Hugh Dubberly's book: Digital Designer

Hugh Dubberly is teaching an indepedent course here for us. I came across his website today and find this article perticularly interesting, a little bit old-fashioned, but penetrates my own believes.

Here's a link that you can download this book: download.

Here're just two paragraphs from his book:

What are the ways digital designers will be used in the next few years as new devices and better programs are developed?

Some opportunities for designers are easy to see: More games. More web sites. More web-based applications. A proliferation of hand-held devices.

Less obvious is the need for designers to help make sense of changing technology: The long-promised digital convergence has arrived. Your phone is a camera, a radio and music player, a game device, a PDA, and a computer. Soon your TVs will be connected to each other, to your stereo, to your game machines, and to the internet. Computing is becoming “ubiquitous:” Anywhere. Anytime. Wireless will keep us connected. GPS and RFID will identify the location of everything. The distinction between virtual and physical will fade.

These changes create the opportunity for many new kinds of products. Companies will experiment with different combinations of technologies, services, and business models. They will tinker with variations on organization and interface. They will try new things. They will experiment—and all of these experiments will require design and designers.

At the same time, the practice of design is changing. Design has moved from a focus on form and meaning to a focus on action and interaction. Increasingly, designers are faced with the need to design integrated systems. Systems of systems. Connected sets of products and services. These systems form ecologies that grow and evolve. Their outcome cannot be pre-determined. Even the full range of use may be difficult to predict.

The challenge for designers becomes creating expandable platforms. Creating tools for creating tools. Designing for customization. Designing for conversation. Designing for evolution.

Among the biggest challenges for designers will be identity, privacy, and community. + How should people be able to represent themselves online? + How do we preserve anonymity while also maintaining community? + How should progressive disclosure and reciprocating disclosure work? + How do we encourage diversity without losing a shared center?

What skills should the new media and digital designer learn to be literate in this field?

The main thing for designers is to be curious—and to learn how to learn. My ideal curriculum might look something like this.

Design Theory

• Design Methods
• Research Methods
• Information Structures and Key Models
• Principles of Interaction
• Philosophy and Ethics of Design

Visual Studies

• Principles of Visual Perception
• Rapid Visualization Drawing
• Typography (editorial and display)
• Content Management Systems (grid systems)
• Way-finding Systems
• Information Design (visualizing information structures)
• Motion Graphics
• Sound Applied to Motion Graphics
• Film Making

Design Practice

• Information Spaces
• Tools and Applications
• Games and Collaborative Authoring Environments
• Interactive Spaces
• Controls and Haptic Interfaces (physical interfaces)
• Integrated Systems of Products and Services
• Tools for Making Tools
• Systems that Evolve

History

• of Art
• of Architecture
• of Graphic Design and Product Design
• of the Design Methods Movement
• of Science and Science Fiction
• of Information, Computing, and Interaction

Computer Science

• Procedural Programming
• Data Structures
• Object-oriented Programming
• Web and Network Applications
• Building Sensors, Displays, and Actuators
• Modeling with Fractals, Genetic Algorithms, and Cellular Automata

Communications

• Writing
• Public Speaking
• Rhetoric
• Semiotics
• Epistemology
• Cybernetics (science of feedback)

Related Disciplines

• Biology (natural systems)
• Cognitive Psychology (learning systems)
• Sociology (social systems)
• Cultural Anthropology and Ethnography
• Marketing
• Economics
• Organizational Management

Comments

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