All about experiences

June

Design thinking, is ubiquitous. Philosophy, is ubiquitous.

What I think, is unique. What you think, is unique.

We work in way-word directions. Childhood allows us the freedom to think, same childhood forces us to accept understanding of others. I can choose between one understanding or the…

Haha, Design thinking is certainly addictive and dangerous. It has taken our lives, from the day, we called ourselves a designer. Yup, there are innumerable unanswered questions we encounter every day. But, sure we will find the answers, we just have to keep looking for answers, may be serendipity or may be a kid would just answer few or all the questions. We just have to sensitize ourselves, by sensitize I mean, we first have to empathize with different people, different objects to see in the way they see, and to listen the way they listen and observe, analyze and remember patterns. Thanks to gestalts laws! Think of a Rajnikanth/Bollywood movie, could you appreciate that piece of artifact, a designers creation ?, I couldn’t before, and, I couldn’t possibly understand the context, but, I have seen with the eyes of different movie reviewers, different type of class or the intended audience, that’s when I could laugh, enjoy or understand how the die-heart fans of Rajni would take. Now, I am a fan of Rajnikanth, his movies are humble, honest and show the impossible, leaving an inspiration and motivation to the humble nation. That’s just one example, that’s empathetically finding answers. Everybody leaves dots, we just have to connect them, using our imagination. Today, design thinking is addictive and dangerous, tomorrow, its just going to be in our breath. Unconsciously, its going to be embedded in our lives,in every decision,in every action and in execution, once again, in the same way, we used to do things, when, we were kids.

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April

Deadlines : Are the deadlines really killing optimistic creative souls ?

I am an user experience designer and we design digital artifacts. We felt and we feel, and we believed and we believe, few labels and buttons are the souls of these digital artifacts. So, we break our heads communicating an overview of a website typically in a word. We break our heads creating witty, humorous, energetic, innovative, cheery, fresh, inspiring, thoughtful, thought provoking, word combinations. Like a lexicographer, we research the etymology of words, we analyze and understand meanings in past. As artifacts meanings changes, we analyze and note down changed meanings too; “googling” means “searching” — one from my sketchbook. We prefer “Download free” button over merely the “Download” as the later did’nt convey complete picture; and didn’t yield more downloads when firefox put both buttons to test, spending a weeks research and thousands of dollars. Sometimes, we create new mashup words “Flickr” “Facebook” because we can buy/register that domain hyperlink/URL/Weblink. I am sure, the designer behind creating a “flickr” must’ve thought about picture / pics / pix / flix / flicks / flickers and “Wikipedia” designer must have thought about “Encyclopedia”. Now, going back to title,and this colloquial word “deadline”; I have few questions in mind. Is it a mashup word? What is it’s etymology? Does that associated meaning of “deadline” means just “timeline” or a date after which you will be kicked out, you will given incomplete, you will be fired out, you will be given a re-do or is it that you will be literally, DEAD?

Are we tormenting ourselves, our friends, our family, our students, our teachers, in the name of “deadlines”; as a reflection of the illusion of “dead”ness of the deadline ? I might be wrong, I am sure, creations of “Selfless thoughts”, “Eurekha”s, ‘bulb’s, “ideas” must’ve met the deadlines, by the very momentary instant, by very second, very milli second and nano second. Phenomenal design ‘IPOD’ met the ultimate deadly line on 23rd October 2001, few liked and many did’nt, with Steves’ vison and forgiveness apple team updated ipod on 17 July 2002, again on 28 april 2003, and again on 19 July 2004, and once again on October 2004, June 2005, October 2005, and again on 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2007 I felt, Ipod as phenomenal design, and many cynics still doesn’t, so designing a phenomenal artifact takes breaking a “Deadline” by Nine years? I think deadlines are for engineers, for managers, for commuting vehicles, trains and not for designers. A designers visions are farther than a engineer, hence this quote “A designer, with a wave of their hand can create hundreds of lines of code!”. After designing a good artifact, he has time to read blogs, watch movies, spend quality time with family, party, read art, art history, psychology, philosophy, humanities, social sciences, greek myths, erotic novels and then some activism; and again, an ability to apply all this knowledge effectively in his design to bring value to society; which a cynical engineer might think another ‘hundreds of lines code’.

In summary, my request would be stop using the word ‘deadline’, as it a carrier of a scariest thought known to human race; and rather start using milestones or time-lines.

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