Music 256a, Week 2
Artful Design Chapter 3, Response
Chapter 3 of Artful Design focuses on multi-modal design; more specifically, the chapter elaborates on the virtues of designing sound, graphics, and interaction elements in tandem. The author leads us through several examples in his own design output to illustrate how simple elements can be extrapolated in to complex and human designs. In his iPhone based Ocarina instrument, the circle is the foundational unit of nearly every visual component of the interface. The airholes are circles, the ocarina tablature is formed from circles, the social globe and spiral element of the app is primarily circular. Interestingly, the circle complements the round tone of the Ocarina (nearly sinusoidal at that). But the author does not simply draw a few circles on the screen, call them buttons, and call it quits... he imbues the buttons with personality by making them seem to expand and contract, to pulsate as the user - transformed in to musician - covers them. This audiovisual haptic feedback is attractive and intriguing. It makes the otherwise cold interface - the phone, the computer, the machine - breathe with life. As the author suggests, this interaction feels "organic," natural, realistic... The close relationship between user interaction (the press of a finger), a visual response (the growing and contracting circle), and an aural output (the sound of the ocarina) creates an inviting musical instrument and application. Three simple elements, each imbued with movement and personality, form a unique system (a "single artifact") which successfully achieves "functional-aesthetic unity" as a musical instrument.
For me, the intrinsic link between sound and sight corroborates the assertion that these audio, visuals, and interaction should be designed together. Sound naturally signals movement; air particles are displaced by the movement of some entity. Movement is generally visible: you can even see a speaker cone move. Sounds without visual corroboration are in your headphones or in a dark room. And even if just to push play on a tape piece, a human has to engage in the production of designed sound. And as we experience sound, we are compelled to feel it, understand it, react to it, perhaps physically moving ourselves, thus creating more sound... Like the notion of "strange loops" referenced in this chapter, here we have a audio-visual-human feedback loop that forms the basis of the musical experience. Consider a musician and their relationship with their instrument - the press (interaction) of a key (visual) causes a sound (audio) that the musician verifies and reacts to in turn by pressing another key, thus restarting the loop. This small, localized loop extrapolates in to music itself. Perhaps music is the functional-aesthetic unity of human and sound, a strange design loop produced by nature.
The most meta strange loop of them all is that reading "Artful Design" will design me to design better. Chapter 3 of Artful Design encourages simplicity, an eye towards human nature, and the integration of historically separate media in the artful design practice. I am excited to see how following this ethos changes my assignments and design work, in and out of class.
Chapter 3 of Artful Design focuses on multi-modal design; more specifically, the chapter elaborates on the virtues of designing sound, graphics, and interaction elements in tandem. The author leads us through several examples in his own design output to illustrate how simple elements can be extrapolated in to complex and human designs. In his iPhone based Ocarina instrument, the circle is the foundational unit of nearly every visual component of the interface. The airholes are circles, the ocarina tablature is formed from circles, the social globe and spiral element of the app is primarily circular. Interestingly, the circle complements the round tone of the Ocarina (nearly sinusoidal at that). But the author does not simply draw a few circles on the screen, call them buttons, and call it quits... he imbues the buttons with personality by making them seem to expand and contract, to pulsate as the user - transformed in to musician - covers them. This audiovisual haptic feedback is attractive and intriguing. It makes the otherwise cold interface - the phone, the computer, the machine - breathe with life. As the author suggests, this interaction feels "organic," natural, realistic... The close relationship between user interaction (the press of a finger), a visual response (the growing and contracting circle), and an aural output (the sound of the ocarina) creates an inviting musical instrument and application. Three simple elements, each imbued with movement and personality, form a unique system (a "single artifact") which successfully achieves "functional-aesthetic unity" as a musical instrument.
For me, the intrinsic link between sound and sight corroborates the assertion that these audio, visuals, and interaction should be designed together. Sound naturally signals movement; air particles are displaced by the movement of some entity. Movement is generally visible: you can even see a speaker cone move. Sounds without visual corroboration are in your headphones or in a dark room. And even if just to push play on a tape piece, a human has to engage in the production of designed sound. And as we experience sound, we are compelled to feel it, understand it, react to it, perhaps physically moving ourselves, thus creating more sound... Like the notion of "strange loops" referenced in this chapter, here we have a audio-visual-human feedback loop that forms the basis of the musical experience. Consider a musician and their relationship with their instrument - the press (interaction) of a key (visual) causes a sound (audio) that the musician verifies and reacts to in turn by pressing another key, thus restarting the loop. This small, localized loop extrapolates in to music itself. Perhaps music is the functional-aesthetic unity of human and sound, a strange design loop produced by nature.
The most meta strange loop of them all is that reading "Artful Design" will design me to design better. Chapter 3 of Artful Design encourages simplicity, an eye towards human nature, and the integration of historically separate media in the artful design practice. I am excited to see how following this ethos changes my assignments and design work, in and out of class.