written for Graduate Design Seminar
Concepts and Methods of Interaction Design

table of contents
The draw
The truth vs. the truth
The danger
The resonance
References

The draw

A real sense of happiness and accomplishment was brought not by following the instructions on my Betty Crocker Oven for Kids, but in experimenting with my own original recipes in my mom's kitchen. And while I pretended to be an accomplished young baker, I was surprised each time my concoction was even edible. Seamus Heaney tells a parallel story about poetry: "There are times," he said, "when a deeper need enters, when we want the poem to be not only pleasurably right but compellingly wise, not only a surprising variation played upon the world but a returning of the world itself. We want the surprise to be transitive, like the impatient thump which unexpectedly restores the picture to the television set…"

Without taking some action to develop the toy itself, there was enjoyment, but the playing became a passive un-experience devoid of personal emotion. And without emotion as part of an interaction, the interaction proves to be incomplete, un-resounding. In contrast, take the crayon cupcakes. "Such an experience is a whole and carries with it its own individualizing quality and self-sufficiency. It is an experience." Not only did my brothers and I have the motivation to draw, but we took action to create our tools. It was only through the combination of these events that we came to the final form of our murals. Emotion in this interaction is nestled into part of our anticipation, motivation, and pride in the finished product.

The truth vs. the truth

Eliciting what is true from individuals, their personal emotions, has as much to do with designers' creativity and invention as it does with their ability to create and imitate truth. For designers, reality is precariously juxtaposed against the push to develop ingenious and original ideas in interaction design. Heaney believes that "poetry can be equal to and true at the same time." As a child, I overlooked many connections these commercial toys had to truth in my own life as I was distracted by their restrictions. My tension heightened because the TV told me one kind of truth, while my young spirit pulled me in a different direction. And to add even more confusion, the toys my friends had were fun.

In a sense, the toy is simply a medium that produces certain emotions as part of an interactive experience. But the emotions that develop are not themselves important, just as the individual parts of a product are not as important to a child as the doing, undergoing, and what is finally formed through this process. "In fact, emotions are qualities, when they are significant, of a complex experience that moves and changes." The experience is what was lacking for me in the commercial toys. I already knew what I was supposed to do with Colorforms and LiteBrite, but a seemingly boring block of wood held endless possibilities.

The danger

The caption...helps me choose the correct level of perception, permits me to focus not simply my gaze but also my understanding...the text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image, causing him to avoid some and receive others; by means of an often subtle dispatching, it remote-controls him toward a meaning chosen in advance."

Importantly, without the freedom to incorporate one's personal emotions, the experience proves to be somewhat empty and unfinished. As a child, I was searching, albeit unaware, for a toy that allowed me individual expression and pliancy. "Design is the most vivid domain for the cultural activity in the contemporary world, because it deals with concrete and objective results whose consequences affect us all." The singularity of a store-bought toy ignored my relationship with my own ideologies and my own community.

The resonance

What I didn't realize at the time, however, was that I was searching for an interaction with a commercial toy that provided resonance. Resonance gives a product meaning by impacting the individual in a personal way. Resonance is what keeps the memory of making toys with my dad with me today. "[Resonance] transcends the dry conveyance of information, intensifies the message, and enriches the audience's experience." For interaction designers today, conveying information that carries resonance is a challenging, yet not impossible, task. The capabilities of one possible medium, that of the digital environment, allow possibilities for personalizing information like none before.

Driving Barbie in her corvette around my friend's living room was fun, I guessed, but she definitely had her limitations. I much preferred watching my father take an unrecognizable object and transform it into a toy that was useful and fun for me at that particular time. Today, the digital medium allows designers to develop aesthetics and content that is fluid and adaptable. "An artist is someone who gives form to the essence of something," says George Nelson. "He is a purveyor, not of comforts, if you please, but of truths. You can always tell when his communication comes through because in the shock of understanding the message there is also the feeling that you had known it all your life." Products such as Amazon.com and the Purple Moon websites are just two examples of current designs that, although not flawless, attempt to integrate individuals' relations with others, their environments, and their own identities.

When my father and I worked together to create a new toy, the moment at which that toy began to take shape and become useful to me was one unmatched by any pre-packaged toy. Making a toy myself allowed me to personalize it by using elements from my experiences, while incorporating advice my dad had taught me. This is where I was able to "grow up to that which I stored up as I grew." Giving the toy an emotional quality, a certain resonance that only I knew about, made the toy the medium that allowed me a complete interactive experience. Someday I may build the Lego Space Station with my own kids, but just don't ask me to follow the instructions.

References