THE INSIGHT OF MARSHALL MCLUHAN
The Medium is the message - Media changes the world around them by effects that supersede the very content they seek to communicate
Hot and cool Media - Sensory experiences with differing levels of message definition under various technologies.
Acoustical Space - pre-literate, oral traditions in communication
The Global Village- Electronic media gave people equal access to public information and re-established the simultaneity of the pre-literate acoustical culture.
Questions to ask:
What aspect of society or human life does the medium enhance or amplify?
What aspect of earlier media does it eclipse or obsolesce?
What does the medium retrieve or pull back into center stage from the shadows of obsolescence?
What does the medium reverse or flip into when it has run its course or been developed to its fullest potential?
A CONVERGENCE OF MEDIA
Convergence - move from media specific content to content that flows across multiple media channels. Describes interdependence of media systems.
Remediation - process through which characteristics and approaches of competing media are imitated, altered, and critiques in a new medium
Hypermediacy - bits and pieces of other media assembled as fragments within the context of the new medium
SYSTEM - We need a broader understanding of systems and system behavior. Need to think of systems as things that are affected by what we make. Consider design as an element or force that produces some kind of change within other systems that are included in the definition of the problem.
Ex: Design for Packaging - affects frequency of damage as products travel to market - the placement of products in stores - impact of waste on the environment
COMPLEXITY AND EXPERIENCE
Complexity - the degree to which design problems increasingly involve interdependent systems: action aimed at one part or aspect of the problem causes change in another part or aspect.
CONTEMPORARY DESIGN PROBLEMS ARE INCREASINGLY COMPLEX AND DEFINED IN TERMS OF EXPERIENCES RATHER THAN OBJECTS!!!
THE CHANGING NOTION OF AUDIENCE
Now that user behavior can be observed, communication designers find themselves accountable for their decisions in new ways and under increasingly social-scientific methods.
Interactive design - scenarios - concept maps - personas - ethnographic
Activity Theory - Analysis of activities as goal orientated interactions of people with their environment, through the use of physical and psychological tools.
Goals - Actions - Operations
A NEW PARADIGM
Design requires new information - expansion of the research culture in design and the development of methods of inquiry that respond to the particular concerns of designers, as well as to the interests of other disciplinary experts.
Design task of the future will be to develop systems and extendable platforms under an organic ethos that is in marked contrast to the mechanical, object orientated design processes of the past.
