick one choice over the other. However, a successful questionnaire design should provide a range of choices, such as Superb, excellent, great, good, fair, acceptable etc, to a question such as " Do you like this product?" In fact, a closed format question must supply answers that not only cover the whole range of responses, but that is also equally distributed throughout the range. All answers should be equally likely, meaning that they do not provide extra information to mislead participant or taking out partial info purposely due to the expected answer the designer wished for.
 * B). Questionnaire Design**

Hypothetical questions are best set up when dealing with conjecture, but worst on fantasy. It is always better to set up hypothetical questions for scientific experiment, but not the best questions when developing a questionnaire, because participant might bring the answer so far from what was estimated which leads to inaccurate results or result that is difficult to measure with available tools/standards.

__**Week 6 Article**__ Three Phrases for the Adoption of a Technology  1). Enthusiast: This stage is like the introduction stage for the launch of a new product to the market, it seems like users need a PHd optic to operate a 35mm camera, because there are lots of complex steps involved, like round the film and setting up focus in a particular. It stabilizes the control of the camera. Users would need to exploit the product in order to realize the capabilities of it. At this stage, the camera’s usefulness and worthiness seems quite mysterious and invisible to majority of people who lack the understanding of technology. 2). Professional: When the technological product has built big enough volume into the business phrase, more people start to realize the convenience and usefulness of it due to the productivity it gives to the users which changes the ways they do activities. In addition, when the professionals learn how to adopt this product by understanding the functions, they will realize how the camera becomes a useful tool to their work. 3). Consumer: Moving on to this stage in adoption, the camera became practical for consumers to buy. The significant priority of the product change is from the stability of control to automatic function. The camera sets flash and exposure automatically which ease the complexity of the original cameras introduced in earlier era. There is no need to acquire a PHd optic to understand how this technological device works, because their capabilities have transformed into complement tools to the consumers which would fit their styles if they plan to adopt this product.
 * An example I can think of would be the blackberry phone, because when it was introduced, it seems like a really complicated device, but soon, most business people used it to increase the convenience and efficiency of working by communicating through this little device. Later, majority of people in the market knew how to use it and even some of my friends use them over other cell phones.

__**Week four**__
Story of stuffs Annie Leonard defined the system of “materials economy” by breaking down it into components of extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. The system involves these components’ reactions relevant to materials/resources on earth. She described the system in crisis as a linear system living in a finite planet. However, the diagram shown in the video is not complete; she stated that human work in the system along with these interactions so the system would function. Also, the roles of government and corporation are missing from this economy, because they are mainly about the interaction of human and the materials or resources on this planet.

As one of the main element in the system, extraction refers to using all the resources available, therefore; approximately one third of the earth’s resources already disappeared. Moving on to the production aspect, materials are moved to production energy into mixing toxic chemicals with natural resources to produce toxic contaminated products. As a result, the highest level of toxic chemical is breast milk. Furthermore, distribution indicates selling all the toxic junks as fast as possible. As prices are low, they keep people continue purchasing and inventories moving. In this case, as prices became lower, this means stores are not buying employees or not paying for stuff that we buy. Consumption is a big role in this system, because it is a heart of the system which keeps the materials running by people consuming them. In this component, advertising also plays a supporting role into smoothing the system. At the end, Disposal refers to dump in a landfill or burn and then dump in a landfill. These actions would change the climate, makes super toxic (dioxin), although recycling helps but not enough, most of those disposal items can’t be recycled/reused again. What a waste!

As we witness this System in crisis, it bumps into limit which changes climates, and at the end declines happiness. Point of intervention, saving forests, labor rights, clean production, fair trade, blocking landfill, taking back the governments should all be taking further to improve the quality of earth. In addition, the Chuck old school throw away mind-set of materials economy, now moving on to the new school thinking, sustainability, equity, green chemistry, zero waste, closed loop production, renewable energy, local living economies stand strong in the new system, which are all already happening in this world.

__**Week 3 Article**__-** Design for the Other 90% at the Cooper Hewitt Museum **

Choose a country on the web site's map, and read through the description of the products designed for that country. List five characteristics of socially responsible product design.**
 * Tutorial Question:

1. Basic and simple to operate 2. Low- cost 3. Improve the quality and convenience of living in developing countries 4. Reuse and redesign with resources that are recyclable 5. Accessible and available to massive users

__**Week 2 Article**__- **Case Studies on Ergonomics **

Ergonomics is the study of relationships and effective interactions among human and their environmental elements. 1. Physical ergonomics is the human characteristics that relate to physical activities, such as safety and health.
 * a). List the three definitions of 'ergonomics'.**

2. Cognitive ergonomics is one of ergonomics study that deals with mental activities, such as activities that seem to be more intangible and abstract, such as decision making or essential skills related. 3. Organisational erogonomics involves acting as a regulator of the structures to help systems to function in a more organized order. Examples would be teamwork and quality management.

Step two: Advice 8. Adds longer length absorbent matting at entrance of malls, so customers can have their shoes dried longer before stepping on the floors that might possibly be more slippery.

**c). Find an example of a product which is ergonomically sound, and add a link to an article about this product**
 GoldTouch Keyboard - http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/review_goldtouch_a_solid_ergonomic_keyboard

__**Week 1 Article**__-**3 Articles on the design and designer behind the iPod, Jonathan Ive**

Answer: To emphasize the quality of brands for products, most of the companies tend to have their own R&D departments to design line of products. However, in order to exceed competitors' product qualities, the unusual business model adopted by Apple is outsourcing by letting outside companies to design partial components of the ipods. Furthermore, Apple had chosen to work with PortalPlayer in order to produce the best quality of audio systems designed by experts in this area. By becoming design partners for Apple and PortalPlayer. Each of them had contributed the highest level of their expertise to increase the effeciency and quality of the overall design.
 * Question 1**: Describe the unusual business model used in the ipod's fabrication as developed by Apple.


 * Question 2 :** a). What distinguishes the work of the team of Jobs and Ive in relation to products designed by Apple? b). What new materials are enabling different design?

Answer: a). The main tasks for ive's work team is focusing on "fanatical care beyond the obvious stuff", for example, they spend more time on the details of the products such as the cables and power adaptors. For the iMac 's handle, accessibility at different levels was considered to be one of their main tasks. They have to ensure the minor parts of the design have to be functioned well and convenient for users to use. The internal process of the products, such as the circulation of heat through the fan, the position of the circuit boards etc. On the other hand, the team of Jobs is mainly on the overall design, outlook and quality of the products, such as having high quality audio systems for consumers to treasure. Also, the promotion of the products are closely relevant to their work. So basically, Ive's team involved with more complex, internal functioning of the products, while Jobs' team focus on the design aspect quality of the overall products.

b). Polymer advances leads the design team to create composites to meet very specific functional goals and requirements. Plastic is a new material that can be used while cannot in the old days. Twin shooting materials - moulding different plastics together provide more varieties of functions. iPod with no fasteners and no battery doors to make a design completely sealed. Metal forming and new ways of attaching metals with advanced adhesives and laser welding were new methods to use.


 * Question 3:** a). Describe the importance of Apple's design team. b ). Are other companies trying to compete with Apple by creating their own design teams?

<span style="color: rgb(58, 233, 194);">Answer: a). Jobs is the public keeper of Apple's design zeitgeist, then Ive is the private leader of its talented design team. "Apple is a cult, and Apple's design team is an even more intense version of a cult," notes Riley. Apple's design team have varieties of experts worldwide, such as germany, New zealand, Italy etc. One successful factor of the team is the common goal that they always aim for while no egos involved. The interactive communication and cooperation among the team allows them to continuously explore and be excited to be wrong then they'll have opportunities to discover something new. The team work maintain good relationships with people that involved the products making process, such as the engineers and marketers etc. They lead the innovators into adopting the new materials and working process. They work efficiently and creatively even during leisure time. Overall, the significance of the team is the freedom, communication and trust involved among the team members. <span style="color: rgb(58, 233, 194);">b). Some companies are starting to invest in their own design games, such as Dell (DELL ), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ), and Microsoft (MSFT ). However, Apple's powerful start on their innovative products would maintain their loyal customer base due to their high quality and originality. The other companies might need to invest loads of money to recruit the experts in different areas and explore companies that are willing to supply them with great resources. Lots of companies are trying to figure out how Apple design their products, and it seem more predictable as technology advances, but having a strong design teams as Apple might need a period of time and money to succeed.