Tag: #DI2024oct

Faith and Fiction — The Impact of AI on Spirituality and Design

How researching spiritual subcultures can illuminate the ways AI shapes belief systems.

Nika Simovich Fisher
Assistant Professor
Parsons / The New School for Design

Today’s designers are navigating a landscape dominated by AI-generated content. In this presentation, I will explore an area of personal interest — digital spirituality — and examine how researching spiritual subcultures can illuminate the ways AI shapes belief systems. My research examines how AI-generated content influences spiritual subcultures and the broader implications for communication designers. This exploration is particularly vital for communication designers, who are tasked with conveying messages through visuals and language across diverse digital platforms.

By analyzing the language and production of specific spiritual practices, students can uncover the biases inherent in AI, sharpen their critical eye for content consumption, and better discern fact from fiction in online discourses. Understanding these dynamics is crucial as emerging technologies continue to impact the field, and design is a vital part of adding believability and establishing a convincing tone of voice. Design educators can enhance students’ technical literacy and mindfulness by incorporating projects focused on belief systems, ensuring they are better equipped to consume and create content responsibly. This presentation will explore the following questions: How do emerging belief systems, shaped by AI and social media algorithms, challenge traditional approaches to design and communication? How do the limitations of the AI tools impact what they look like? How do existing belief systems get amplified through AI generated content? How does technical literacy improve critical thinking skills?

My presentation will include three distinct sections:


1. AI-generated Serbian Orthodox Avatars on YouTube: These chain-letter-inspired videos use non-native Serbian speakers’ voices and depict a Catholic-style Jesus rather than an Orthodox one. This highlights the bias of the AI creators’ defaults, and analyzing their production can provide clues about their creation. I plan to connect this to other research on AI and bias, such as this study done by international news organization, Rest of World, which highlighted the cultural flatness within AI training.

2. Spiritual guidance and developing a tone of voice. In this section I’ll talk about the research that went into my WIRED article, “Generative AI Has Ushered In the Next Phase of Digital Spirituality.” In it, I’ll highlight how LLMs and algorithms are trained to predict the next appropriate response and how this can give the impression of believability. I will connect it to historical LLMs that were trained to respond to users as psychologists, and connect all of this to how a bias can impact how you understand the generated content that’s being shown to you. I’ll also touch on new spiritual practices, such as e/acc, that have formed in this moment, as well as art inspired pieces, like Sheila Heti’s Alice, that speak to these themes.

3. AI Pedagogy project on Wikipedia hoax — Lastly, I will discuss a pedagogical case study from my Design and the Future of Publishing class, where students engaged with Juliana Castro-Varón’s “Illustrate a Hoax” project. Part of Harvard metaLAB’s AI Pedagogy Project, this assignment involved students selecting a Wikipedia hoax and using AI-generated tools to substantiate it. The project encouraged students to push AI tools to their limits and reflect on what makes content believable.

Conclusion

Through this exploration of AI’s impact on spiritual subcultures, my presentation will not only reveal the nuanced ways in which belief systems are shaped by digital technologies but also highlight the critical role of design in navigating these complexities. By integrating these insights into design education, we can equip future designers with the tools to critically analyze and responsibly create content in an AI-driven world. This approach will foster a deeper understanding of the intersection between technology, spirituality, and design, encouraging a more thoughtful and informed practice in the field, and a progressive approach to design education.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1: Boston University on Friday, October 25, 2024.

In Search of Feminism and Identity in Asia

A non-judgmental space dedicated to exploring the complexities of feminism within Asian Gen-Z cultures.

Wanjing Li
Designer and Artist
Boston University

In Search of Feminism and Identity in Asia is a project that explores the nuances and evolution of modern feminism within Asian cultures, with a particular focus on the perspectives of Asian Gen-Z women. Over the past decade, the visibility of feminism in Asian public discourse has increased, coinciding with the period when Gen-Z Asian women are developing their identities and transitioning into adulthood. This intersection has empowered them to contribute significantly to the ongoing dialogue on feminism.

The project culminates in a website designed as a non-judgmental space dedicated to exploring the complexities of feminism within Asian Gen-Z cultures. The website features conversations with women from across Asia, delving into themes of independence, culture, and identity. Each section of the site offers discussions that provide insights into how these women understand, perceive, and respond to feminism and gender inequality.

This project’s content and interview format draw inspiration from existing fundamental research and publications on feminism in Asia, particularly works like Ueno-Sensei, Would You Teach Feminism from Scratch?, which preserves essential conversations around feminism. While there is existing research on feminism in Asia, In Search of Feminism and Identity in Asia uniquely focuses on the Gen-Z perspective, contributing new insights to this area of study.

Through interviews with twelve Gen-Z women from Asia, the project highlights the challenges they face in reconciling feminist ideals with traditional cultural expectations. A notable observation is the association of “feminism” with radicalism and the misconception that it advocates female supremacy, leading to its negative and taboo perception in many Asian societies. As the discourse on feminism and gender inequality grows, a noticeable gap emerges—not only between Asian Gen-Z and their Gen-X parents but also between genders.

In Search of Feminism and Identity in Asia also aims to encourage and inspire individuals within Asian cultures and communities to engage in conversations about feminism. The project advocates for the exchange of ideas in trusted relationships and safe spaces, fostering a more inclusive and nuanced understanding of feminism within these settings.

The creative process involved blending research findings, personal reflections, and artistic expressions across multiple formats, including publication, web experience, and curated conversations. The visual language of the project draws on a diverse mix of Asian aesthetics from the early 2000s, chosen to reflect the historical context of earlier feminist movements and contrast it with contemporary Gen-Z perspectives. This juxtaposition creates a dialogue between past and present, underscoring the evolution of feminist thought in Asia.

Ultimately, In Search of Feminism and Identity in Asia seeks to spark more in-depth discussions about feminism within Asian social settings and cross-cultural dialogues, fostering a deeper understanding of the topic while contributing to the broader discourse on design’s role in social issues.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1: Boston University on Friday, October 25, 2024.

Design + Cultural Heritage: The Guano Rug, A Cultural Heritage Under Extinction

Crafting hand-knotted rugs primarily made from wool sourced from sheep, llama, or alpaca.

Maria Isabel Paz Suarez
Assistant Professor
Universidad San Francisco de Quito

Located in the Chimborazo Province of Ecuador, Guano is a town celebrated for its rich artisanal heritage, particularly in crafting hand-knotted rugs primarily made from wool sourced from sheep, llama, or alpaca. Distinguished by their rich textures and vibrant colours, Guano rugs were once a high-commodity export in the 1970s. During that era, Guano produced over 3,000 square meters of tapestries per month for international export. Today, however, only 10 artisans of this craft survive, all of which are over 60 years old. Unfortunately, the Guano rug artistry is now a cultural heritage on the brink of extinction.

As an architect and lover of drawings, I have been researching ways to redesign the Guano carpets at all scales. The rugs are hand-knotted at 42,000 stitches per square meter, with designs often transferred from paper drawings to yarn. The original drawings, often damaged, are becoming increasingly difficult to interpret by those weaving the textiles, often hindering the possibility for new generations to weave and learn this craft. For the past five years, in close relationship with the artisans, I have developed new methodologies to produce these tapestries.

To enable the preservation of this craft, research on their creative processes and methodologies has been vital. My research has involved interviews with the 10 living artisans at their workshops, visits to local suppliers that produce natural and tinted yarn, and the design and production of a new collection featuring contemporary designs for international markets.

The result of this ongoing research is an attempt to show the world how to understand these cross-stitched drawings, enabling new designers to collaborate with the artisans and expose Guano to a global economy.

In light of this Design Incubation Colloquium, I intend to share details about my process of design and research with the Guano community showcasing the means and methods I’ve used to create digital drawings and patterns for Guano artisans to interpret. At large, I strongly believe there is an opportunity to revitalize this craft. By fostering the transfer of knowledge to younger generations, I am confident this project will work towards the preservation of this Ecuadorian cultural heritage.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1: Boston University on Friday, October 25, 2024.

Emotional Engagement in Design: Traditional vs. Art-Based Approaches

Identifying differences by exploring the effects of emotional impact on an audience.

Violet Luczak
Associate Professor
McHenry County College

Many practicing designers create traditional graphic design for corporate work and art for personal expression. Little has been done to measure the difference in user engagement between Graphic Design and Art Design. Does an audience’s emotional engagement differ when experiencing traditional graphic design compared to art design?

The key objective of this research is to identify differences between traditional graphic design work and art design work by exploring their effect of emotional impact on the audience.

The methodology used in this study was surveys given to undergraduate graphic design students. Six Graphic Design and six Art Design pieces were shown to students using a projector. After viewing both sets of pieces, students were asked to fill out a user engagement survey to analyze the emotional impact of both sets of work.

To control for technique and skill the examples of Graphic Design and Art Design used in this study were pulled from the same subset of artists. Traditionally, Graphic Design is message-driven and Art Design is open to interpretation. Art Design typically aims for a stronger emotional response while Graphic Design focuses on clarity and functionality.

The designers used in this study are well-noted in the design field. Designers include Stephen Sagmeister, who designed for clients including the Rolling Stones, HBO, and the Guggenheim Museum. Paula Scher, who designed for clients including Bloomberg, Microsoft, Adobe, Bausch + Lomb, and Coca-Cola (Bucher, S. 2004). April Greiman, whose notable projects include a 1979 poster for the California Institute of the Arts, the 1980 China Club Restaurant and Lounge advertisements, and a poster, designed in 1982, for the 1984 Olympics (Heller, S 1998). Clay Hickson designed for clients including American Express, the Chicago Reader, Bloomberg Businessweek, Lucky Peach, and Refinery 29 (Johalla Projects, 2016). Mike Perry has worked for clients including Apple, Nike, Urban Outfitters, Channel 4, PlayStation (Anderson, R. n.d.), and Paul Rand who designed corporate logos, including IBM, UPS, ABC, and Westinghouse (Heller, S.1999).

The surveys given in this study have been modified from the user engagement scale based on the research of O’Brien, H. Cairns, P. and Hall, M. The scale items include cognitive and emotional engagement measured using a 5- 5-point Likert scale. Emotional engagement is measured through a framework with multiple dimensions to assess emotional impact based on valence, intensity, and specificity.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1: Boston University on Friday, October 25, 2024.

A New Framework and Database for Exploring Works of Experience Design

A project to organize and catalog resources to facilitate specific reference searches and discover experience design information.

Nicholas Rock
Associate Professor
Boston University

In both teaching experience design and working in a client-based practice, I have found sourcing clear case studies, examples, and references incredibly challenging and time-consuming. Recognizing the need for an accessible resource for experience design work, I have initiated a project to organize and catalog resources to facilitate specific reference searches and discover new information. The development of an introductory experience design course and my practice in design strategy provided the basis for a foundational framework. Initially designed to help teach design students, it was later adapted for my design work to enhance customer experience strategies. The framework categorizes experiences by scale, emotional response, and form to ensure a broader and more holistic understanding of experience design, benefiting designers, educators, and students.

Groups of students taking an Experience Design course utilized the framework to populate a database with more than 200 initial case studies. These case studies are a learning resource for subsequent classes, demonstrating the framework’s practical application and refinement. I additionally leveraged the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program at Boston University to employ two undergraduate graphic design students in the project’s continued development, refinement, and evolution.

The result is a public database and guide for experience design—a resource that enables unexpected connections and discoveries across all forms of experience design. It helps to identify, archive, and contextualize a wide range of examples, making them accessible and valuable to future students and designers.

The work was intentionally published as a web-based resource, eventually welcoming contributions from a global community. This ensures its growth, adaptability, and continued insights on a broad scale. It has been designed to inspire curiosity and broaden perspectives of experience design and serves as a unique and ever-evolving collaborative resource for the design and design education communities.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1: Boston University on Friday, October 25, 2024.

Design + History Methodology Slam

Four Graphic Design History Methodologies for historical research— formal analysis, biography, fiction writing, and data visualization.

Brockett Horne
Lecturer
Boston University

Recently, graphic design practitioners have urgently taken up the project of history-telling. Designers are committed to transforming the limited, exclusive narratives of graphic design history that we have inherited through a variety of methods to likewise define more inclusive spaces within the practice of graphic design. Yet Graphic Design History researchers rarely debate or articulate their methodologies for producing historical research. We speak of what’s missing from history, but methodologies are not discussed.

Unlike fields like Art History, American Studies and other spaces in the Social Sciences, where reflection on methodology is prevalent, designers lack a space to reflect upon HOW historical research is conducted. For other fields, books such as Anne D’Alleva’s Methods & Theories of Art History or Serie McDougal’s Research Methods in Africana Studies are assigned in required coursework about methodology. Even within studio courses in Graphic Design, methodologies such as Design Thinking and User-Centered research are codified and include substantial literature, but they are not prevalent when speaking about how we research history.

This presentation outlines four Graphic Design History Methodologies for historical research— formal analysis, biography, fiction writing, and data visualization. The presentation will especially inform design practitioners without training in history or material culture. Questions that will be addressed include: What cultural, political, gender, and historiographical perspectives shape Graphic Design Historical research? To what extent does Graphic Design History research methodology inadvertently seek information that aligns with prevailing beliefs (see Berry and Walters, The Black Experience in Design) How might present-day attitudes, values, and knowledge influence our interpretation of historical artifacts? And, crucially, how can we navigate these biases to develop more inclusive research practices accessible to all interested in history?

Takeaways:

  • Explore a lexicon of Design History Methodologies: formal analysis, biography, fiction writing, and data visualization
  • Assess strengths and limitations of a few design research methodologies
  • Imagine the future of Design History research

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1: Boston University on Friday, October 25, 2024.

User-Centered Design + Generative AI Research Tools: Usability Testing and Implication

Comparing how generative AI facilitates interaction design undergraduate students’ work.

Yi-Fan Chen
Assistant Professor
Farmingdale State College

Research is involved in every step of the user-centered design process. It aims to define users’ needs and pains, uncover user behavior, survey the current state of similar design solutions, aid user experience (UX) design decisions, improve usability, and enhance overall user satisfaction. Designing and conducting various research during the human-centered design process takes time and effort. Recently, increasingly popular generative AI models can generate high-quality images, text, audio, synthetic data, and other types of content. UX professionals have found that generative AI can increase productivity. A Nielsen Norman Group report found UX professionals mainly used generative AI for content editing, research assisting, design assisting, and ideation co-designing (Liu, Zhang, & Budiu, 2023). On the other hand, how much and how effectively UX professionals utilize generative AI in their work is unclear. The current research aims to examine the transformative potential of AI research tools in facilitating user-centered design practices.

To examine AI tools for UX research, this ongoing ethnographic observation study began in the Fall of 2022 when ChatGPT was launched. The research site is an interaction design studio at New York State College. The instructor investigated several generative AI tools to learn each tool’s policies before introducing them to students. Students are encouraged to use the tools for their projects if they identify which tools they used in their projects. The projects served the purpose of comparing how generative AI facilitates interaction design undergraduate students’ work. Preliminary findings include students using ChatGPT to remind them of steps in research method design, such as writing recruitment notes, drafting open-ended and closed-ended questions, and analyzing data. They also use it to assist in user persona development, wireframing, and creating content for case studies. It takes time and experience to prompt useful suggestions. Limitations, implications, and future studies will be further discussed.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1: Boston University on Friday, October 25, 2024.

Pedagogical Workshops and Collaboration

Engaging with dialogue, risks, intuitive creativity, and happy accidents.

Chen Luo
Lecturer
Boston University

My research is centered on pedagogical workshops and embodied publishing that encourage cultural exchange through collective practicing and community building.

I believe the pedagogical workshop as an interrogative exercise is a place where practice has no preconceived outcomes, but engages with dialogue, risks, intuitive creativity, and happy accidents. The workshops bridge making and thinking, focusing the process rather than the final results. They serve as a tool to gather individuals who want to practice together without hierarchy and institutional pressure.

The programs and writers, such as Typography Summer School, Workshop Project, Vilém Flusser, etc. inspired me to think about workshops as a place to gather discussion and craft on the need for today’s graphic design curriculum, and the relevance of typography in design history and the part it plays in today’s society. Etc. A workshop I designed with designer Chuck Gonzales, we asked students to list vocabulary related to their identity, culture, love/hate, methodology and previous work. Then they connect any two listed words into a final deliverable which is not disciplined in a certain format, but visually and sensorly engaging. The goal is to build connections among one’s beliefs and interests by considering materials, languages, performance, identity, scales, spaces at a fast pace. There are workshops that transform research into collective visual experiments. My methodology begins with trust-building exercises and instructional constraints, allowing unexpected possibilities to happen during the process. In the “Pen+Pen-Pen” workshop, hosted in multiple Art Book Fairs, Designer Bella Tuo and I made a set of creative pen tools that provide variable lengths and multiple participants to hold a pen at once. By using the pens to experiment with symmetrical typography patterns, we questioned how to create sustainable tools built upon the existing art material, and what exchange would affect in a group practice. The prompt was inspired by artist Job Wouters’ methodology.

Through transforming participants’ responsive creation into performative and installation typography through the process of writing, sharing, and moving. We explored the boundaries between bodies and language, typography and space, the individual and the communal. In “Embodied Making as Collective Publishing: The Body and Hanzi”, hosted in Boston Art Book Fair 2022. Mary Yang and I designed this workshop to explore embodied making and publishing. During this workshop, we explored the relationship between the body and Hanzi (Chinese characters) through a series of hands-on exercises to create collaborative, large-scale wearable posters. With participants who have/have no Chinese background, we proposed questions including what does collective publishing look like through collaborative labor in a shared space and time and how can this workshop create a space for cultural exchange and expression. The workshop was not only a typography experimentation, but also more lively with posing, collective moving, dancing, and photography. I have enjoyed practicing the phonetics and hieroglyphics of Hanzi through letterform writing. My aim is to create a new interplay of workshops by activating the body and traditional graphic design mediums. It fosters a sequence of processes, discourse, culture expression, and prolongs the conversation after the completion of a project.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1: Boston University on Friday, October 25, 2024.

Accessibility and Creative Authorship in Design Theory Through Multimodal Learning and Metacognitive Reflection

A course that engaged a cohort of international first-semester masters students in complex theoretical concepts encouraging self-reflection and creative authorship.

Molly Haig, Lecturer & Dr. Till Julian Huss, Professor
University of Europe for the Applied Sciences
Berlin, Germany

The study of media ecology offers design students vital insights into our culture, but like any detailed framework of ideas, these should be approached with precision, care, and scaffolding. Ecological thinking engages with the interconnectedness of complex systems, from the environment to technology and culture (Hörl 2017). Using ecological thinking as a conceptual entry point and typography as a visual one, we built a course that effectively engaged a cohort of international first-semester masters students in complex theoretical concepts by encouraging self-reflection and creative authorship.

The theoretical branch of the course involves lectures and discussions, engaging with theories of media ecology from their early anticipations (Kiesler 1939) to their defining approaches (McLuhan 1967, Strate 2017). Design is understood through the environment, or as transformation of lived environments (i.e. the Future Ecologies series ed. Löffler, Mareis, & Sprenger since 2021, and in a historical perspective Busbea 2020). Gibson’s (1979) concept of affordances, which Don Norman (2013) translated to a key principle for user-centric design, offers a bridge to design practice, and the theory of metaphors is introduced as a foundational mode of creative thinking.

The practical branch of the course frames typography and publication as tools for conceptual analysis, integrating excerpts from the theoretical texts into increasingly complex visual assignments. Students also keep a scrappy physical journal or “commonplace book” with 30 entries, each linking an in-class idea to an external one. Each student’s final publication is an “autobiographical user manual” guiding the “user” through the course based on the student’s subjective experience.

Student work revealed unique representations of theoretical content and strong metaphorical thinking, and many projects were reflective of students’ fresh experiences of a new environment during their first semester in a foreign country. Publications ranged from a hand-bound dictionary of terms, to ChatGPT’s “diary,” to directions through a distorted Berlin, to thirty existential questions posed by a whimsical humanoid peach. We heard from many students who found the course structure engaging and welcoming.

Our theoretical/practical approach is supported by an abundance of research on the educational benefits of multimodal learning, or engaging with more than one “mode” of accessing information (i.e. Moreno & Mayer 2007, Serafini 2015) especially when studying in a second language (Yi & Choi 2015), as well as metacognitive reflection (understanding one’s own understanding of a topic, i.e. Cummings 2015).

Our course offers an example of how explorations of ecological thinking and typography can support each other, but more broadly how collaborations across disciplines can be mutually beneficial, and increase the accessibility of both.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1: Boston University on Friday, October 25, 2024.