Thinking About Design Thinking

The process of getting to know Mary Anne was quite interesting since the approach of getting to know her was through a wallet. Although, I didn’t realize just how much you can learn about a person through their something as trivial as a wallet. It makes me think how much you can learn from other small things that people carry like lanyards, notebooks, or planners. Ultimately, it was interesting to see the different problems people faced with their wallets. Some lose them, some didn’t have enough space, and others had too much space. At face value you wouldn’t think there would be so many issues surrounding something almost everyone carries in their pocket, but it also gave me an insight on what kind of person I am. In “The Design of Everyday Things,” Don Norman says that ““good design starts with an understanding of psychology and technology.” And I think that he is correct, it’s incredible to see how the design process can fix issues with products but also examine humans on a psychological level.

At first, it was difficult to describe my wallet and the system I had because I had never thought about it. Then, when we were asked to describe issues, it was even more difficult. This exercise required me to really think and ask myself why I made the decision I did with my wallet and the results surprised me quite a bit. By thinking as a designer, I became aware of issues that I didn’t know I had with my wallet, like the size of it. My wallet is way too big for me since I don’t carry a lot of cards or cash, but because my mom always carried that size of a wallet I also carried a bigger sized wallet. To solve this issue, Mary Anne created a wallet that was smaller and also had a removable card holder so that if I wanted, I could just take the holder since I only carry the minimum.

Descriptions and Dublin Core

Title: Katrina Gotera.
Creator: My parents.
Subject: Who I am as a person.
Description: Physically, I am short, have brown curly hair and brown eyes. I am also, quiet and reserved, but once you get to know me I am very outgoing.
Publisher: Mutual friends that introduced my parents to each other.
Contributor: Family friends, grandparents, Guardians. Other people who helped raise me. Or others who shaped me to who I am today. Influencers, idols, artists, actors etc.
Date: My birthday is October 18th, 2000
Type: I am a physical object? right?
Format: Material type: human. But of the human type? I am Filipino.
Identifier: Links to my social media pages.
Source: Links to my friend’s social media pages.
Language: My first language is english but I can also understand tagalog.
Relation: My family.
Coverage: My home address as well as the address to the place I am currently living at.
Rights: I own myself. I can do whatever I want, it’s my life and no one gets to control it except me.

Changing Minds

There are so many things I have stumbled upon while browsing through the internet that have changed my mindset. Some things in particular are the Buzzfeed articles that Dao Nguyen spoke about in her TED Talk. What she spoke about cultural cartography was truly interesting and how they have shifted the purpose of their content to better benefit the audience. I have noticed that the best things on the internet are the things that people can relate to, whether that’s self-deprecating comedy, posts about mental health awareness, self-care tips, or simply posts about themselves.

One of my favorite things Nguyen spoke about was how they made recipes into challenges to bring people together. I have definitely sent links to those videos to my own friends and while we never actually go through with the challenges, the point is that we engaged and connected with each other and I think that’s incredible because we’re not actually aware that it’s happening. It doesn’t have to be a challenge video that forces you to reach out to your friends, what if it was an opinion piece on politics or a new movie. It sparks conversation and we don’t realize it. Just as she pointed out with the viral videos, people were sitting on the edge of their chairs, “participating in the shared anticipation of something about to happen” (Nguyen) so that they can instantly share it with other people.

One of my favorite things to do on the internet is to read fan theories on movies, television show, or books. It is so interesting to see the different opinions and takes people come up with after reading or watching same story. It opens up so many new ideas and possibilities. People are building off of each other with some crazy, outrageous theories, other theories that actually make sense and some that might be even better than the actual story. Suddenly a group of people start to gather around a particular theory and they start contributing to it, and it starts to expand. Artists take notice and start drawing fanart, authors create fanfiction, and what started out as a small idea grows into something bigger.

Matt Ridley says in his TED Talk, “it’s this combination, this cumulative technology, that intrigues me, because I think it’s the secret to understanding what’s happening in the world.” Not only does he mean actual technologies but also ideas that come together to make something bigger. Just like the different fan theories coming together and creating something new. It’s like the domino effect, one idea leads to another then to another and it even bounces from person to person. There have definitely been more than a few theories that I’ve read that make me question the choices of the author or director of a story. Or sometimes I’ll read a theory and my entire perspective will change and those are my favorite things to read because it feels like I’m looking at the story with new eyes. Like a thought I never considered, and that of course will encourage me to share it with everyone else so that the cycle repeats.

Memes

Content Curation

The quote I chose from the reading is: “it does, however, allow people to discover the most relevant, interesting, and impactful information, in any medium, and then relate it to other information in a networked ecosystem of meaning that helps us better understand the world and each other” (Popova). I found this particularly interesting because I agree with it. At the beginning of the article the question of which category does Twitter fall under, speech or text. Ultimately, Popova decides that it is neither but rather a rather a platform for different opportunities. He goes on to say that when he first created a twitter for his book reviews he thought it’d be extra content for his audience but as it became more popular, most of his audience members discovered him because of Twitter. The article also mentioned that Twitter was being used for journalism, disaster reporting and other movements to spread awareness and I have definitely seen that shift on Twitter. It may even beg the question of can we use tweets as official statements or sources?

There is no right or wrong way to use Twitter– or any other social media platform– it is simply a tool that we can use in whatever way and I think that’s the most incredible part of it all. There is so much negativity and stigma around social media but there really is no evil behind it. In reality, social media has made our lives so much more interesting, interactive and connected. It’s a domino effect, one person shares a bit of information then it goes down the line. More people will interact, meet and connect either adding information, dismissing information, or even providing a different perspective on the issue.

Twitter is “a medium of conversational direction and a discovery platform for the text and conversations that matter” (Popova). It provides us with the opportunity to share and learn new information, evaluate our own opinions, speak out on social issues, and even keep in touch with friends on the other side of the planet. Years ago we couldn’t do that, we are more connected than ever. We are all in control and curators of the content we choose to view and share.

Data Visualization

The first visualization I chose is the Based on a True Story graph from Information is Beautiful. It shows which scenes actually happen in history in the films that claim to be a “true story.” This visualization was a lot of fun and easy to read. Each film was broken down scene by scene and was either determined true or false. So the end result was a bar of different colors that showed you how much of the film was actually true. Now, out of the seventeen total movies that were being researched, the one story that stayed true to history was Selma it was deemed to be 100% true. Whereas the story that strayed farthest from the truth was The Imitation Game revealing to be only 41.1% true. I thought this was interesting because I love movies, but I especially love movies that are based on true events. They are stories that people have lived and are worth telling over and over again. It was also eye-opening to see just how true these movies are. I think it is very important to be as accurate as possible when telling these kinds of stories because these are people’s lives.

The second visualization that I found interesting is the Novels Everyone Should Read. I think this was the most fun to read because the more popular titles were larger, darker and in the middle. The books that were less popular were smaller, lighter and on the edges of the visualization. So, if you were passing by a bookstore or browsing one wondering what book to read, you would be able to quickly look at the consensus cloud and immediately determine which book is popular. It’s almost like looking through a camera lens. The popular stories are in the middle of the frame and in focus whereas the other less known stories fade into the background. There was also a link at the bottom that took you to an interactive version of the visualization. In this version, the book titles become links that take you to Amazon so that you can read a summary of the story if you’re curious, or even if you were to consider buying the book.

DIKW on Cathy O’Neil

In the introduction, when Sarah Wysocki underwent the IMPACT teacher evaluation, she was unfortunately fired from her job after receiving too low of a score despite having many people say otherwise. Although, his was not her fault but the fault of the IMPACT test. The IMPACT test is one of many computer or number system that does not quite fully understand humans and they are normally unfair and merciless.

It was not right for the school district to fire Wysocki, even if they had no choice, so one solution to make sure that this will never happen again would be to get rid of the IMPACT evaluation. And instead, evaluate teachers in person and base the scores off of how teachers interact with their students, parents, faculty and the curriculum.

In a different world, Wysocki would have been able to stay at her job at the school because what would determine her scores on her evaluation would have been judged on her teach abilities and not some random number a soulless computer spits out.

The correct DIKW Process for Sarah Wysocki and her IMPACT Evaluation would be:

Data: Numbered score.

Information: The score is high.

Knowledge: The students, parents and the school can all vouch that Wysocki is a fantastic teacher to the point where one parent said that she was “one of the best teachers I’ve come into contact with.”

Wisdom: The right thing to do would be to allow Sarah Wysocki to stay at her job at the school since the scores would reflect her teaching abilities.

In the second chapter, “Ineligible to Serve,” researchers from MIT and the University of Chicago sent out fake resumes to many jobs to see what would happen. However, for some resumes they put names that sound white and other names that sound African American but no matter the race, both people were qualified for the job they “applied” to. They found that the resumes with the white sounding names got 50% more callbacks than the resumes with the African American names.

This just proves that there is still a massive racial issue in our society. When hiring for for work, the main thing an employer should be looking at is whether or not you are qualified for the job. A solution to deal with this prejudice is a blind interview. In the reading, they mention that when orchestra’s hire people they do not personally meet them and instead they only listen to them playing their instrument.

The correct DIKW Process for job applications would be:

Data: Resume.

Information: Their names are Jamaal Jones, Lakisha Washington, Emily Walsh or Brendan Baker.

Knowledge: They are either qualified or unqualified for the job.

Wisdom: The right thing to do would be to hire them because they are qualified for the job or don’t because they are unqualified.

Kat's Corner