that is me in my first jury in design. 24th Dec 2007.
That is again me giving a presentation at some internationally renowned software company on 28th Aug 2010.
Whats the difference?
yes am wearing formals and there are people in front of me and i am still talking about my work. But earlier it is the jury panel who talked more and in later it was me going on.
Let's talk about this thing called DESIGN. What is design? i still could not get the right answer for that. but one new thing i got to know recently after Kyoorius Designyatra 2010 is that "everything in this world is about experience. "Experience" defined at some websites also as " to undergo an emotional sensation".
Now emotional sensation and design? whats the connection? reminds me of book "The Emotional Design" by Donald Norman though. yes only if i would have finished the book i would know what it was about. Anyway back to experience. Design is making new things for people. may it be graphic or a product. So according to my new understanding design is not about what you make. its about what experience it creates for the user. One might make a graphic but what matters is what kind of experience a user has while he is looking at the graphic. Same with the product. When one designs a product he should not just look at things like how it looks and works but also what kind of emotions it would generate in user while they using the product. that's what makes ipod different from any other Chinese MP3 player you can buy from a corner shop.
creating perfect experience is not that easy. It can be one of the most difficult task faced my designer. Specially when you design for India. Now that i think of it i cant remember any product that was great success in India. Why is it difficult to design for India? well India is huge. people change every 100 km and culture changes every next house. there are totally different approaches at the same thing making the whole "experience" thing really difficult to create. Designer who will find a way to overcome this will make good products for India.
So getting back to experience once again, Design is definitely not about making good looking things, now its not also about its function. its about the meaning of product to the user. the experience that is created by your product and will be related to while using the product.
Going back to the pictures i put earlier. Why is it that i was much more confident about my work now than what i was earlier? it also has to do with experience. The enthusiasm and environment i experienced during working for the last semester was showing through my work and way of presenting it. I was living in world of my project surrounded with inspiration. that is when my workspace looked like this:
So moral of story:
1> design/everything is about experience
2> You can deliver the experience to users only if you can experience it yourself while making it.
So next time you design something try living it. It will show at end and you wont be disappointed..
