Week 1

Reading Response: Design is Human

From this week's reading, I'd like to respond to Artful Design Principle 1.13, which states:

Principle 1.13: Design is Human

Long time ago, when our ancestors lived in the jungles or caves, there is no design at first. Anthropologist distinguish Homo sapiens as an intellectual species since they learned to craft tools. Tools -- that's where design was born. I'm always fascinated by the stone axes from paleolithic age. They are coarse, wild, violent, yet useful and self-explanatory. We, offsprings millions years later, can tell at once what they are used for. This very first design embodies the characteristics of life at that time, while being a living essential. The concept of human is born along with the birth of design.

We can view the evolution of human beings from the perspective of designs -- What percentage of our daily interaction happens with man-made things? Imagine a primitive hunter from paleolithic age, a Chinese farmer from Tang Dynasty, and a staff working at Apple. Humans are more and more often surrounded by crafts, tools, artificial goods, and now AI agents. The almighty and dangerous nature gradually fades out of citizens' daily life, leaving us in countless safe bubbles of man-crafted design. But are we happier? Is humanity always expanding and improving along with the expansion of technology? My answer is NO, unless the design is humanity-centered.

I can give an example from my former experience. I have worked in Abu Dhabi twice as a research assistant in a local university, but at neither time I managed to survive longer than six months. Abu Dhabi, the capital of United Arabic Emirates, is a city of wealth and modernness with great facilities and infrastructure. However, the huge humming of AC/ventilation all the time, the artificial indoor furnishing plus the lack of private space exhausted my inner soul. The facilities in the buildings are well-functioning as hell but so disruptive and invasive -- the design is anything but human-centered. I managed to rescue myself by attending a 10-day meditation retreat located in an old resort in Ras Al Khaimah, a northern emirate of the UAE. No phones, no talks, just silence sitting. The artless and techless environment warmly embraced me, making me feel calm and capacious. No matter how advanced technology can be, design hasn't evolved, if humanity isn't caught artfully by it.

With the evolution of AI, digital design is going through main breakthroughs in terms of the way we interact. Yet, the intrinsic value we follow is old and good. ChatGPT, for instance, gained popularity largely because of its chat-like interactive design, which has empowered almost every task that can be formulated into natural language. Users prefer this way since language plays such an essential role in our communication and knowledge accumulation. I attended CS 329X (Human-centered LLM) yesterday and the professor's vision strongly aligns with this criterion. New challenges are lurking -- LLMs can be biased, ill-informed, discriminatory. Humanity-centered design is crucial in every stage of the model release. Will design evolve in the AI age? That's a question that only humans can tell.

Design Etude

Part 1. Taking Notice

Mouse, skateboard, techno music

Part 2. Means and Ends

• Mouse
  • function/purpose/means-to-an-end: it serves well in controlling the computer. It fits into one's palm, is easy to hold and move. Its clicks and wheel are just below the fingers. All parts are designed to provide frictionless human-computer interaction.
  • form/aesthetic/end-in-itself: it has a cool, streamlined look. Its shape is designed with both function and aesthetic considered -- an interplay of both. The mouse itself evokes a sense of futuristic technology and boldness.
• Skateboard
  • function/purpose/means-to-an-end: 7-layer maple board can endure weight and pushes; its up-tilted two ends make doing cool tricks like ollie/kickflip possible.
  • form/aesthetic/end-in-itself: with many generations of iteration, the mainstream skateboards have this smooth curve and minimal design in shape, but goes crazy on the picture/logo/color to express rebellious spirit. This is a good combination such that skaters can focus on practicing the tricks with minimum adjustment to each board, while being able to freely showcase their personality.
• Techno music
  • function/purpose/means-to-an-end: techno music (or generally dance music) designs rhythmic elements (like hard kicks, syncopation) to make you wanna dance. Meanwhile, it intentionally arrange elements in a way that induce the feeling of buildup, anticipation, and release. It provides a space to emotionally, and bodily synchronize with others and the rhythm.
  • form/aesthetic/end-in-itself: there is no better "end-in-itself" example than this fantastic techno tutorial video that itself is a piece of techno music! Well, music as a media of expression and art always has its meaning end in itself. The listening experience is a whole.

Part 3. Guerrilla Design

I'm a Linux user. I found that it becomes tedious to switch light/dark mode depending on the time. With the help of darkman, I created a set of shell scripts to auto adjust light/dark mode for KDE Plasma desktop environment and several individual applications, including neovim (terminal editor), kitty (console), icons, wallpapers, etc.. Here is a demo recording. You can find my scripts here.