Last week Gabe, Xiaoyan, Robin and I worked together on improving Nick’s phone problems. Nicolas is one of the research fellows at IMA. From the interview, we observed that Nick’s biggest phone using issue is that he tends to play his phone at night before he goes to bed. He also complains that his phone has a short battery life yet he does not want to carry his extended battery all the time. Besides these, Nick wants to improve his cooking skill and his lifestyle in general. So after finding out the problems, we decided to tackle the main issue, which is nick’s late-night phone use.

When we brainstormed the idea, we talked about maybe we can make an app that stops nick playing his phone at night, however, an app did not solve the battery issue. So we proposed that we wanted to make a combination of hardware and software. At that moment, I suddenly came up with the idea of using an AI robot to solve Nick’s problem. As all the IMA students knew, Nick is well known for his robots, thus I want to have a robot to help him. We named our product “Nick’s box”. It contains a box where Nick can put his phone in to charge and a robot which will remotely control the box. If Nick wants to take the phone out of the box, he needs to get the robot’s permission. The robot will ask Nick why does he want to use his phone. If the reason is appropriate, the box will be unlocked. However, if Nick lies about his use, then the box will be locked for even longer. Robin and I used Lego to build the robot based on Nick’s robot. The design is really personalized for Nick, and we are all happy about it.

I started my reading from the medium post “Visualizing the essential of design thinking”. The author firstly points out different models and their weakness in showing the essence of design thinking. Then based on the model that exists, he and other people create the more complete and detailed model to explain the design thinking process. It combines the model that he talks about and puts it together. I like the visualization that the author makes however, I do think it is a little bit too complicated to read for the first time. It contains too much information in one graph. What I like about this graph is that it shows the iteration in both micro and macro scopes. It also well separated the actual design process and the thinking part.

Then I jumped to the reading about a map of design practice and research. Because I think I can find some similarities in between maps and visualizations of design. In my option, a map is a way to visualize stuff and to make things clear (like mind map). The map breaks down two totally different mindsets from two groups of people: designers and researchers (which includes sociologists, engineers and more). It also defines the differences between designers and researchers who have an expert mindset or a participatory mindset. The research types map helps me understand our class more clearly. Since it categorizes different types of design research, which some weekly projects will cover. I think a good designer requires the quick switch from different mindsets because the task from each client is different.

“Wicked Problems in design thinking” is a really theoretical article that explains design and design thinking in our lives. The part that I highlight in the article is that it elaborates four areas that design can apply in real life: visual communication; material objects; activities; and design systems (which part of it I learned in last semester). It helps me understand the use of design and the area of design thinking. The article emphasizes that the goal of designer is to tangle specific problems.

For the assignment of “Good Design”, I made a book cover for a classic coming of age book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”. The book was firstly published in 1999. It speaks from a high school freshman’s perspective and tells stories around him. The original book cover has a classic vibe, shows the green background plus a washed-out picture on the right-top corner. The cover has a sans-serif font to show the modern feeling. However, the original book cover was a little bit outdated nowadays. My goal for the redesign is to make it attractive to younger readers. 

My graphic design process always starts with creating a mood board to establish my designing style. I wanted the book cover to look more trendy, therefore I decided to go with illustrations and hand-written style. I collected pictures from the Internet and then put it together as a collage. The pictures that I found all conveyed a similar coming-of-age vibe. It showed youth and high school love. 

For me, good design requires iterations. I don’t think good design only has one shot. It needs to be updated based on people’s feedback. In the beginning, I drew the illustration that I thought could represent the image of the book and provided different layouts for my friends and others. Then they said the flower part was a little bit emptier. Thus, for the final version, I redesigned the illustration as well as added the hand-written title. I chose a sans-serif font for the author to balance out the hand-written and illustration.