Week 10: The Basic Elements of Technology

Texture

http://www.ckie.com/project/interactive-ambiance-iphone-dock

The Black Diamond was designed by Ken Ouyang, and a 3D facet textured interactive mood lighting iPhone dock. The dock is faceted and is appears to have a diamond's texture that illuminates more color and is aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The facet texture offers elegance and a beautiful form compared to iPhone docks that are white blocks. Faceted is a popular trend that is used frequently in the design industry. The texture is the visual element and in this case it involves both visual and touching senses, in order to be recognizable.  Since the designers of the Black Diamond developed this product to combine utility, aesthetics, and enriching experience, its texture has a sensual involvement to the consumers. A diamond's texture forms this product into a functional piece of art.  

Shape

 

http://www.yankodesign.com/2011/09/16/diy-soap/

The Re-Q by designers, Jung Hwan Song and Kim Jong Won, uses the basic element of shape. The eco-friendly soap maker is shaped by three different circles that ranges from small to big. The circle has association to endlessness and protection and the Re-Q uses recycled waste water to make new soap bars, which is a prosper method of sustainability. The shape allows easy-user interaction and the identifies the three-step process. 

Direction

http://www.designswan.com/archives/fujitsu-flexbook-innovative-folding-tablet-netbook-concept.html

The Flexbook, by Hao-Chun Huang from Fujitsu, is a flexible notebook that has various directional features. The Flexbook uses the basic element of direction expressed from a square, the horizontal and vertical. The horizontal and vertical is referenced from the flexibility of the notebook into directions that are easy to maneuver and innovative. This design is well-balanced, and since it can be configured in different ways the role of the product can be switched from a notebook to tablet allowing the consumer more technological options. The Flexbook can be also formed into a diagonal direction that refers to stability. 

Week 9: Visual Thinking

The puzzles I chose to play with were," The Cat" and "Counting and Triangles 2" with my father that is a confident game player and always looking for a competition. These puzzles was a great way to practice the visual operations involving "pattern perception". We timed out each puzzle to 30 seconds each and both my father and I discovered different techniques and strategies.

Above is the first puzzle and I used the techniques of carefully counting the triangle even outside its broders and looking for patterns within the cat's body.

 

 The next puzzle was a bit more difficult and we both were far from the right answer. We both counted the first sixteen trianlges and I counted two more big triangles after since the visual operation was determining the desired patterned. 

My father used a simple and easy techniques by just counting the triangles that are within the borders and of the same color, because he didn't read the instructions or realize that counting the triangles outside the same color was permitted. 

After my father learned how the method of pattern perception works he was closer to the right answer and path than I was for this puzzle. We counted the first obvious 16 and found 8 larger ones within the square. As he visually noticed patterns immediately his perception was active.

Week 8: Feature Hierarchy

http://www.designflavr.com/images/gallery/563128659.jpg

This image relates to the topic discussed last week in class about feature hierarchies, because there are visual properties that has planned out the movement of our eyes. The use of color is minimal expect for the colorful arm that pops-out immediately to the viewer. The various colors on her fingertips and the rest of her hand is bright orange, so it stand out first. The pop-out effect is the main reason I chose this image, since the right of her is rapidly and efficiently recognized compared to the rest of the image. Next the eye moves toward her mouth since her fingertips are touching it and there is a bit of color. Once you look see the mouth my eye noticed the shape of her eyes, which have depth and levels of brightness. This directs the viewer's attention to her head and her beautifully patterned hair. The feature hierarchies of this image are color and shape, which were discussed in class last week.

Week 7: Top-Down Visual Processing

                                              http://www.vanseodesign.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/perception.png

This is a great example of top down visual processing because the viewer uses goal-direct eye movement and distinguishes the letters within the image. Since the red is a contrast to the white lettering we are able to determine the statement within the image. What we visually see in this image is, "Everything is a matter of perception", which is in red lettering. Since this is the obvious goal-biased image, after we find the sentence the rest of the letters fade into the background. The movement of my eyes when I first saw this image was directed toward the red characters, because it stood out to me first. The image was designed for the observer to search within the image, and using top down visual processing allows us to scan the image and ultimately we achieve the goal to identify the sentences within the image.