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CCDN 271 - Assignment One

Everyday Design

In the text, "Aspects of Everyday Design: Resourcefulness, Adaptation, and Emergence", Ron Wakkary and Leah Maestri discuss the results of their research involving four families over a five month period, and how they interact with designs of everyday.

While studying these families, Wakkary and Maestri investigate how designs become evolved through the everyday interactions of people. Wakkary and Maestri discovered that not only did these families adapt to certain designs but that they also often modified the designs to adapt into that individuals surroundings and everyday routines. By doing this, Wakkary and Maestri state, that everyday people become everyday designers, in turn, creating an adaptation and evolution of design systems. 

This source will be relevant to my research as Wakkary and Maestri examine the aspects of everyday design in regard to regular middle-class families and how their solutions and adaptions of existing designs further develop the works of professional designers, thus creating a design cycle.

  Wakkary, R., &  Maestri, L. (2008). Aspects of Everyday Design: Resourcefulness, Adaptation, and Emergence. Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 24(5), 478-491. doi:10.1080/10447310802142276 

    Critical Design

In the text, "Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects", Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby suggests the role industrial design has on electronic product design. Dunne and Raby ask important questions to provoke and motivate other designers.

Duune and Raby investigate the cultural and the physical effects of electronic objects, and how a person's experiences can change in a technological environment. Dunne and Raby point out how industries simply re-present different forms of the same product rather than having new purposes for electronic products. Dunne and Raby also take note of how critical design is an effort to push life experiences, unlike mass production industries which purely focus on the medium and the social market rather than the human experience.

This source will be relevant to my research as Dunne and Raby examine the design of electronic products through critical and affirmative perspective, thus understanding further, the experiences between people and electronic products.

  Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2001). Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects. Birlin, Germany: Birkhäuser.

      DIY Design

In the text, "A Lifestyle Choice? Evaluating Motives of Do It Yourself (DIY) Consumers", Colin C. Williams investigates the reason behind why the retail for DIY supplies has increased so dramatically over the past few years. He asks the vital question, whether it is by choice and enjoyment or whether it is because of the economic constraints, that more people are beginning to participate in DIY activities.

Through his research, Williams demonstrates - through tables - evidence of such things as; sales of DIY products, participants of DIY activities, types of labour, and sources of labour. By compiling all this data, Williams comes to the conclusion that it is neither choice and enjoyment nor economic constraints which are the reason for the increase of DIY retail, but a combination of both.

This source will be relevant to my research as Williams provides reliable evidence to support his claims that both choice and economic constraints contribute in increasing the DIY retail.

  Williams, Colin C. (2004). A Lifestyle Choice? Evaluating Motives of Do It Yourself (DIY) Consumers. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 32(5), 270-278. doi: 10.1108/09590550410534613  

  Google Warming

In the text, "Privacy Online", Diane K. Bowers discusses how in the arrival of the computer and the internet people may be in danger of having their privacy breeched as they are yet to understand how accessible information can be.

Bowers discusses how, in the late 1990's, computers were becoming more and more popular in everyday households. This made it very easy for people to give out personal information into the cyber world. Though, at this time, Bowers states, that many people were reserved about giving out information online, there still needed to be a way to protect individuals privacy. It was at this point when a privacy working group was created to articulate a set of laws under the privacy act involving the internet. Bowers discusses these laws in further detail.

Though this article is from the late 1990's, it still may be of use to my research, as Bowers discusses the privacy of the internet. This gives me insight as to how online privacy has changed since the arise of social networking.

  Bowers, Diane K. (1997). Privacy Online. Marketing Research 9(3), 37-38. doi: n/a