I enjoyed Exercise 3.3 the most. It reminded me of my love for scenario planning and futurology. It also made me think about how we could use the ‘speculations way of thinking’ to sell design ideas. By thinking of a design idea from multiple standpoints into the future, we could help preempt many questions that will be raised in response to our design recommendation.
For example, if we are designing an experience like a river park, it is going to compete with many other projects for resources. A city, as we know, has many more challenges than there are resources ($$) to address those challenges. However, if our design recommendation can think through its potential impact in the future, in ways that cannot be seen today, then we’d be building a stronger case for our design recommendation. Policy makers, politicians, and various other decision-makers do not fear doing interesting things, they fear the negative consequences of their actions. If we ‘de-risk’ their choices by helping them ‘see things into the future,’ and if we can give them a story and a strategy to take that future to the potential nay-sayers, then selling bigger, better and long-term design ideas will become that much easier (and enjoyable).
We’ve controlled population growth. There are far fewer people than there are resources. Nature is no longer under pressure. Everyone has enough and more. LA is now a city of abundance and decadence. Automation has freed everyone from all kinds of serious work and stress. People pursue what we would have called ‘trivial,’ back in 2018 (and we were pretty lazy and vapid then).
In this wider context, it’s not just the humans that have become spoiled and indulgent. Pets have too! Now, almost anything can happen at a pet’s whim or fancy. Our LA River Garden, which was inaugurated in late 2018, has evolved into a chic “LA River Dog Retreat.”
The garden no longer grows fresh produce. It is now purely an ornamental garden where dogs can relieve stress and find happiness. Dog owners can book this space by the hour, by appointment only.Humans and cats are strictly forbidden from entering the garden and prohibited from disturbing them in any way. Dogs are free to roam and play, destroy all kinds of exotic plants, pee and poop anywhere they like, and mate to their heart’s content. When a dog runs along the river and jumps into it, it’s considered auspicious. It is their way of blessing the pristine blue waters of LA River.
Reflection:
Always design with the long-term in mind. What looks like a solution today, might become a constraint tomorrow. Even worse, it might be deemed ugly and irrelevant in the near future. [Car designers call this the “How will this age?” test.The Honda CrossTour 2009 is an example of a car whose design did not age well, while the original Mini’s design (1970) is still going strong.]
When I started in advertising, I used to love the idea of personas. Personas simplified complexity. Because personas clarified ‘who’ we were talking to/targeting, they forced us to make important choices about ‘what’ we we wanted to say in our ads. This helped us in prioritizing our messages and articulating our desired outcomes. There was just one problem, most of these personas were based on traditional qualitative research, such as one-on-one interviews and focus group discussions. While many personas that were based on qualitative research were useful, all of them were not. This is because not qualitative research yields deep insights. Over the years I’ve realized that while there are some very smart qualitative researchers who are really good at what they do there an equal number, if not more, who are not. This, at least, has been my experience working with qualitative researchers in marketing. Personas built on mediocre qualitative research just don’t cut it. They checks all the boxes, but seldom give clear direction to what needs to be designed and to what affect. Such Personas end up becoming a collection of “generic descriptions” and “claimed behaviors and attitudes,” which do not represent underlying consumer reality.
Here’s an example of how this impacted our work. A few years back, I was working on a leading global enterprise technology client. Year after year, their brand tracking study showed that the brand had high awareness, high brand recall and top intention to purchase among all competitors. However, in spite of this, the brand kept losing market share. Not just in the US, but globally. We realized we needed a way to cross examine our qualitative consumer data and the personas we were working with. This made us reconsider our approach.
Enter behavioral data. Behavioral data (for all its limitations in terms of answering the ‘why’ of consumer behavior) can be a great way to cross examine findings from claimed behavior and attitudes generated by qualitative research. Personas that are based on a combination of qualitative data (small data?) and behavioral data (big data) about the same target audience can truly represent what is going in a person’s life. Personas built on a combination of qualitative research and behavioral data are more nuanced and thus more reliable than those created only from qualitative research. Such personas help in answering nuanced questions like, “what experience are people looking for” and “what behavior are we wanting to change,” among others. A persona that does not answer these questions is not actionable and thus a wasted opportunity.
For our project (“Revitalizing Forgotten spaces in LA” and starting with LA River by developing an LA River Garden) there are multiple stakeholders and audiences. Thus, we have penned multiple personas. It may be noted that these personas are based only on qualitative data collected via informal interactions. In that sense, these personas are not as accurate as they could’ve been had we also had access to behavioral data.
Detailed personas and scenarios for our project are outlined here.
Happier dogs, calm(er) Algelinos, and a river (finally) becoming visible
We have two locations and five ideas.
Location 1: Pan Pacific Park, Los Angeles
Idea #1: Dog Playground
Idea #2: Walking Labyrinth
Ideas #3: Healthy Snack Bar
Location 2: Silver Lake, Los Angeles
Idea #1: River Tours for Kids
Free the river and give people a chance to get closer to the river
Allow access to the river
Integrate landscaped spaces near the river into one unified experience.
How we imagine this unfolding:
An accessible and partly landscaped (and mostly wild) river bank will attract people towards the river. Schools leading guided tours for children could be great way to spread the news about the river opening up to
Clearly marked entry points will help channel people know the way to access the river.
The sights, and sounds of flowing water, vegetation, and chirping birds in and around the river will engage people and help them disconnect with the city, even if it’s only for a short while. People would love to slow down and relax in a space like this. They’d also love to be photographed and video recorded in an environment like this.
Like points of entry, clearly marked walkways towards points of exit, will help in managing the flow of people leaving the river banks and surrounding gardens.
All the images and videos that people would have collected during ‘their time with the river’ could be shared with friends, family and colleagues. This will help spread the word about La river welcoming Angelinos. It will also create momentum for a new movement to open more sections of the river for people and help Angelinos in getting closer to their river.
Idea #2: Carpool Access Only
Busy streets need to act
Way too many cars with vacant seats. Time to fix this.
(Don’t worry emergency vehicles and residents from the neighborhood can get in and out. Commercial vehicles from 9PM to 6 AM only).
How we imagine this unfolding:
People living, and working in and around our location will be notified by the relevant department of LA County about the decision to designate Los Feliz Boulevard and Glendale Boulevard as carpool access roads. They’ll be informed how Silver Lake is working towards (eventually) becoming a car free zone that can promote a healthier lifestyle for all.
(Note: This notification would not apply to emergency vehicles, and electric cars owned by families with only one car. Also. commercial vehicles and heavy traffic will be allowed after 9PM and before 6AM).
People will be motivated to visit a part of the city that is discouraging cars in favour of bicycles and pedestrian traffic. By creating new parking spaces, before people enter this zone, and through better access to public transportation, we’ll be ensuring that people are not inconvenienced by the change.
Better pedestrian walkways, more bicycle lanes and a safer streets will help kids and elders play and walk freely. Lesser traffic will also mean cleaner air – another reason to step out and greet people in your neighborhood.
Clearly marked entry and exit points will help people find their way both in and out of the low traffic pedestrian zone. People would also love to talk about this with their friends and family and spread the word about LA’s pursuit of cleaner air and congestion free streets.
References:
Madrid city center going car free
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46403397
What we thought our cities will be like, in 1923. (Well, that did not happen ; )
Note: This is not an assignment post, this is a reflection post. These reflections might not even be accurate as these are just opinions, However, it’ll be great if we can have a conversation around this and make it more useful. (A.k.a learn more from this assignment : )
Greg’s post helped me crystallize my thoughts on this assignment. Greg’s post is here:
Greg’s honesty about not understanding why we were doing this assignment helped me think more about this. Because, like Greg, I too was not sure why we were doing this.
1. Why are we doing this?
2. Should I leave the apartment complex (neighborhood)?
3. When should I turn? Should I time it? Should I base it on the distance walked?
4. Should I map everything I see?
5. Should I highlight everything that I see?
6. How much detail is to much detail?
I had many more such questions.
After doing my walk, I’m realizing that perhaps the goal of this exercise is to:
1. Sensitize us to our environment
2. Help us observe closely
3. See things in a new light
4. Be conscious of our biases (what we do vs. what we don’t do; what we report vs. what we leave out etc)
[Bias is a big one. For example, all of us use Google maps. Google maps has (kind of) killed all other maps. But we must always remind ourselves about Google Map’s inherent ‘advertising bias.’ Everything that they do (I think) is aimed at collecting data to help advertisers and improve advertising on their platform. Thus, their maps will always see the world through that lens. This is just one reason why other maps must persist. I think as a society we can do better than relying on a map whose’ main goal is to sell more stuff : ( Never thought about this before.]
5. Make us realize the subconscious choices we make when we are interacting with our surroundings
6. Dwell upon these choices and try to think what might be the motivations behind our choices so that we are aware of our blind spots (For example, I think I’m always seeking contrast. That is my observation bias, thus it is also my mapping bias and I need to be aware of it so that it does not impact my work adversely.)
(By the way, this ‘self-discovery’ is also going to help me in the ‘User Needs’ course and the research and interviewing I’m doing there.)
Why all this?
May be becoming more observant of our surroundings and of ourselves can potentially help us in becoming better designers? Because a good designer is a good listener and observer (thus has more empathy)? And that’s why s/he is a good innovator and visualizer too? A good designer is at peace with herself/himself and that is why s/he is able to observe and understand and create more and do all of this better?
I think there could be many more dimensions to this.
I’m in India right now, meeting my parents (in Gurgaon, a suburb south west of Delhi) for Diwali, thus I did this exercise in my neighborhood here. I covered an area of two square kilometers. By the time I finished doing this, I could not help but marvel at the contrast – the contrast not just between my neighborhood in LA and Gurgaon but also the contrast between my apartment complex in Gurgaon and the neighboring village. It is like two worlds separated by a brick wall and a guarded gate.
About turns and turning
The frequency of turns is subconscious. I mean we do not think about it and yet we do it : )
We can always decide to be scientific about when to turn and choose to turn at regular intervals of time or distance but I chose to turn based on what I saw. I chose to turn towards areas that offered more diversity, contrast and greater stimulus. (This would be my mapping bias, I think.)
As a result, I could not follow tuning directions exactly the way they were laid out in the assignment.
Go to new places, see new things, and see old things in new ways
Also, and once again, in spite of the fact that we are trying to map a geography, our discoveries are determined by the roads and tracks we follow and not so much by everything that’s out there. For example, my parents have been living here since 2012 but I had never walked the dirt-road into the village before. I had only driven in and out of our apartment block’s gates. I had never seen our apartment block from the point of view of the village. This exercise opened my eyes to an entirely new way of looking at my parent’s apartment.
Note: My Dad was also curious about my assignment and he decided to join me in my walk. He motivated me to take more videos.
Urban is cohabiting with the rural
As the suburb has expanded, it has engulfed the the nearby villages. (Where my parents live now was farm land just ten years back.) However, in spite of the suburb overrunning the village, the village has somehow managed to retain its unique character. (Eg: People have bought motorbikes and cars, but they still have their cows and buffaloes. Immigrants are using cow-dung as firewood. etc)
A view of the contrast
Dirt road and open manholes in the village
Gated Communities
A barricade that has been closed off now
The village serves the apartment blocks?
Most of the drivers, cleaners, domestic help, security guards etc who work in these apartment blocks live in this village (Tigra) and other nearby villages.
Immigrants
Many people have moved into the village from far off lands. Majority has come in from as far as Bangladesh. These people have had a tough life back home and they have come here in search of employment opportunities.
Farmers have become landlords, again:
Farmers from the village sold their land to the real estate companies. Now they building shanties on whatever land is left renting these shanties to immigrants who are working in these apartments.
This walk opened my mind to the symbiotic relationship between the organized dwelling units in the apartment block and the shanties in the neighboring village.
I also shot a few videos to explain and showcase some of the things I was observing.
Road has to bend: This is symbolic of the power vs process or power vs system dynamic in India. Some people are above law and law is not even for everyone : (
Most people in the apartment blocks have cooking gas supplied in cylinders like these.
But not everyone gets piped cooking gas : (
Dirt roads have open man holes : (
Other sights
Pigeon feet in sand
Tailoring shop by the side of the road
Dog Chilling
Cows snacking and grooming
The Peepal tree where people pray
Main road (trunk road)
Some other photos
Private signs stand distinctly
But public signage is rare and rarely in good condition
Workers live in the houses that they are building. It is sad that most workers who build homes for others seldom manage to build proper housing for themselves.
Clothes drying is a symbol that the worker’s family is living with them ‘on site’
I took time to understand this project. Not just that, as I started doing it, I wondered “why we are even doing this?” I was learning many new things in Illustrator, but I was hoping to get more out of my project than that. Still, I did it anyway. I went out, identified the forces, took photographs, and recorded some videos about what I was thinking as I identified various forces. Here are forces that I identified:
Traffic (no words!)
Formal communication (mainly road signs)
Ethnicities (mainly Churches)
Businesses (small and medium sized)
Transformations (mainly new construction)
Cars (so many of them)
Trash
Traces of various kinds (but mainly un-recycled trash)
Forgotten things (public utilities in disrepair)
Wilderness (also rare in LA)
Informal communication (Mainly graffiti which is somewhat like ‘user generated content,’ where users = city dwellers)
Once I had the forces identified, I sat down and started plotting them into my base map. This took me a long time to do (I’m still finding my way around Illustrator), but I enjoyed the process and each successive layer became easier to make.
As satisfying as all of this was, it was nothing in comparison to what I started discovering was I plotted each subsequent force on the map. As I looked at my illustrator file, with the different forces stacked in different layers, it dawned upon me that there’s a way to compare and contrast various forces on the map. I compared the forces mainly by looking at their ‘relative location’ to each other. This is when intriguing correlations started emerging. This opened my mind to new hypotheses and theories that I had not thought about thus far.
In hindsight, the layers function is also a great insight tool. It presents a unique view of an image and allows us to compare and contrast diverse bits of information. All this helps in analyzing an image in ways never imagined before.
The hypotheses I’ve gathered here might not be conclusive, given the limitations of this project’s scope and the relative atomity of my sample location in relation to the size of LA city. However, these theories and hypotheses can certainly be a basis for initial conversations about the way a city is organized and role of various forces in shaping a city’s character and destiny. This is big, considering the relative simplicity of things that I did, like taking photos and videos with my smartphone and processing them in Adobe. There’s a lot that we can do with the software tools available to all of us now!
Note:
This exercise is a great way for city planners to generate hypothesis about what’s going on the in the city and then use data to check the initial hypothesis. I can easily see summer interns/volunteers doing such work with LA’s City administration.
I visited my site twice to make sure my notes about the forces I identified were not conditioned by the time of day I noticed them.
Here are the key theories and hypotheses:
Trash does not correlate with foot traffic:
I used to think that places with high foot traffic might have more trash in the street. However, what I discovered is just the opposite of this. Could it be that trash that is seen or reported by pedestrians is the trash that gets removed? At a broader level, are cities with more foot traffic cleaner than cities with few pedestrians?
2. Wilderness has been shrunk into a shrinking river
The only wilderness that I noticed was in and around the LA river. Because everything else has been turned into commercial or residential space, river is the only space that is left out of the scope of ‘development’. As a result, nature is trying to find its way back inside and around the river. This also prompted me to research LA river, and I leant much about its unfortunate past. First the city chipped away at its flood plains, and then many people lost their lives in the floods during 1930s. Soon after the river was transformed from a naturally flowing stream of water into a straitjacketed canal for flood control. Many species of wildlife were lost in the process. Now, the city is trying to bring all that back. They are trying to bring ‘Angelinos’ closer to the river by revitalizing it and promoting wildlife through various river revitalization projects.
Traffic congestion correlates with businesses of all kinds. These could be restaurants, small and medium sized offices or storage units.
4. Traffic correlates with formal communication
The more the intensity of traffic, the more the number of traffic signs. Does this mean that people tend to not follow traffic rules when they have more traffic to navigate? Does that mean we behave as less than ideal citizens and city-dwellers when we have lesser room to ourselves? Does that also mean we are ‘less civilized’ when we are pushed into a corner? Coming from India, with very high density of population, I see a parallel here. We tend to behave sub-optimally when there are too many of us jammed into a limited space a.k.a. unlimited people and limited resources leads to (not so charming) competition.
5. Informal communication does not correlate with foot traffic (or foot traffic reports informal communication?)
Informal communication, like graffiti, is seen in places with no foot traffic. Does that mean that graffiti makers are just expressing themselves and not trying to send a message to anyone? Or could it mean that foot traffic reports public graffiti and it is removed?
6. Transformations don’t correlate with traffic (they create traffic?)
There’s a lot of new development both commercial and residential happening in this neighborhood. However it is not happening in places that already have traffic and congestion. Looks like city planners know how to avoid adding congestion to already congested streets/neighborhoods.
However, I wish I had data to show that new development leads to traffic over time. Because such data will help us in seeing that new development in less congested areas is not preventing congestion, it’s merely postponing it.
But more fundamental than all this is the topic of land use and the defining question of “how many people are too many people for a city to be still livable?”. In this day and age, and with all the data and information available to us, this should not be difficult to find. I’ve never lived in San Francisco or NYC but looking at LA (and having lived in Beijing, Mumbai and Delhi) I can say that every city should know their point of equilibrium. Any development beyond this point should explore options such as distributing the additional population load to other cities or developing newer cities. This is what a responsible and strategically minded city, state and federal administration should be doing to guarantee quality of life to all the people in a city. Growing economic activity and prosperity that does not adversely impact natural resources and the sustainability of various social, economic and environmental ecosystems is the only kind of growth that matters. In other words, economic considerations can have a holistic outlook by factoring in economic, social and environmental sustainability benchmarks. A megapolis like LA can lead by example.
Places that have no foot traffic are seeing sidewalks not being developed. Or is it the other way around i.e. people are not choosing to walk because sidewalks are in a state of disrepair?
8. Housing correlates with ethnicity
Places of worship are smack in the middle of residential neighborhoods. Do neighborhoods need these Churches or do these Churches need these neighborhoods?
As I was thinking about all this, I could not help but draw comparisons with ‘Civilizations’ – a PC video game from many years back. In that game, we used to develop basic nomadic settlements, near a river or a lake, into giant megapolis. (This used to happen over time and after many wars with neighboring settlements). The game was modeled after the development of our civilization. Now that we know so much about where we’ve come from and how we’ve evolved into urban beings, can’t we do a better job of mapping our futures and build cities that are self-sustaining?
Appendix:
Forces and time
I also observed some of the forces at night. (Night = 11PM)
Trash was less visible at night, thought I could see some of it
There were more cars in the neighborhood (people had returned home from work?)
Transformations were quiet and inactive and could barely be seen in the darkness (no lights at the construction site in the night. Just one big gate that was locked).
Traffic was virtually non-existent. Far fewer cars on the road
No foot traffic at all
River was dark and I could not see any activity of any kind. I did hear some people talking by the river bank. (There are a few homeless people who come to the river at night).
I’m really bad in using Illustrator but I learnt a lot about layers and mapping and my neighborhood from doing this exercise (and also from Project 2). These maps are still ugly but they are a big leap from where I was just one week back.
Here goes:
This is my living room and work area (many times a day)
This is an overview of my grocery run (many times a week)
and this is about my unhealthy snacking habits and healthy workout routine (not enough times a week : )
(Samosa = a fried dish with a savory filling, such as spiced potatoes, onions, green peas, and sometimes lentils too. It is a ‘three-dimensional triangle’ and is usually accompanied by chutney. It. Is. Very. Tasty.)
I saw a few elections signs but none of them had a complete message to convey. All of them wanted me to do something but did not really make an effort to tell me why I should be doing it. Political candidates seem to be saying similar things. (Some are more unoriginal than others.)
Peter Choi wants us to vote for him, I’m not sure why.
Katherine Lee wants us to elect her. I’m not sure why should we be choosing her. The Smog Check sign, next to Katherine Lee’s, gives me a better reason to choose them, at least I know the price I’ll be paying.
And then there is Johnny Nalbadian, who seems to be unabashedly unoriginal.
As compared to politicians, interest groups seem to be a little better, at least they give some space to their cause/interest.
Stepping back and thinking about these election signs from the point of view of design principles that we’ve learnt, I’d say that all of them fail the “attractiveness bias” test. Even if a voter does not know anything about the candidate, a beautifully designed poster can never hurt.
But, it’s the ACLU posters that really stand out.Single minded headlines like “Dissent is patriotic,” “Fight ignorance not immigrants” and “There is no planet B,” use the principle of stickiness to their advantage. They are simple, carry an element of surprise, are specific and concrete, and trigger emotions among the passersby. These hand-made posters seem to communicate things more effectively than the printed sings from politicians.
To close this, I’d say the design of a poster, like any design, needs to view things from the audience point of view. Sure, politicians want us to remember their name, and choose them, but it’ll help them if they first thought about what voters want : )
“Maps only reflect the reality, they don’t change it..”
But what is reality? Is it an objective truth? Is it the same for you, and me, and the other? Is it finite?
These are the questions that make this project interesting.
Initially I had some difficulty in understanding the brief, but I (think) I understand it now. We are learning to color ‘outside the utilitarian convention’ that has become the default setting of modern city and landscape planning and is characterized by single-minded focus on objects and functions. We are starting on this journey by reimagining maps.
My choice of environment represents my pursuit of a healthier life and the dynamic tension between two ideas that sit across each other, like two poles of a magnet. On one end is the samosa – a fried dish with a savory filling, such as spiced potatoes, onions, green peas, and sometimes lentils too. It is a three-dimensional triangle and is accompanied by chutney. It. Is. Very. Tasty.
Samosa
On the other end is my gym, a place where I go to shed those calories that my samosas bring to me. Over the past few months, I have had to walk the tight rope, forcing myself to eat fewer samosas and telling myself to go to the gym regularly. This tension makes these two places important. However, until today, I had not thought much about the space and things between these two places. Thank you for making me think about it.
The space between places and the unmapped cracks within this space.
Here’s a quick sketch of the space that I chose to map:
Am I really mapping the unmapped?
Even as I start to think about this space in a way that goes beyond the way contemporary normative maps represent it, I realize that there is a limitation in my thinking. It is the streets. The streets I’m traversing are predetermined. So, reinterpreting this space is limited by the fact that I’m walking down predetermined streets and walk-ways.
Like always, I’d also take this opportunity and contrast my experiences in a developed country like the US with its much-evolved urban infrastructure and matured rules of engaging with this infrastructure vs other developing countries which have limited to unstable urban infrastructure. The lack of infrastructure forces people to find ‘their own way.’ It’s not surprising that in developing countries like India, Cambodia and Vietnam and sometimes even in China mapping heavyweights like Google maps are not reliable. They are neither extensive nor updated. In these countries, we rely on landmarks like homes, temples, wells, intersections, shops, powerline transformers etc., and above all PEOPLE. All this much more than conventional road signs, printed or mobile maps.
Being comfortable without maps is a way of life. This is in sharp contrast to developed countries where people have grown up to expect nearly flawless urban infrastructure and city planning. Unless they are leaving the city and the suburban infrastructure and venturing into the wild, they have little need to worry about finding their way.
Am I really mapping the unmapped? (Video)
Coming back to the project brief, I chose not to look at any of the existing maps. However, as I got home and started downloading photos, I realized that although I was not looking at maps, maps were certainly looking at me : ) Here’s how they traced my path.
My photos + videos geo-tagged and layered on top of Apple Maps (MacOS and iOS)
Same layering in 3D
Immersive maps?
If only maps also documented sounds, smells and feelings they were representing (play video below)
What do firefighters see?
Different ways of seeing and observing. Like, wearing different thinking hats or seeing through different lenses.
On to some of the forces I observed in action
Traffic
First we made cars, cars made traffic, and now traffic makes us : (
2. Automobiles:
They are everywhere
There are so many of them, that even when you are trying to take photos of other things, automobiles find a way to creep in
3. Transformations:
From a gas station
to
an apartment block
Other new construction
Such construction can be seen all around Silver lake. This neighborhood is developing fast.
4. Formal Communication:
The many rules of engaging with traffic and adjoining public spaces. The more developed urban infrastructure is the more prescriptive are rules of engagement. This is something we do not see in less developed countries that do not have much in the name of a viable public infrastructure.
Don’t cross here
Don’t be in two minds now, must turn right
Don’t drink here
River looks nice, but don’t stop here
You might be paying taxes, but its not your land
Don’t walk here
Bikes go away
5. Waste:
One homeless man lives under this bridge during the day the to escape the sun and the heat. I wonder where does he go at night.
6. Wilderness and the River:
LA river, which hardly looks like a river, has some wild vegetation as it tries to reclaim its rightful place in the city. I did not know that LA had a river, but when I moved into this neighborhood, I started researching online and discovered some informative documentaries about the history of LA River. I was surprised to learn that it used to be a free-flowing river till it was decided that it has to be tamed and turned into a Bonzai version of itself.
Side note 1 – YouTube also has interesting videos describing Salton Sea. At one point, Colorado river used to flow into it was supposed to become a big tourist hub. Property was sold, resorts were built. But the river had other plans. I learnt about Salton Sea from GTA5 – a video game which is set in a city called Los Santos (which is a rough copy of real world LA.
Side note 2 – GTA5 and GTA4 have detailed and editable maps.
7. Traces and Decay:
Product packaging in their afterlife. These random boxes seem to have managed to escape the cycle of life and death at the hands of the trashcan and the dump truck that comes looking for them every week.
I wonder how this car bumper managed to get here : )
8. Businesses
A business wearing its Indian ethnicity on its sleeve
Exotic businesses. This store has giant tropical parakeets
9. Ethnicity and Religion
Silver lake is at the edge of Glendale. The city has many immigrants mainly of Armenian descent. Ararat (the mountain range between Turkey and Armenia) is an important symbol in Armenian culture. Many Armenian businesses are named after Mount Ararat.
10. Forgotten:
Here’s a side walk that is disappearing, slowly. The soil that is sliding from the hillside is slowly encroaching on to the sidewalk. Looks like LA municipal authorities have forgotten about this sidewalk : )
11. Informal communication?
And lastly, some childhood memories. I used to think of billboards as landmarks on my way home. I used to get lost often : )
What does all this mean? Is there a correlation between forces? What does correlation (or the lack of it) mean? Continue reading here:
here https://sites.uci.edu/in4matx282f18/mapping-forces-and-unearthing-theories-hypotheses-and-insights-part-2-of-project-2/
I have taken example of a map that does the job but can be improved.
The problem highlighted in this post is not isolated. Beijing’s subway map is not alone in surrendering to complexity. Wherever we have a big subway system, we’ll find a bad map trying to explain it.
This is Beijing city’s subway map, from 1965. Beijing had a total of three subway lines then.
Beijing is populous and is growing rapidly, and a growing city needs a growing subway system. The pace of expansion of subway system in Beijing has been nothing short of stellar. However, the same can’t be said about its map design. In spite of the fact that the subway map has managed to retain its basic structure, while swimming within ‘Gestalt lanes.’ For example:
Subway lines/ routes on top of a contrast white background (figure ground)
Different subway lines are denoted by different colors (clustering/grouping)
Subway stations are denoted by dots on the subway lines (similarity)
But in spite of all this, the subway map design leaves a lot to be desired. To start with, the map looks way more complex than before. This complexity is an outcome of the many more new subway lines and new subway stations that have been added since 1965. However, increasing volume of information shouldn’t necessarily mean increasing complexity. There has to be a better way of displaying this information, beyond this incremental design. Isn’t that the real job of design to making complex things simple?
A better design, in this case, needs to answer basic questions like:
Who are the people using this subway map? (segments/personas)
Are there challenges that users are facing with the current map design? (user problems)
What do users want from their subway map?
Do they need to see the whole map the same time? (user needs)
Could only that part of a map, that’s relevant to their commuting needs, be activated at a given point in time? (personalization)
There could be many more such questions, and answers to these questions could define the problem we are addressing.
In my view, a redesign of this map should at least solve for:
The limitations of physical space
The constraints of a two-dimensional design
and do these while keeping the design solution practical in terms of usability and affordability. This calls for innovation.
When we think about simplifying complex maps and making them more useful, AR (Augmented Reality) applications come to mind. AR helps us in layering information and visualizing things in new ways. AR has been trying to simplify information display and augment productivity by layering information on top of physical spaces. However, it hasn’t come up with a reliable and cost-effective application for maps.
Google maps, a world leader in mobile maps, should be at the forefront of this. They should be helping us free ourselves from the tyranny of flat two-dimensional design limited by the screen sizes. But they have a long way to go. This is their leading edge right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F0gFpzsYLM
Even if AR succeeded in addressing the information overload, would current crop of mobile devices be able to deliver the desired experience? Or would maps, like many other information intensive applications, need an entirely new kind of hardware that is tethered to our sense of sight and reduces friction? Are we talking about glasses (again?) and is that the best solution? Microsoft has been toying with HoloLens for over two years, and they still don’t have a working solution for work, gaming, or navigation. The prototype they displayed (a year back) was good only for indoor use and left a lot to be desired in terms of its practical utility. Watch this for a snapshot of where they are in this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMfNojNC0b0
Who will come up with a solution? How will we make it affordable? And on top of all this, how will we make that map experience to all?
I have more questions than I can answer. But here’s one thing that I am sure of, the answer to “how can we make maps easier to use and more valuable to all kinds of people?” will come from design and not technology. Because whatever limited knowledge I have about technology, I believe we have enough and more of it. What we do not have is enough number of people who understand how to translate user needs to design solutions that harness these technologies smartly.
As designers, I wish, we imagined solutions that challenged technology to step up and solve for people.
Not very comfortable. Made me feel good when I bought it but haven’t felt the same since.
Bamboo bliss, not
Looks good in my living-room but can’t sit on this for too long either.
It’s a trap
This butterfly chair looks cool in the living room, fun to sink in, but is unstable when getting up. It’s less of a chair and more of a booby trap!
Workhorse
Boring-looking dining chair. Looks sad but delivers. I work from home and I’m usually sitting in this chair for most part of my work day. I love it/her. (Her?) It’s interesting that we give genders to objects that we like.
Isn’t it nice when things just work
This unassuming couch in my living room is the best. It is not the biggest, or the most expensive or the fanciest, but it is comfortable. I sit in it, lie down in it, sometimes get a short nap in it and love every bit of it. This is home.
Some other chairs that I sit in.
The unsung hero
Here’s a standardized public bench near my place. It lacks character, is generic and faceless in some ways. In fact, its face is somebody’s advertisement. So, it keeps changing with no identity of its own. These public benches are like the nobodies of our city and yet they play such an important role. They offer a comfortable resting place for strangers and neighbors alike.
Impulse cousins
Beautiful looking garden chairs being sold at the nearby nursery. They look nice but are not comfortable to sit. Their placement is designed to trigger impulse purchase. Somehow, people in a nursery always seem to be predisposed to buy things that go with their plants.
Uncomfortable by design
Outdoor seating in most busy restaurants seems to follow a trend. Most of the chairs are uncomfortable. Looks like the store owners do not want people to sit for longer.
Parrot greens
Saw these chairs at a Boba shop. The store had limited seating inside. And these chairs that they had laid outside were no better. Mat be the idea is to discourage people (esp. teenage clientele?) from sitting for too long.
Rejected twins
I saw these two by the road and felt bad for them. If they were in some developing country they’d still be in use. I felt sad for the chairs and the waste that has been created but did not have to be.
There are a few more, and unusual, chairs that I’d like to include in my list.
Keeps it cool
This earthy jute rug that I sometimes sit on, and it’s more comfortable than most of the chairs I have.
Think station
Toilet ‘seat’ that is more important than most of the chairs and rugs at home. It is a great place to relax and contemplate.
Chairs in our vocabulary
This assignment also made me think about chairs beyond my own little world. Chairs are a part of business and organizational vocabulary. Look at titles like ‘Chairperson’, ‘Chairman’, ‘Chairwoman’ etc.
There are other words created because of the roles that chairs play, like the Wheelchair.
Chairs are also associated with games that children play like, the game of Musical chairs. The expression, musical chairs has gone further, it is also used to describe a situation characterized by uncertainty and frequent change.
Like mentioned in Galen Cranz’s book, chairs have come to symbolize power and prosperity. In fact, the kind of chair being used says a lot about both the person using it. Chairs are an integral symbol of power in high ‘power distance societies’ (power distance societies are those where it is accepted that power is distributed unequally). In these societies the bigger or higher the chair the more important the person sitting in it. Traditionally, only kings and the royalty could sit in such chairs.
Emperor Akbar in his throne at the Delhi court (16th-17th century AD)
Fingerprints of a king’s court are still all around us. If you go to a traditional Indian wedding ceremony in India, you’ll see that the bride and the groom are usually seated in a big throne-like chair. The chairs are placed on a raised platform that rises above the guests and their seats, just like in a king’s court from an era gone by. It is often said in India that “every man gets to be a king on his wedding day.”
A groom at his wedding (North India, 2016)
No chairs = poor
Not having chairs or other furniture is associated with poverty. In this short clip, from a well-known Hindi movie. You’ll see the landlord and his assistant are visiting a poor farmer’s home to collect unpaid rent. The farmer has fallen on hard times and has no chair to offer to the guests. Guests have to sit on the floor.
Ironing board was first patented in 1892 U.S. Patent #473,653 and since then, not much has changed in its design. I love Flippr for all the new ideas it brings to this age-old product. It’s strong, thoughtfully designed and practical to use.
Here’s why it stands out for me:
360 flip function
The good – It makes ironing easy and efficient.
The ‘could be better’ – no affordance to hint where’s to lift and flip the board from. No semantic mapping either.
2. Clamps to hold the trouser in place
The good – Trousers remain in place even when iron is moving across and over them with applied pressure.
The ‘could be better’ – The clamps are not very strong, but there’s no constraint in the design to prevent application of excessive force.
3. Easy to fold and unfold the board
The good – semantic mapping of various levels of height.
The ‘could be better’ – no physical constraint. The height adjuster is made of plastic and can easily break if the user applied excessive force.
4. Additional plank to iron the sleeves
The good – hassle free way to iron shirt sleeves.
The ‘could be better’ – poor feedback about how much pressure it can take.
Flippr is a great idea but it could have become even better if it had a build quality to match its practical design.
I hate these pullout drawers
Here’s why it hate them:
Always gets stuck. There’s no constraint to prevent the user from exerting excessive force. There’s no affordance to lift the pullout from the bottom to prevent it from getting stuck or making excessive noise while being pulled or pushed. There is no way for the user to know how much force to apply and what to do if the drawer were to get stuck.
2. There’s no way to get habituated. Every time I open it, I feel like I’m doing it for the first time.
I saw this “home-made waterproofing for a power cord,” hanging from a tree by the side of the road in Beijing (China). As we can see, its primary purpose is to provide water proofing for an extension cord being used outdoors. This inspired me in a few important ways:
Creativity in constraints – solving a problem with limited resources.
Connecting unrelated things – linking unrelated things and developing a solution by combining them creatively.
Learning from things around us – the solution reminded me to stay observant and learn from the many ideas and inspirations around us.
Staying humble – this solution also nudged me to stay humble and learn from people who might not be professionals and yet be very good in solving problems. The shopkeeper who designed this is not trained in design and yet she still found a novel way to solve her problem. Great design ideas can come from anyone.
Overall, it’s uplifting to see design ideas coming alive and solving everyday problems in unexpected ways.
