Darja Djatsenko
Final Essay
How is New Media designed and
deployed? Is it art or engineering?
Introduction
Design is around us. This word people
are using in different contexts. Design can be noun or verb and consist of
different definitions. People are used to discuss about design in general.
Especially when they are started to speak about design in New Media. Through
variety of articles I become to interesting survey and interested in the
question which I would like to explore in my essay – how is New Media designed
and deployed and is it art or engineering?
Main part
A bit from history the new media
design and imaging programme was created in response to the growing demand for
college graduates with strong digital imaging skills, highly refined design
sensitivities, and the ability to visualize concepts in two- and
three-dimensional motion graphics and interactive projects.
New media design is also explore
gaming, entertainment multimedia, virtual reality, and other facets of new
media. If to speak about meaning of design in new media I can say some – that
design as a noun is specification of object, manifested by agent, intended to
accomplish goals and using a set of primitive components. If describe design as
a verb very shortly could be said that this is the way to create design in
environment.
Actually, there is a lot of different
meanings what does it mean the design in New Media. Very close to my own point
of view is the opinion from Addison-Wesley book “Design for New Media”. There
is going comparing design in new media with puzzle, because of a combination of
different skills and media. “They know all about the pieces, but the biggest
problem is putting them all together to get the “big picture” of new media
design” – said the author in his book”.
Design for New Media gives a unified approach to looking at the area,
covering both the separate elements, and putting them in the context of new
media design as a whole.
What is more, some professionals’
think that “New Media design is a leading just web design and graphic design. By
myself I think that design has connotations in different fields and could be different
in new media. In my opinion, mostly new media is deployed and designed with
using the interaction design. Nowadays this is the most actual ways of
disseminate information – to make it interaction.
Interaction
design
What we know about interaction design? Is
it art or engineering?
That to go to explore the created
question about interaction design at the beginning I would like to find the
appropriate definition interaction in general. There is a big variety of
different opinions from different specialists in this area. That to be more specific
I took as examples different references.
By Sharp, Rogers and Preece (2011) –
Interactive design is designing interactive products to support the way people
communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives.
Interaction, from the encyclopaedia
WIKIPEDIA – is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an
effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the
concept of interaction, as opposed to a one-way causal effect. A closely
related term is interconnectivity, which deals with the interactions of
interactions within systems: combinations of many simple interactions can lead
to surprising emergent phenomena. Interaction has different tailored meanings
in various sciences.
Id book “Interaction design beyond
human-computer interaction” gives the most important goals of Interaction
design:
·
To develop usable products
·
The usability which, means easy to learn, effective to use and provide
an enjoyable experience
To combine the different definitions
I can sum up that the Interaction Design is a practice combining various
traditional design disciplines with socio-technological trends. It helps to design
of products from an understanding of how and why people desire to use them. It is
often leads to intuitive solutions for products, software and services. The
process uses technology as a medium; however it does not only deal with
technological offerings.
People have been interacting with
each other and their environment since time immemorial. Therefore, interaction
design can also be applied to the development of analogue solutions that
connect or communicate information.
Interaction design is not so much
about visual aesthetics but rather about the beauty in intangible experiences.
Interaction Designers often strive to understand needs or desires within a
specific context to provide a product or service of genuine value.
ART
If in a Google system I am trying to
find Interaction Design as an art, there is coming a lot of interesting results
and outcomes. For example, MICA's Interaction Design and Art students are
prepared to become productive, engaged artist/designers in the interaction
design field. They implementing professional methodologies, the curriculum
gives specific attention to interface design, user experience design,
interactive exhibit design, and physical computing. All of these processes and technologies are
applicable to those who choose to pursue one of the many career paths in this
field, as well as to those who choose a career as an exhibiting fine artist,
following in the footsteps of professional artists whose interactive works are
expressed in such areas as installation, telematics art, performance,
responsive objects, and alternative reality games (ARGs). (according to link http://www.mica.edu/browse_art/interaction_design_and_art_student_artwork.html).
Another example, which tells me that
the interaction design is an art is Royal College of Art. In this college the
students are deeply working with Design Interactions. In their school they very
often use design as an art in their projects, which are often speculative and
critical, aim to inspire debate about the human consequences of different
technological futures – both positive and negative. Project outcomes are
expressed through a variety of media including prototypes, performance, video
and photography.
These examples are proving that the
Interaction design could be an art.
ENGINEERING
Let’s take a look to another part. Is
interaction design is engineering? When I typed this question in the Google I
found relevant information about it. There were a lot of different document
which show me interactive systems as engineering. The first an example is
Wikipedia which gave me a description about interactive systems: Interactive
systems engineering is considered as an interdisciplinary field with computer
engineering, systems engineering, interaction design, software development,
aesthetic, ethnography, psychology and usability factors involved.
So, there was a part of interaction
design also, which means that interaction design also consist engineering.
Another example is come from Interaction
Design Engineering Class which is working with interaction design. “Learning
interaction design is like learning to dance. It's all about communication”. There was a suggestion to participate in
course which consist interaction design as engineering.
Conclusion
To sum up the written material I can
say that I answered for two questions which I made up before. According to
gained material I found out that new media design can be very different but the
most common is interaction design. Interaction design could be art and
engineering, the main thing how person as a creator or designer will use it. In
which way will go and which direction will use.
Interaction is in general very huge
and strong word, which includes a lot of definitions. As a choosing the
interaction design as a way how in my opinion New Media is designed and
deployed, I made the research, is this design art or engineering. The result
and answer came from different examples and material from Internet. Interaction
design could be art and engineering, the main thing how you as a creator or
designer will use it. In which way you would like to go and which direction to
use.
References:
·
Interaction Designers – PDF from Dropbox
·
http://www.id-book.com/chapter1_teaching.php
- ID book Interaction design
·
http://www.id-book.com/chapter1_teaching.php
- interaction design concept
·
http://www.mica.edu/browse_art/interaction_design_and_art_student_artwork.html - interaction design as an art
