Samuelbarnes’s Weblog

Tenth entry. The final entry. And before I start discussing how I feel about that and other things, I wanted to give thanks to my group. Our consultation with Tania yesterday was the first opportunity that I had had to see how the essay had developed since our study session last week, and I was so impressed. More than that I was so delighted that I had been absorbed into this group. When Jess, Steph and Anja took the initiative and approached me about completing their group of four, I gratiously accepted. I had just started the course, I didn’t know anyone, and in retrospect, the possibility that I could have ended up being assigned to a group of misfits and cast-offs was probably very real. That I was instead able to join in a circle of friends that consisted of truly talented and conscientious people is something for which I am very grateful.

As I posited in the give-yourself-a-grade-for-participation session last week, the work that my team mates have done in the past month is really extraordinary. Not just for it’s quality, but also for the selfless spirit in which it was done. The initiative that Steph took in taking responsibility for the wiki and the wireframes, and the time and care that Jess put into developing the website prototype and essay layout should really earn them high marks. It did actually, with a little prompting, in what was a interesting grading process. 

As for my contribution, I still feel like I did during the session. Knowing what I am capable of and how I’ve been engaging with the subject outside of class, I couldn’t honestly award myself anything more than a credit. I did though. Averaging that view with the views of my team mates, resulted in a low distinction. Part of this about-face was influenced by the comparatively lenient self-assessment that the rest of the class were subjecting themselves to, but the final decision was determined by the encouragement of my team mates and the value in which they held my contribution.

Jess made two interesting comments in relation to this after yesterday’s consultation. In receiving my appreciation for the work he had done on the essay layout, he played the achievement down by saying that it really wasn’t that difficult for him to do. And then when I provided the bibliography for the essay he was just as effusive in his gratitude as I had been because it was something he would have dreaded doing. I found this interesting because of what it says about the virtues of group work. I may consider the writing of a bibliography to be insignificant when compared to creating an essay layout, but for someone less scholarly the reverse may be just as true. And in a project such as this one, that perceived hierarchy of the importance of tasks becomes welcomely worthless. Each person’s talent for a particular task becomes a virtue for the group, and without each individual contribution the project could not advance. So, despite my dissatisfaction with my efforts of late, my contribution of ideas and enthusiasm at the beginning, and my experience with filmmaking, were vital to the group’s progress at different stages. Of course the degree to which a group benefits from this process of working depends entirely on each member’s reliabilty and diligence, which to repeat myself, is why I’m so grateful to be have been involved with Jess, Steph and Anja.

With that out of the way I’d like to return the focus to my summary of the last twelve weeks, starting with the blog. I believe its been more than a month since my last entry, and if memory serves, even that was a sincere attempt at making amends for a similar lapse in maintenance, so there isn’t much sense in making excuses. I didn’t do this part of the project particularly well. I may have been able to write a thousand hopefully relevant words when I felt inspired –or pressured– to, but that doesn’t satisfy the purpose of keeping the diary, which was to engage in regular reflection on the project, and the course as a whole. 

The example of Stefan Sagmeister’s diary really brought this point home for me. Here was a insight into the processes of a designer that managed to be both pithy and very enlightening. I can only say that difficulties I had with keeping the blog were psychological. I’ve never been one to keep diaries; I find maintaining written correspondence with friends interstate and overseas hard. I suspect that this is because I have very high expectations for the quality of the thoughts and emotions I’m trying to express. I want to write well, which requires a great deal of consideration and effort, and if I don’t feel like I can adequately express what it is that I’m trying to say, I won’t bother. That certainly makes an exercise like keeping a blog difficult. As does the fact that I exist almost entirely in a state of self-awareness, which no doubt influences my indifference to actually committing the process of reflection to paper. But I wouldn’t underestimate the benefits of keeping a blog to the creative process of others. And in terms of making the results of a group’s progress more quantifiable, the Better Thinking group’s ‘Perfect T-Shirt’ blog is an excellent example of what the exercise can achieve.

As for what has happened since I last wrote, post-video progress report the project was characterized by a fading momentum. Not just in our group, but seemingly across the year group. The intrusion of AGideas week certainly contributed to this, as did I fairly prevalent case of mid-year malaise. I know that at about this time I personally hit a wall in terms of my enthusiasm for the program as a result of some experiences with other courses. If anything though, this really consolidated the group’s effort’s. With a deadline looming, we were all forced to acknowledge the advantages of delegation in a way that our self-consciousness regarding equality had probably prevented us from doing earlier. Some of this came about inadvertently as a result of the solitary initiatives, but there was also a deliberate division of tasks towards the end based on what each group member felt they could offer. Consequently, its difficult for me to provide the exact details of what everybody did beyond the attributions that I made above. When it came to writing the essay though we were all allocated sections relative to our progressive contributions, which were then combined into a larger body of text that I took responsibility for editing together. This was a very effective way or working, and in some ways it acts as metaphor for the how successfully the group was able to collaborate. 

I have to confess that I’m a bit lost at this point. What else is there to say? I don’t know if I can really comment on the success on the project because it is, and will only ever be, a prototype. Whether or not it is an effective solution to the problems we identified will remain unknown, though I still believe it would be a popular alternative… I know Tania requested that we discuss aspects of the course –what we liked and didn’t like– so perhaps I’ll continue with that.

What I liked most about this subject was the theoretical background. It has been one of my main criticisms of the program that I feel as if I haven’t learnt anything this semester. Which is to say, have not been taught anything in the traditional sense about craft and philosophy and such. That cannot be said of this course. I really appreciated the education that the lectures and readings aimed to provide us with, not only in interaction design, but design in general. I’d really like to see that emphasis maintained.

As for what I didn’t like, that’s much more difficult to identify. I think there are some problems but the extent to which these are just subjective, like my issues with the blog are, I’m not quite sure. I guess I had questions on how the assignment was really related to the topic. Because it was independently determined it seemed like many of the projects were only nominally concerned with interaction design. Perhaps I’ve misinterpreted the intention of the course though, because upon consulting the course guide the objectives seem to be much more about introducing us to the research processes and multimedia applications of communication design, which the course did very effectively. Does that mean that interaction design is just a MacGuffin? Perhaps, if I’m not wrong, my recommendation would be that the relevance of different aspects of the course be made more apparent.

Have I neglected to mention anything? I’ve touched on how proud I am of the group’s efforts, the blog, the course… Being the final entry it feels like there’s a pressure to write something of much greater authority. But I don’t know what else to say. Besides, I’ve written my thousand words.

Ninth entry. Another retrospective entry. Just before I publish the final entry I wanted to post the persona that I wrote for the project. I didn’t do this at the time that we discussed it in class, but later on in process when we were consolidating our research. I actually had quite a bit of difficulty writing it. However, I don’t think I fully understood its purpose. I wrote it in consultation with a friend of mine, only to get the impression afterwards from some of the readings, that it should have hypothetical.

This raises some moral questions for me. I understand the benefit that thinking about your audience can provide, but how accurate can the conclusions be? I realize that they would/should only be made after extensive research, but even so, there’s a level of subjectivity at play here that I find self-serving and problematic.

“James is 34 year old artist and student in the Masters of Fine Art program at RMIT. Originally from Melbourne, James spent the last five years in living in Adelaide developing his art practice. He returned to Melbourne in 2007 but still divides much of his time between the two cities for professional and personal reasons. This year he has also travelled to Vienna, Darwin and Cyprus for symposiums and exhibitions related to his work, and has a residency in Quebec in October/November, which will be followed by an exhibition in Los Angeles.

When he is in Melbourne, James divides his time between the RMIT city campus and his studio in Footscray. Typically he will attend uni when required, but the majority of his time is consumed with creating new work in the studio. It is not unusual for James to work all through the night, and in the periods leading up to exhibitions he rarely leaves the studio. During 2007 this was also where James lived, which helped facilitate this lifestyle.

Since that live-in arrangement ended he has been staying with friends and family when in Melbourne, and has been searching for a new place to live when his schedule allows. Being a student and an artist James can only afford to live in share accommodation. He is honest about his commitments and the extent to which they will keep him away from the home, but is prepared to pay rent just like any member of the household would, even when not in Melbourne.

So far James has been using the Readings notice board to search for vacancies. Because of his rigorous schedule it is often inconvenient for him to attend interviews, and his reluctance is exacerbated by the trend of attending only to immediately discover that the space isn’t appropriate for his requirements. James has also found it difficult to find housemates who are accepting of his inability to be a more stable, contributing housemate.

If micasa were a reality James would be able to circumvent these frustrations by identifying situations that were appropriate for both he and the other party before committing to interviews and inspections. And because he can access the service wherever there is web connectivity, James could continue to apply for, and monitor his applications, when he is in interstate and overseas.”