Group Project Reflection

2/20/08
Due to the differences in our disciplines, we worked together at nearly every step of the process in this project, since Annemarie and myself had almost no understanding of how Robyn’s disciplines connected to ours and to design as a whole. We each brought a different element of design to the table, however. I was able to contribute specifics about the progression of product design and examples about how product designers and designers in general have interacted with objects. I found that I especially brought questions about interacting with objects, such as “why was this choice made?,” or “what choice would I have made?”

Annemarie was able to bring the slightly larger picture of the context of these objects within the physical and cultural world. As an architect, she had a greater ability to see the long-term context of an object outside of its immediate interactions and it’s purpose. Since the historic field of architecture creates buildings for permanence, and usually for one specific situation, this is a greater concern for architects than it is for product designers. Product designers consider the context of the object en masse and may miss some of the specifics, especially about how the object interacts with different settings, as it is impossible to design for every setting in which an object can be used.

Robyn brought an entirely different perspective that was able to illuminate the basic principle of describing and understanding objects—designers can break objects down into pieces and characteristics, taking these as definitions of the object outside of its social, cultural or historical context. Robyn was able to highlight that the characteristics of an object are in fact design choices that are specific to the object and require attention individually and in the context of the whole object. A series of these choices makes up a complete object.

We really struggled with limiting our presentation, since we were overwhelmed by the amount of interaction that we have with objects and how much they are a part of our whole psyche and experience. Since objects are everything, what could we possibly talk about other than objects? There were so many things that we also left out and weren’t even able to discuss because the presentation too short. After all, we’ve been trained for years on how to understand and evaluate objects in this way. There was no way we were going to be able to boil it down to 12 minutes and make it understandable.