reading: what is culture?

raymond williams proposed three useful ways to consider the word "culture": 

• "the process of a society's intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development."

• "the particular way of life of a people, period, or group."

• "the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity."

two out of three talk about art, literature, philosophy, performance… the good parts, the highest highs. the other refers simply to the average reality for an individual within a "culture." as pleasant as the loftier notions are, this middle definition is maybe our most useful, as the article refers to "popular culture." 

the signifiers and behaviors of pop culture often are taken from subcultures and appropriated, then re-sold to the masses. it's a good way for worthwhile things to become well known, but it's also pretty painful for a cynic.

pop culture has taken the place of folk culture in its lack of refined taste, lack of quality and perceived value. it works like folktales and legends, taking the mundane and reflecting it back as though it were powerful.

through the cycle of constant desire, fulfillment, and inevitable disillusionment, the consumers are neverendingly preoccupied with novelty and disappointment to the point that they find themselves unable to inflict any social change.

subcultures exist largely in response to the landscape of the mainstream, where a group of people react in a similar fashion and bond over that shared reaction by creating a group identity and behaving similarly. 

it's important, when looking at a subculture, not to reduce its identity to a sum of its outward signs without considering the context out of which those signs arose.

countercultures work much like subcultures, but more willfully articulate, standing intentionally and educatedly against some or all issues of the mainstream. both sub- and countercultures rely on dress and ritual to define their borders.

reading: ethnography

anthropology is the study of human behavior through cultures, how people interact with one another, what social values those interactions have, and the motivations for their actions. as fascinating as this is all on its own, it offers a really unique potential for a research method for designers, who are, as always, looking to understand culture and interaction in an attempt to better and more pleasantly serve them. in the words of karl marx, "the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point, however, is to change it." the same could be said for anthropologists. 

tim plowman introduces the notion of the "imponderabilia of actual life," first coined by one of the fathers of anthropology, bronislaw malinowski. imponderabilia is what comes up during the research method of ethnography; it is the indescribable basicness of daily living as it appears to a native, and the goal of ethnographic research is to be able to comprehend that ordinariness that the "natives" can't articulate.

he was the first true anthropologist in that rather than watching and presuming, and getting information secondhand, he chose instead to live with the people he was studying and thoroughly document them. 

ethnography differs from surveying in its scope and its depth. surveys can include huge swaths of population, but reveal far less nuance or personality, whereas ethnography focuses on understanding deeply the personal issues of individuals within a culture. 

documenting the inexpert, improvisational problem solving utilized by people in their natural habitat can be the most useful method for determining ways to improve their experience. the designer can see what their users are struggling with and help them using outside expertise.

10 new year's resolutions for designers, the web is 95% typography, and the reactions thereabout.

this year, these are the things to watch out for. we've got to start solving real problems, problems that are hurting people and the world and need to be solving.  we need to be saving the world, because we're the people who can think our way around it, and we have the best technology and power any generation has ever had. but as mike monteiro writes, "we don't need another app to rate your sandwich."

we are cautioned to pay attention and respect to all the design that has come before us and try to avoid being so ignorant and arrogant as to presume that we should solve a problem all be ourselves without considering all the headway that's already been made. 

the next two, i think, are pretty well linked, and things that i'm going to be struggling with from here on out… we've gotta stop wasting our energy trying to salvage work that obviously isn't going to come together. we've gotta recognize a dead end and start over before we drain anymore time and effort into a hopeless situation. but it's hard, because that means giving up on something that you've already spent a good deal of time on, and letting that time you've already lost be well spent because you've eliminated an ineffective possibility, rather than clinging desperately to it. similarly, we've got to stop doing what we think we should be doing rather than what we actually want to do. we hobble ourselves against the idea that the clients want a certain thing and even though it's not how we would prefer to do it, we end up undermining our instincts by trying to get inside somebody else's head without asking them. the common thread here is this vague sense of obligation or insecurity that makes us feel the need to do things right by somebody else and generate only the right answer. gotta get over that.

this next one's easy, or at the very least, simple. it's all our own faults. nobody is climbing inside and messing things up for us. we need to own up.

we also need to remember to stay curious, and not get content with knowing the things we know, as though they are unchanging and will always be enough. (they won't.)

in the same vein of the earlier related two, we've got to learn to screw up earlier and move past it sooner. that way we can abandon the things that aren't working, stop trying to save them, and move on.

i really adored this next resolution: stop being mean to your mom. or more specifically, stop using her as an example of the lowest common denominator of user proficiency. "so easy your (obviously incompetent) mom could do it" is the tragic phrasing (and subtext) of way too many people encouraging intuitiveness. intuitiveness is great, but let's be a lot more respectful and a lot less needlessly, bafflingly sexist.

resolution number nine really warmed my heart, too. we've gotta get good at writing. if we can't write well, we're going to have an awful time selling our work for the ingenious problem solving it is. "good design" doesn't just "sell itself," apparently.

and relatedly, we've gotta be able to man up and assert ourselves when our solutions are challenged and we feel that we are right. obviously criticism is always important to receive gracefully and respectfully, but sometimes if we explain ourselves more clearly, people change their minds.

the web is 95% typography.

while in the early ages of print, it was the typographer's duty to organize and dole out text in a way that was conducive to the reader experiencing the information in a painless and intuitive way, in these days of digital information, it has become, in today's language, more the domain of the designer and information architect. the typeface is much less important than the structure and readability of the text, and it's an exercise in highly effective design to "treat text as a user interface."

reactions to "the web is 95% typography."

very simply this reiterates the things at the heart of the previous page. web design is not about making something look exactly the same on everyone's machine. it is not about constructing an arbitrary grid and jamming information into it. it's all just about guiding the user through the information in as simple and readable a way as can be, on as many different platforms as possible. my favorite moment in this expansion of the first article is less about web design and more just a quote the author tossed down about receiving criticism. he says: "adapt quickly, ignore impoliteness, take everybody seriously." that right there is wisdom to live by.

reading: the changing role of research

christopher ireland writes of the united states's history of marketing, saying that it used to be much easier to woo target audiences because the u.s. had a "mass market," with few options and simple majority tastes and values. thanks to ease of production, the widening of means, and the shrinking of "the world" in terms of accessibility, we cannot anymore just be sold to. now, in order for a business to survive, nevermind thrive, they have to know their customers and audience, be able to grab their eye, delight them, reassure them, and keep them interested in coming back for more. if the designer him or herself is up to the task of this research and understanding, peering inside value systems and working with established traditions in cultures, then the more power their work will have, and the more people it can resonate with, given its origins from within society as it has been observed, rather than how we assume it should be.

the new wave of knitting

we're starting out the semester in design research/user experience with a group research project about a subculture. after some initial backpedaling, lillie and i chose from the list of possibilities the culture described as "hipster knitters." here is our initial cultural research.

history:

•knitting is thought to have originated in arabia before evolving all over the world throughout history.

•knitting with needles, as we know it, began in 8th century spain.

•it has been a long time since knitting has been a practical necessity like it was in earlier eras, but that doesn't mean it's gone away entirely.

•knitting comes and goes from popularity in waves.

•during the 1980s, teenagers who knitted were scorned, doomed to social outcast status.

•since then, knitting has grown in popularity and scope into something that can be useful, meditative, meaningful, powerful, artistic, political, personal, or communal.


knitting & technology:

•the recent resurgence of knitting among young, urban, tech-minded people can be traced to a number of different factors.

•a lot of the new popularity of knitting probably comes from how easy it is to find others who share the interest, and communicate with them about products, patterns, and pieces.

•the internet has made it possible for knitters to find each other and group in real life as well as congregating online.

•knitting blogs are extremely popular and the website ravelry, a social media/message board site for knitting and fiber arts, already had more than 30,000 users waiting to sign up by the time it opened its beta in 2007.

•today, ravelry has 1.4 million users, 400,000 who are active every month.

•ravelry raised $71,000 from their users to keep the site up before selling small yarn-related ads to keep it going.

•other sites like etsy provide opportunities to sell handmade work to individuals who want it through an online marketplace made up of artists and craftspeople from all over.


•another facet is the need, in our digital culture, to do something real and tactile with your hands, to actually create rather than virtual or theoretical activity.

•knitting circles have gotten increasingly common as an alternative to chatting online or on the telephone in an attempt to revive in-person social interaction,

knitting & the economy:

•another common explanation is that when the economy falters, homemade crafts pick up.

•crafts act both as hobbies and as potentially more inexpensive methods for creating goods.

•knitting has always picked up during the tough times.

•the last time knitting was as popular as it is right now was the great depression.


knitting in culture:
•the throwback action of knitting also has, in our postmodern/ironic generation, some intrigue as a vintage or retro hobby, or a nod to the past.

•our agegroup tends to put a lot of social value in doing things (like knitting) that are unexpected or  old-fashioned

•knitting exists at a crossroads between punk and cutesy "twee" or "indie" culture, given its democratizing "anybody can do it" possibilities (punk) and its charming anachronism (twee).

•knitting has also taken its place as a statement.

•knitting is a stance in the community through people "yarn bombing" their surroundings, or using knit work as street-art to add color and unexpected delight, surprise, confusion, or contradiction to their cities.

•magda sayeg, who began the collective "knitta" in the form of graffiti artists, is credited with beginning the movement.

and some sources:
http://www.urbanartsandcrafts.com/default.htm

https://www.ravelry.com/

http://www.xojane.com/fun/knitting

http://www.helium.com/items/602614-a-look-at-the-resurgence-of-knitting-in-the-21st-century

http://www.helium.com/items/907105-a-look-at-the-resurgence-of-knitting-in-the-21st-century

http://www.helium.com/items/587832-a-look-at-the-resurgence-of-knitting-in-the-21st-century

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/09/william-morris-arts-craft-knitting
 "amid the economic rubble, a revolution is being knitted."

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/07/a_tightknit_community.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7sCT_Eeut8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uI7qVsGuvc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53iM9M1qZY8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcLBSQ7x5J0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIW2nGrHEBA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz8eaoEMRfM&feature=related

as well as an "on point with tom ashbrook" npr radio show.

reading: designing for interaction

dan safer uses a very potent metaphor to illustrate the importance of design research. he asks the reader to envision a zoo wherein the builders and keepers knew nothing of the animals they were going to be caring for, shoved them all in little cages and didn't know how to feed them. this would be a terrible zoo full of dead animals, is the point. and the moral of the story is that if they had done research to first discern the needs of those being served, they could have, without wasting tons of money on a misguided shot in the dark, given the "animals" what they actually needed to live and thrive, rather than guessing and guessing poorly.

 participatory design is when users/audience members/consumers/people are allowed to enter the design process to "help generate ideas, discuss concepts, and test prototypes" during the research stages.

 a lot of design research has the tendency to be qualitative rather than quantitative. qualitative, or "soft," data refers to videos, photos, dialogue, and other non-empirical information gathered. the idea is for the designer to use their empathy for users and their context to better understand their needs and frustrations, rather than presuming to know what is needed and wasting energy on solutions that aren't appropriate or useful.