Ich habe mir das Buch “Typohacks” nun bestellt und angefangen es zu Lesen. Ich denke die Thematik hat viel Potential und man kann verschiedene Bereiche extrahieren um auf diese näher einzugehen. Bis jetzt habe ich Bereiche erfasst, welche für mich am interessantesten sind und Potential für weitere Forschung haben.
Forschungs-Feld:
Die typografische Hervorhebung von gendergerechter Sprache → Ziel: geschlechtergerechte Ausdrücke in Texten visuell deutlicher machen, um ihre Bedeutung und Präsenz zu betonen. Mögliche Ansätze und Techniken:
Farbliche Hervorhebung: Verwendung bestimmter Farben, welche dazu beitragen könnten, geschlechtergerechte Ausdrücke visuell hervorzuheben.
Schriftstile: Untersuchung verscgiedener Schriftstile und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Wahrnehmung von gendergerechter Sprache. Experimente mit fetter, kursiver oder anderer Betonung, um geschlechtergerechte Ausdrücke visuell zu verstärken.
Textgrößen: Die Wahl der Textgröße kann ebenfalls dazu beitragen, gendergerechte Ausdrücke im Text hervorzuheben.
Einsatz von Symbolen oder Icons: Du könntest erforschen, ob der Einsatz von Symbolen oder Icons neben gendergerechten Ausdrücken ihre Wirkung verstärkt. Dies könnte beispielsweise das Hinzufügen eines geschlechtsneutralen Symbols neben einem geschlechtsneutralen Pronomen oder einer gendergerechten Bezeichnung sein.
Um die Auswirkungen meiner Forschung bewerten zu können, würde es sich eignen Experimente mit Probant:innen durchzuführen. Sie könnten beispielsweise verschiedene Texte durchlesen, die die angeführten Hervorhebungen beinhalten und danach bewerten, wie der Lesefluss beeinflusst wurde und wie geschlechtergerechte Ausdrücke in den Texten wahrgenommen und verstanden wurden.
This blogpost is about my experience I made in a workshop about “Tangible Scientific Concepts” and the Design Process it is based on. The Workshop was held by Carla Molins Pitarch who is based in Barcelona and currently finishing her PhD at the Pompeu Fabra University (Spain).
How can a code with only four letters (A, C, G, and T) create so many different proteins necessary for your body? Could we humans encode it better? The one-week workshop aims to question the current systems for encoding DNA and reconsider an infinite array of interactive visual systems with a hands-on approach and critical thinking.
In the following section I will describe the prototyping process of my group and outline what I learned during this intensive week.
The project was developed together with Theresa Dietinger and focuses on the exploration of the DNA Bases “Letters“ by trying out how the physical representations fit together.
First Phase: Ideation
In this phase we wrote all our ideas on a flipchart, clustered our interests and focused on one idea.
Second Phase: Testing
In this phase we created a wireframe prototype and performed the first user tests with our colleges to get new insights and discover problems we didn’t think of.
Third Phase: Prototyping
In this phase we developed the logical states needed to indicate whether the physical representations of the DNA Letters fit together. If the Letters don’t fit together (for example A and T) a red light will be switched on. If the Letters fit together (for example A and C) a green light will be switched.
Forth Phase: Final Prototype
Here you can see our finished prototype with the installed LEDs on both sides of the physical DNA Letters.
In this workshop I experienced the importance of simplifying complex topics as much as possible. Focusing on one specific part and making sure you don’t overwhelm your audience is the key to make them excited and raise interest for further reading at home.
I was fortunate to participate in a workshop during the International Design Week that aligned perfectly with my topic of “toxic Instagram.” In this workshop, our aim was to counteract the movement of UX design where it is no longer the human using technology, but rather technology using the human. Users are reduced to raw materials for these platforms, paying with a significant amount of personal data.
During the workshop, we collectively reflected on the emotions we experience when using Instagram. On one hand, it was reassuring to realize that we all share similar feelings and that we’re in the same boat. On the other hand, it further emphasized the importance of instigating change. As individuals using a platform like Instagram, we don’t bear direct responsibility for everything that happens to us. We are, in a way, victims of this technology, carrying the consequences with us.
Humane Interaction Design aims to shift its focus to the human beings living in the real world, in contrast to User Experience (UX) Design, which often instrumentalizes individuals as users and limits them to that role. An example of this can be seen in the realm of social media, where empathy is often forgotten, and many of the values that define us as humans are being eroded. On social media platforms, we present ourselves in a particular way, without immediate consequences that exist in the offline world. It creates a sense of disembodiment, where we may not witness the reactions to our actions. The problem arises when the system stops serving you, but you are serving the system. Social media is a prime example of this, as it keeps users engaged without necessarily helping them achieve their actual goals or progress in any meaningful way. The longer we stay engaged, the more it benefits the platform rather than serving our personal growth or well-being.
The workshop’s exploration of humane design left a lasting impression on my understanding of the role of technology in society. It challenged the prevailing narrative where users become mere commodities for data collection. Instead, we reimagined UX design as a means to foster authentic human experiences. This experience reminded me of the essence of humanity, embracing both the highs and lows, and recognizing the power of genuine connections. It was a transformative journey that reinforced the significance of designing with empathy, purpose, and a profound appreciation for the human experience.
The workshop experience highlighted the importance of a shift in perspective when it comes to design. It reminded me that the ultimate goal should always be to create meaningful and impactful experiences for human beings. I realized that technology should serve as a tool to enhance human lives rather than overshadow them. By embracing a humane design approach, I acknowledged the value of genuine connections, emotions, and diverse perspectives. It emphasized the need to consider the ethical implications of our designs and to prioritize the well-being and empowerment of users (humans). This workshop served as a powerful reminder that putting the human at the center of design is not only essential but also deeply rewarding.
I want to take these thoughts and all the emotions that have emerged during this week to delve deeper into exploring how to counteract this problem, specifically focusing on Instagram. I want to examine different approaches and analyze existing movements and features, building upon them to find potential solutions.
In der zweiten Experimentierphase möchte ich, wie bereits erwähnt, eher ausgefallenere Designs ausprobieren, um sich dadurch von der Konkurrenz abzuheben.
Dafür habe ich recherchiert und folgendes Bild hat mich inspiriert:
Hierbei gefällt mir, dass es etwas mehr verspielt ist, jedoch nicht zu sehr exotisch. Auf Basis dessen, habe ich für das 2. Experiment ein Moodboard erstellt, dass mich beim Gestalten unterstützen soll.
Moodboard für das 2. Experiment
Hier möchte ich mehr mit Farben und Formen spielen, um eine jüngere Zielgruppe diesmal anzusprechen. Wie in den Recherchen zuvor erwähnt, sind Milchverpackungen im Supermarkt gewöhnlich sehr überladen. Eine aufgeräumte und doch ausgewöhnlichere Darstellung, verschafft eine Abhebung von der Konkurrenz. Dadurch ist die Verpackung ein Eye-Catcher und man greift eher zu dieser Verpackung.
Als Verpackungsart wird wieder ein Tetrapack verwendet, da dies die gängigste Variante für Milchverpackungen ist.
Um die Auswahl der richtigen Font für meine eigenen praktischen Versuche weiter zu erleichtern möchte ich erneut auf die Wirkung der verschieden Schrifklassen eingehen. Dazu wurde ein 1. kleines Experiment durchgeführt um die Aussagen über die Wirkung zu bestätigen. Die Betrachtung der unten angeführten Beispiele 1-5 zeigt, dass die jeweiligen Synonyme der Schriftklassen immer am besten zur jeweiligen Kategorie passen.
For this blog post’s experiment, I used the opportunity to prepare my next Christmas presents. I personally really like illustrations that tell a story where the longer you look, the more little details you notice. I wanted to try to make illustrations that contain a personal story for the people who will receive my gifts. Each element in the pictures is kind of an “easter egg” that the recipients will recognize and understand. For example, one person really likes hiking, while the other person is interested in specific machines used on construction sites and collects little model toys of those machines.
I have wanted to try bookbinding for quite a while now but never really knew how to, so I was very happy about the bookbinding workshop(s) we had at FH until now and that I finally found some time to try this in personal projects. So, I ended up making mini notebooks.
As it fits the topic, I would also like to show another illustration I did for a Christmas card last year that also had the concept of telling a story in an image that reveals more details the longer you look at it. It has the theme of teddy bear characters creating chaos while doing Christmas preparations, and the longer you look, the more situations where something is going wrong you will notice – like the Christmas tree being about to fall, one character secretly stealing some freshly baked cookies and spilling the frosting on the curtain…
After experimenting with different popular bookbinding methods, I will now take a look at a lesser known technique, known as Chinese Dragon Scale Binding.
On the line between craftmanship and art, this ancient Chinese way of bookbinding dates back to the Tang dynasty and has a tradition of more than 1,000 years. Generation to generation it has been passed down between high-ranking members of society, like royals and upper class families. Its name stems from the appearance of the finished product – the pages overlapping resemble the scales on the skin of a dragon.
This method was an early attempt to resolve the issue of the awkwardness of handling lengthy scrolls. A dragon scale bound book is still a scroll, but contains pages that are pasted in by their edges. The pages are stacked, with the shortest page on top and longest page at the bottom. The book can then be rolled up like a scroll, but pages could be turned in the manner of future binding styles. It has some flaws though, as the individual pages have a tendency to roll up on their own when the scroll is unraveled.
A Brief History of Chinese Bookbinding
1,700 years before the invention of paper, the first bodies of Chinese writing appeared during the Shang Dynasty. These were oracle bones used for divination, written on turtle shells and ox scapulae. For the first bound books bamboo was used. Since bamboo grows in form of a cane, it needed to becut into long, vertical strips. Each strip contained one column of carved text, and the strips were bound together with string and rolled up. The bound books were both sturdy and waterproof.
105 AD is traditionally named as the date of the invention of paper. An official named Cai Lun created a sheet for the court out of a mixture of materials including morus skin, bast fibers, fishnets, and hemp. The technique of papermaking quickly spread throughout China and other parts of Asia. Along with the widespread use of paper came the need for new bookbinding techniques. The first form of binding for paper books was scroll roller binding. Scrolls developed from the long, vertical silk banners that were hung on walls to display calligraphy in earlier times. Paper strips with images and writing could now be pasted onto the fabric in handscrolls, which could be laid flat on a table and read section by section. The oldest printed book in the world, dating to 868 AD, was made with this technique.
Over time, the inconvience of rolling and unrolling scrolls sparked new innovations in binding. The first new style to develop was folded sutra binding, also known as concertina binding, in which the scroll was folded like an accordion, and typically held between two wood blocks. This allowed readers to quickly find the desired section.
The first instance of the Chinese book breaking away from the scroll format was found in butterfly binding. Butterfly-bound books were made by folding sheets of paper in half. The folded edges could then be stacked together so that the edges formed a spine. The manner in which the pages opened resembled the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings. Due to their sturdiness and convenience of use, by the Song Dynasty (960-1279), butterfly books were the most common ones.
The final phase in the development of Chinese book binding, called stitched thread binding, became the norm in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Improvements in paper allowed for more detailed, multicolored printing. Sheets of paper were bound with white silk thread and placed within a cover made of stronger paper backed with silk. Oftentimes threaded books were placed within a box made of wood and covered with silk. While stitched thread binding is largely not used anymore today, traditional scrolls and concertina binding techniques have survived modern times.
The Revival of Dragon Scale Binding
Over the course of time, the majority of dragon scale books were either lost or damaged. Before artist Zhang Xiaodong started researching on the topic and slowly reviving dragon scale binding, it was therefore at risk of becoming just another part of history and being replaced by more modern ways of bookbinding. With only one dragon scale book as an example, he spent years learning, experimenting and perfecting the craft.
Zhang undertook visits to ancient towns and heritage sites to acquire traditional bookbinding materials like rice paper, bamboo, silk, and wood. The next stage of the binding process proved to be the most critical and challenging: ensuring precise positioning of every page.
In order to create a complete picture, each sheet of paper needs to be placed meticulously in exactly the right place. An error of just a hundredth of a centimeter can result in a significant and noticeable flaw when a book’s hundreds of pages are displayed together.
Despite Zhang’s work, dragon scale bookbinding remains an endangered form of art. But growing efforts in China to preserve the country’s cultural heritage and the interest in traditional Chinese art of young artists gives hope that this ancient technique will stay alive.
When immigrants move to Austria, they often face the challenge of adapting to a new culture and navigating unfamiliar digital interfaces. Cultural adaptation plays a significant role in interface usability, as cultural differences can influence how users perceive, interpret, and interact with digital platforms.
The Impact of Cultural Adaptation on Interface Usability:
Culture and different backgrounds influence people’s expectations, preferences, and their interaction with digital interfaces and adaptation to them. Adapting interfaces to align with people’s cultural backgrounds improves usability and user satisfaction. Research studies have highlighted the impact of cultural adaptation on interface usability.
Our culture, upbringing and background will affect which interfaces (ex: websites) we consider beautiful, convenient in use. For example, the vibrant, busy streets of Seoul are reflected in Naver.com, the most widely used search engine in South Korea, as seen in Fig. 1.
Fig.1
Usually, this would look like too much information for most Westerns, who are more accustomed to using Google. The example of Google and Naver suggests that users across the world have divergent preferences towards the design and functionality of Web sites. [1] This shows how something as “natural” to us as search engines, can differ and provide completely different experiences based on differences in culture.
The website is just an example, but different types of interfaces could help with cultural adaptation. My next step will be researching the main useful features the interface should have and exploring what type of interface I would like to create.
Bei diesem Experiment wurde die Wirkung von der Größe des Design erforscht.
Hier wurde herausgefunden, dass die Größe davon abhängt wie weit eine Person von dem Design entfernt ist. Ist eine Person 2 m entfernt, reicht es aus wenn das Design eine Höhe von 10 mm hat. Bei einer Entfernung von 10m, passt eine Höhe von 50mm. Bei größeren Entfernungen wie 30 m, müsste das Design eine Höhe von 150 mm haben, damit es lesbar bleibt.
Usually, design can be classified into different eras, categories and styles. However, when we look at web design, a distinction between different styles seems very difficult. Brage (2019, p.1) writes, that there is a certain “lack of cultural analysis within web design”. She elaborates and describes that indeed the “visual evolution of the world wide web is not sorted into distinct and widely acknowledged periods or categories such as is the case with most other cultural areas like music and art”. In addition to this, the way visuals look in the online space has always been closely interlinked with the technological developments, evolving from the very first web designs in the 1990s to web 2.0 which we have today (Brage, 2019, p.20ff).
However, certain blogs and researchers attempt to distinguish between certain web design styles, albeit more research seems to be necessary to properly differentiate those and put them in their proper context. Generally, those trends differ in terms of the key visual elements used, that are
“Color
Shape
Pattern
Line
Texture
Visual weight
Balance
Scale
Proximity
and Movement” (Nikolov, 2017).
One blogpost on Medium names Skeuomorphism, Flat Design, Neomorphism and Glassmorphism as different design styles.
Skeuomorphism is defined by a use of textures, an interface that mimics real things, the illusion of depth and shiny buttons (Canvs Editorial, 2021).
Note. From UI Kit, by O. Clark, 2011 (https://dribbble.com/shots/306311-UI-Kit). Copyright 2011 by Orman Clark.
Flat design first came into being with Windows 8. It includes brighter colours, no textures, no illustion of depth and the whole design is generally kept in a very minimal and clean style (Canvs Editorial, 2021).
Neomorphism and Glassmorphism are seen as “postmodern” design styles that resulted from a mixture of different influences. Within Neomorphism, background and foreground usually have the same color and everything is given a “soft plastic” texture. Glassmorphism is characterized by transparent, glowy effects, blur and bright colors (Canvs Editorial, 2021).
Note. From Light Mode Simple Music Player, by F. Legierski, 2020 (https://dribbble.com/shots/9517002–Light-Mode-Simple-Music-Player). Copyright 2020 by Filip Legierski.
Note. From Glassmorphism experiment, by N. Van, 2020 (https://dribbble.com/shots/14734973-Glassmorphism-experiment). Copyright 2020 by Nick Van.
Generally, I find the differences in aesthetics very interesting. During a talk with our supervisor, the idea came up to experiment with those aesthetic differences in a free and experimental way. For example, I could create imaginary parameter sliders for characteristics and then take one interface (e.g. the clock app) and design it according to different extremes and in different styles. With remixing and bushing the boundaries of those aesthetics, new insights could be generated, albeit the functionality of all the output designs probably will be limited. However, in exactly those limitations I could possibly test out the boundaries of this. I will explore this topic deeper in the upcoming weeks…
References:
Brage, E. (2019). The rise of brutalism and antidesign and their implications on web design history [BA thesis]. Jönköping University.
Canvs Editorial. (2021, January 30). How visual design trends have evolved over the years. Medium. Retrieved May 9, 2023, from https://uxdesign.cc/how-visual-design-trends-have-evolved-over-the-years-730a8ed43970
Clark, O. (2011, October 31). UI Kit. Dribbble. https://dribbble.com/shots/306311-UI-Kit
Legierski, F. (2020, January 14). Light Mode Simple Music Player. Dribbble. https://dribbble.com/shots/9517002–Light-Mode-Simple-Music-Player
Nikolov, A. (2017, April 23). Design principle: Aesthetics. Medium. Retrieved May 9, 2023, from https://uxdesign.cc/design-principle-aesthetics-af926f8f86fe Van, N. (2020, December 10). Glassmorphism experiment. Dribbble. https://dribbble.com/shots/14734973-Glassmorphism-experiment
