January 24, 2012

Enter, Coursekit

I’m very excited to share some big news on the job front!

This week I joined as a member of the product design team at Coursekit, a start-up in NYC who is working to change the way we interact through learning online.

I’m the User Experience Lead working alongside new creative director Aaron Carambula and CEO Joe Cohen. We’re just getting started after the first launch of Coursekit last November. Look forward to many great things to come!

Read more about this big news over on the Coursekit blog.

January 9, 2012

Discovering a Model for Learning

I’m headed to Dublin in February to speak at Interaction12, where I’ll be sharing my and Carmen’s observations about learning patterns.

Carmen and I are working on the presentation for Interaction 12, and I’m getting pretty excited about the content we’re developing. I’ll be speaking for forty-five minutes in Dublin about a learning pattern we’ve observed during our 2.5 years designing and teaching a high school interaction design class.

In designing Project: Interaction, we started with research then developed a plan based on what we knew. We continuously altered that plan in response to the people and environment around us. We generated a path of learning as creators of an educational experience. At its most basic definition, that path can be described as

Setup -> (Action <-> Measure) -> Share

Taking action and measuring the result is a loop.

We’ve seen the same pattern of behavior when our students learn in class. If we describe the trajectory of our semester as a journey, it would be

Entry -> Exposure -> (Make -> Demonstrate -> Reflect) -> Show Off

The journey is a more detailed interpretation of our own basic process. This pattern also exists at the micro level, within each class or project itself.

We’re still putting the presentation together, and I’m really looking forward to hearing the community’s feedback on our ideas when we show it off in February. The model we’re proposing has great potential to influence the way we design human-to-human experiences, as mediated in a classroom by a teacher, or through the websites, apps and software we design.

More later, of course…

December 30, 2011

Are you a better designer than a 5th Grader?

In September I had the privilege of working with a terrific group of arts educators to co-create a design session with a group of fifth grade students in Forest Hills, Queens.

I was invited to join the group as a classroom co-designer and facilitator by Hsing Wei, experience designer and games and education expert. The idea was to conduct two co-design sessions – one with fifth graders in Queens and one with high school students in the Lower East Side – where the output would be material for a panel discussion at the Mobility Shifts conference hosted by Parsons. Our topic was “NYC Students Imagine the 2050 Classroom” and it was our goal to find out from students themselves what the future of the classroom might be.

We had both worked with high school students before and were sure we could plan a successful session for them. However, neither of us had worked with children under the age of 14. What the heck would we do with fifth graders to keep them entertained and engaged?

Our first instinct was to plan the high school session and then reduce its complexity for the fifth graders. We thought it might be helpful for the younger students to have a few more answers than what we would normally give to the more mature students. We planned the arc of the session to provide a mix of inquiry exercises, sketching sessions and reflection, all with the goal of getting the students to design an ideal learning experience for the year 2050.

Wing It!

We didn’t know what to expect when we arrived in Forest Hills. At first it was overwhelming to walk through the halls of a grade school; none of the students was taller than my waist! Finally we arrived in our classroom and met the teacher with whom we’d had a few preparatory phone calls. Soon the students would arrive.

At the last minute, Hsing and I decided to change a few of the activities we had planned. After talking with their teacher, we realized the fifth graders would be far more creative than we had imagined. We decided to throw out many of the examples we had planned to show, and focus instead on asking the right questions for facilitation.

When the students arrived we were delighted to find them alert and excited for our session. We got them warmed up by sharing about ourselves. We talked for a moment about our work as user experience designers, and then asked them to share their names and their favorite books.

What is the problem with learning?

We shared our day’s mission with the students: the idea that we could start to re-imagine the classroom using design. First we needed to discover the problem with the current learning environment. We conducted a problem-finding exercise, asking them to call out all the places where they learn. We heard a broad range of ideas, proving our hypothesis that learning happens in many places outside the classroom.

We then asked students to draw a storyboard to tell the story of something they’d learned recently. They had a hard time coming up with ideas for learning that happened outside of school, but with a little nudging their ideas came flowing out.

One student told about learning how to organize his Legos. Another told of an experiment she conducted to learn how long a hot liquid stays warm in a thermos.

Focus on Tools as a Tangible Representation of Learning

When designers talk about redesigning education there’s all kinds of interesting fodder: communication, curriculum, collaboration, environment, context, exploration, and opportunities for delight. We knew it would be difficult for any level student to understand these abstract concepts unless they’ve had a chance to view the education system as an outsider.

We decided to indirectly get to these abstract concepts using concrete, tangible objects that the students could visualize and relate to. We focused on the desk, the blackboard and the notebook in our fifth grade class, splitting them into three groups according to their interests. Again, we asked them to discover the problem first, listing all the qualities – good and bad – of their assigned tool.

Sketch, Re-Sketch, Sketch Again

After the students had discovered what they already knew about learning and tools we asked them to redesign their object.

• How can you make it better?
• What do you wish it could do differently?
• How can you use what you know about learning outside the classroom to make this in-class object more useful?

The students presented their first round of sketches and received critique from their co-designers. Each student processed the critique with a sharp mind for understanding change. Their wheels were turning the whole time, trying to understand how they might make their idea better.

We then asked them to redesign again. Many groups took what they had already developed and created a new concept that was even better than their first iteration. Some of the students had a hard time understanding why they had to re-sketch the whole idea. “Why can’t we just erase some parts and draw new ones?” With a little nudging they started to re-sketch their ideas and quickly realized that coming up with an entirely new drawing forced them to think of all kinds of new ideas.

Students’ Perspectives Don’t Align with Adults’ Ideas

We noticed the students stumbling over how to include technology into their ideas. When we suggested using new technology, many students countered, “Well, we can’t use a phone in school so we didn’t think there should be any technology in the new tool.” One group suggested including a printed dictionary in their desk that could be replaced every couple years when updates needed to be made. They theorized that this would be a cheaper option than including a tablet or smart phone, which would be far more expensive to replace if the screen broke.

Ultimately, all their ideas focused on human interaction as the new mode of learning. They were far less interested in including technology than they were at maximizing the time they spend with their peers and teachers each day. This outlook is vastly different from the top-down “use tech to save education” approach taken by many school authorities at the moment.

Telling Stories

At the end of our session, we asked the students to create a storyboard to communicate their new product ideas in the form of a narrative. It was a great way for them to individually synthesize all the new ideas they had just dreamed up, and the linear format converted their abstract thinking into concrete terms.

Finishing on a High Note

At the end of the day we were thrilled to see all that the students had accomplished. We left the school with an armful of well-thought-out sketches and a hard drive full of video of the students enthusiastically explaining their ideas. The students left with a better understanding of the design process and ideas they were proud to share.

When we met them again for our panel session in October they were still buzzing with excitement about some of their ideas. For us, and for the panel creators, we were excited to show yet another piece of evidence that engaging kids in hands-on, self-directed learning enables them to take ownership of their ideas. They stay engaged, learn better, and get excited to share their work with anyone who’s interested in listening.

More Questions, Fewer Answers

Though we were intimidated at first, our experience working with fifth graders was a wonderful way to test our theories about completion. I’m glad we went against our instinct and gave the kids very few answers. Asking them open-ended questions proved to be the right way to teach this specific subject, and they came up with a hundred crazy ideas for new tools that may not have happened if we had given them more direction. With this approach, the challenge for teachers (or co-designers) is being flexible and finding the right questions to ask.

December 19, 2011

Ideas for a New Semester

Now that I’ve spent fifteen weeks in a deep dive ethnographic research project, I’ve found there are plenty of opportunities for improvement in my Interaction Core class at Parsons.

Note: This is a working draft of my thoughts on the subject.

When I made plans for my first semester teaching interaction I designed a curriculum around what I thought the students would need and want to learn. My curriculum was successful for many reasons, and there are plenty of areas where I believe it can be improved. I’ve spent an entire semester essentially doing design research on my students. Now that I have a more complete understanding of my user and her needs, I’m able to redesign my curriculum to better complement a student’s interests and educational path.

A few successful outcomes from this semester –

• Students had a clear understanding of the project work and what to expect in class.
• Students were engaged in the subject matter.
• Students created a final project that is worthy of display in a portfolio.

A few areas where I think the class could be improved –

• Not enough time for projects. We were rushing through many of them without proper time for reflection and absorption.
• I tried to fit web design and interaction into one class. The two are not the same.
• Students were able to understand a process but did not learn a good working methodology.
• I ran out of time! I didn’t have enough time to assemble meaningful lectures and examples each week.

What Students Need to Learn

Next semester I’m interested in focusing on nurturing a deeper understanding of people and interactions rather than sharpening my students’ web design skills. Students don’t need to learn as much about hard skills as I’d assumed. Many students asked for instruction in software and code –practical skills that can be learned from the internet. It’s far more important for sophomores and juniors to begin developing a point of view about design and people. They also need to understand their own working methodology, their strengths and weaknesses, and how those can be employed effectively in a team setting. An interaction class should be a platform for all design students to learn about themselves and the people around them, and I believe those abilities will serve them better in their current and future lives.

Guiding Principles for a New Interaction Core

Emphasis on Doing the Work
A significant piece of the design process lies in iteration. It’s unlikely that your first solution will be the right one, and it’s important to evaluate and revise throughout the process. I noticed my students would create a single sketch and then move forward. They have little desire (or not enough time?) to fully explore concepts through sketching and making.

Evidence of Thinking
I’d like to see more evidence of students’ thinking about projects. It’s okay to turn in one shining, amazing bit of work at the end, but it’s the story of the project before the golden moment of inspiration that is most interesting.

Getting Messy
Students need to understand the materials of our craft before they can create delightful experiences. This understanding only comes from experimentation and failing a whole lot of times until something wonderful emerges from the mess. More Post-Its, more digital and physical sketching. More messing up.

Investigate the Real World
After teaching in many different classrooms I’m convinced that the classroom environment itself is toxic to real learning. We will get out of the classroom as much as possible; it’s essential to understand the real world if we’re going to be designing interactions for real people.

Emphasis on Conceptual Thinking
Many of my students are able to master the tools of web and interaction design. The students who are also able to think conceptually about their projects excelled in my class. Their work is coherent, concise and portable. This is a difficult thing to teach to a classroom full of makers, who instinctively jump into the making before the concept is fully developed.

Systems Thinking
Feedback loops are an essential concept in interaction design. They are the reasons why people want to use the digital products we design. We will focus on systems as both a tool and a principle in interaction design.

The Narrative of Interaction Education

My plan for this semester was to create a narrative based on a real-world project. Our semester began with research, then we constructed a website and an app. The semester finished with an open-ended assignment that employed all of the students’ knowledge from previous projects.

The new arc should reflect the way that learning happens, not the way a project happens. In response to Tequila Chan’s outlined methodologies, I’ll be focusing on little loops of Research -> Making -> Reflection/Analysis within projects in the curriculum. His work is based off Kolb’s learning style inventory and McCarthy’s 4MAT learning system. (More to come about this.)

I also want to emphasize the importance of creating incentives (and maybe a little fear) in the classroom. I’ll be reshaping my curriculum with a significant project up front. This will give students a chance to make something right away, and will give me a chance to offer up their first grade early on. It’s a good way to set my expectations for their work. (An aside: I am really not concerned with grades, but the students seem to be. I’d give everyone an A if I could, but I fear they would not be well motivated to continue my class if that were the case.)

Why is this approach better?

Students will be invested in the class from the beginning because there will be an incentive outlined up front. They will not have to wait months to realize the outcome of their hard work. Their first bit of feedback will provide motivation to continue learning, and for the remainder of the semester they will conduct self-initiated investigations into the topics where they’ve personally struggled. These investigations will lead them to an intrinsic awareness of topics in interaction. Finally, they will employ these new skills to create a holistic, well thought out final project that demonstrates their understanding of interaction concepts.

What will this look like?

• Rapid prototyping of concepts
• Offline creation of online artifacts
• Formal presentations of work
• Frequent testing and interaction with users

Feedback?

I’d love to hear it. Get me at @pixelkated.

November 15, 2011

Talking Design in Hong Kong

How do we design in different cultures? How do we ask and answer questions about our craft across languages? We traveled to Hong Kong to share Project: Interaction and discovered conversations beyond our expectations.

Last week, Carmen and I traveled to Hong Kong to present a talk at the International Conference on Interaction Design. We co-authored a paper titled, New Methods: Framing an Interaction Design Class to Complement Core Curriculum discussing our Project: Interaction experiences as they relate to students’ development in core classes.

Even though the trip was a significant investment in time (and money!) we were excited to present our work with Project: Interaction to an international audience. We met a lot of terrific designers working and teaching in Hong Kong and mainland China and saw a lot of great sessions from keynote speakers.

The conference theme was “Delight & Responsibility,” an appropriate concept during this moment in design. Many of the conversations and presentations were less about technology and more about the human experience that we design.

A few sessions that stood out:

Creative Coding

One of the best paper presentations I saw was from Tequila Chan of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Tequila’s background is in design. In fact, he’s never taken a coding class in his life, and yet he’s teaching advanced concepts in programming to college students. He articulated his framework for learning adapted from the 4MAT system introduced by Kolb and later refined by McCarthy. (An overview of the concepts here.)

In his talk, Tequila shared his belief that creatives have a unique understanding of the world and therefore cannot learn programming concepts in the same way a developer might learn them. He has tailored his PolyU class around a series of small learning cycles that address a range of thinking styles for those who naturally ask “Why?”, “What?”, “How?”, or “What if?” Each project gives students a chance to explore the material in each of these four methods. I can’t wait to get a hold of his presentation to adapt this thinking to my own class!

Designing Curriculum

I attended a workshop session focusing on curriculum design. I’m really interested in pedagogical methods for introducing interaction design at any level, and I found a healthy and spirited discussion in this seminar. I ended up sitting next to Dick Buchanan, who kept asking, “Should we even teach interaction design at an undergraduate level?!” In my tiny amount of experience teaching these concepts to undergrads, I’m inclined to agree with his line of questioning. I see my students taking away some of the larger concepts of interaction design, but one class inside a larger curriculum is nowhere near enough exposure to prepare them for any sort of interaction design position in the real world.

The debate included a series of great questions: How mature does a student need to be to understand systems design and business goals? How much can we expect busy college students to understand outside the world of college?

In the end, the discussion veered away from the design of curriculum in attempt to answer that fundamental question: Should we even be teaching this in the first place?

When I compare my high school students to my college students I see great differences in their willingness and ability to understand some of this material. What I find most interesting about the high school students is that we as teachers tend to translate the content differently. For example, right now we’re brainstorming ways to teach about site maps without making our students sit down at a computer to draw in Omnigraffle. Can we make the site physical in some way that represents the depth and relationships between content?

Maybe what we need at the college level is more hands-on instruction to communicate the web (and systems) in a tangible way that enables students to make the connection between content, structure and user experiences.

What does it mean to be an interaction designer in China?

One of the most interesting sessions was unfortunately conducted only in Mandarin. A friend sat in on the discussion and translated a bit of it back to us. She found it interesting that the Mandarin description of interaction design was quite different from how we describe our craft in English. Not only are the translated words different, but the concepts inherent in our work are different, too. We’re all here at a conference on interaction design – conducted in English – and it turns out we’re not even talking about the same thing. What I wouldn’t give to speak a tiny bit of Mandarin to be able to understand this cultural gap!

November 7, 2011

The Feeling of Home

I spent the 15 hour flight from NYC to Hong Kong sitting next to an Italian and Thai couple with the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen. (Remembering a friend’s recent horror story spending a 5 hour flight next to a very ill baby, my own flight was a dream in comparison.)

The child slept the entire time and only fussed a few times during take off. The real excitement came at the end of the flight, when the mother became violently ill. I awoke from the end of my last nap to the smell of partially metabolized strawberry yogurt. She looked at me desperately, asking if I had a plastic bag, and proceeded to lose all of her cookies – and yogurt, and dinner – into the bag. She was not the one I expected to see spitting up at the end of that ride.

I got off the plane at 6AM and knew exactly where I was going. I was only in Hong Kong six months ago, and I was amazed to find my visual memory of place and process was accurate. I went through immigration, grabbed some cash from the ATM, and boarded the Airport Express into Central. I remembered my confusion and wonder from the last time I was here, thinking about it as a distant memory from another time or place.

I found my way through the maze of escalators and mall promenades at the IFC Center, hopped on the elevated walkway and dragged my luggage up stairs to my friends’ apartment. I knew exactly where to go and what to do, despite my lack of sleep and barely understanding what time or day it was. It was like reflex, the route was so ingrained in my memory. It felt like coming home.

The westernized bits of culture here always make me laugh. Last night we went to a lovely restaurant called California Vintage Wine Bar. It was a great little place with all the right details – great wine, garlic fries and sliders. I traveled halfway around the world to find a replica of my neighborhood wine bar. So strange and also comforting at the same time.

The night ended with an hour-long shoulder massage. It’s so intriguing to me that even at 11PM on a Sunday night all the massage parlors nearby were booked. Hong Kong is a strange place indeed.

October 25, 2011

Upcoming Speaking: Hong Kong and Dublin

We’re taking Project: Interaction worldwide this fall and winter, heading to Hong Kong for the International Conference on Interaction Design in November and to Dublin in February for Interaction12.

Carmen and I are both excited to speaking on the topic of design education in schools.

In Hong Kong we’ll be presenting our paper called New Methods: Framing an Interaction Design Class to Play a Complementary Role in Core Curriculum, where we’ll discuss the importance of interaction design as a complement to STEM initiatives. We believe that with a rounded education, students will become more effective thinkers and innovators.

In Dublin we’ll be giving a 45-minute talk called People ARE Software: The Story of Project: Interaction. We’ll be speaking about the patterns we observe in how students learn to design, and how that learning cycle compares to the learning patterns we expect of our users.

I can’t wait to share more details as we get them!

September 28, 2011

Three Modes of Doing

In the five short weeks I’ve been teaching my class at Parsons I’ve already identified the different types of learners in my class.

From my perspective in the front of the room it’s endlessly fascinating to watch each student react to the material I present. Some students quickly grasp abstract concepts while others are delighted by the challenge of thinking and making tangible, concrete artifacts.

Now that we’ve had a few small critiques those differences have become even clearer. This morning I came across a psychology article titled “Classroom Styles” that presents a relevant framework for thinking about students’ abilities.

My own thinking about styles of learning and thinking has been driven by my “theory of mental self-government,” which I first presented in book format in a volume entitled Thinking Styles. According to this theory, the ways of governments in the world are external reflections of what goes on in people’s minds. There are 13 different styles in the theory, but consider now just three of them. People with a legislative style like to come up with their own ideas and to do things in their own way; people with an executive style prefer to be given more structure and guidance or even told what to do; people with a judicial style like to evaluate and judge things and especially the work of others.

I assigned a group project for the first milestone in my class. I decided to curate each group myself instead of selecting students at random. (A few grad school projects gone awry have taught me the dangers of haphazard pairings!) I categorized each person in my class into one strength: Leader, Doer, or Organizer. After each student was categorized I used my knowledge of their personalities to match the right Leaders, Doers and Organizers with each other.

At the end of the three week project it was clear that the roles I had laid out in my own spreadsheet were reflected in the work that was done. I was delighted to find Sternberg’s approach to be analogous to my own: Leader = Judicial, Doer = Legislative, and Organizer = Executive. I would love to read the rest of his book, Thinking Styles.

There are a lot of other great insights in his article, including a set of problems and methodologies for addressing a variety of classroom learners.

Check it out: Classroom Styles, by Robert J. Sternberg.