This post is part of a draft for a new academic paper aimed at a graphic design journal and represents an idea-in-progress. Feel free to comment but questions on how or what next will be answered in future posts as I construct my paper.
Within an anaesthetic experience the very nature of it means that the very perception of the undergoing and doing falls below our conscious perception. We act and react to the causality as rhythmically as breathing but without a consummation of fulfilment. We may recognise we feel emotion as we experience or we may not. But to recognise and to perceive are not the same. In experience the relationship between action and the consequence of that action is given meaning through the perceiving of it. This is a cognitive action and one that selectively places the self into the experience. In recognition a signifier is enough to satisfy. A sign, a label, a familiarity that ‘this’ is what is needed to be done or undergone to move onto the ‘next’ thing is anaesthetic. Any resistance between an old or new experience is minimal. There is no call on the person to perceptually engage in an act of reconstructive doing, selecting meaning of the new experience from past experiences. It is within the placing of the self consciously within the experience that it becomes autotelic and it is this action that Visual Communication relies on within a communicational situation.
It is not a passive relationship between the graphic outcome and the viewer. The ‘aesthetics of surface’ certainly is meant to attract attention (Frascara, 2004, p85) but it is in the ‘aesthetics of use’ that the communicational power exists. It is within the perception of the graphic outcome that that object of attention’s meaning can be interpreted within the correct socio-cultural context. The perception and object are part of the same cognitive operation, they are built up together in the mind of the viewer and completed as a whole understanding. The past experiences and references to pre-understanding of the viewer are perceptually remade into a new pattern of understanding. This new experience is a meeting of the viewer with the designer in an experiential journey to meaning, and then to action. The experience of the past cannot be dismissed from this new pattern of understanding, but neither can it be dwelt upon, as the communicational situation is cognitively kinetic moving the viewer to action from perception. Perception is an act that is not reactive or unreflective. It calls for a personal act of engagement and responsively take in data from the situation to begin to understand what is unfolding. To perceive is to be immersed in the situation, to plunge (even for a fraction) into the context to see what is unfolding.
From perception comes awareness, and from perceptual selectivity comes understanding through interpretation leading to thoughtful action. This action leads to a behavioural change which is where Visual Communication has its strengths. The perception within a socio-cultural experience of undergoing and doing is causally limited. It is partly reconstructed from past experience but this become coefficient in creating new understanding and meaning to the current experience. This pre-understanding is not a bridge from one experience to another experience, but a partial expectation of outcomes that can be challenged and questioned, re-ordered and subverted. This leads to an individualisation of the current situation. Pre-understanding is a contribution that is neither a simple recollection or in its entirety subordinated to understand a new experience. This is a beginning of understanding, and perception advances like waves up a beach towards an action. The experience’s meaning is grown from the situational context, from pre-understood knowledge selectively framed by a personal socio-cultural context, toward an interpretative meaning that is pervaded emotionally throughout. This assimilation of waves toward a meaning elevates the experience beyond mere anaesthetic because the self is responsive within the unfolding experience that has eventually a culmination that is felt consciously, subconsciously and emotionally. This accumulation leads toward an objective autotelic fulfilment, that within Visual Communication is a behavioural change in the viewer. In discussing pre-understanding this segues back into a phenomenological discussion of hermeneutics, and how phenomenological interpretation can be synthesised with Visual Communication to aid the design of better interactions through a visualising valuation of the properties of an experience, long since “dismissed as unmeasurable” (McCullough, 2005, p44).
References
FRASCARA, J. (2004) Communication Design: Principles, Methods and Practice. New York: Allworth Press.
McCULLOUGH, M. (2005). Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowing. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Visual Communication and Exprience
This post is part of a draft for a new academic paper aimed at a graphic design journal and represents an idea-in-progress. Feel free to comment but questions on how or what next will be answered in future posts as I construct my paper.
The mere understanding of a Visual Communication graphic outcome in itself does not induce action. It is through the active interpretation of the outcome that shapes perceptual selectivity within the viewer (McCullough, 2005, p34). Through this cognitive processing, behavioural change is enacted through the viewer taking from the outcome a personal interpretation of varying strengths, dependent upon their own intellectual and socio-cultural ability. This intellectual appropriation of an action, suggested through the communicational situation created by the graphic outcome’s internal structure, happens within the communicational situation as a consummation of that very experience. When defining such an experience it is an essentially an autotelic experience that is being discussed. Psychologist Csikszentimihalyi (1990) frames two forms of experience - autotelic and exotelic (p67). These terms are derived from the Greek: telos meaning goal, auto meaning self and exo meaning outside. Csikszentimihalyi defines an autotelic experience as a self-contained experience where the reward is intrinsic to the experience itself, whilst exotelic is an experience where activities are performed for external reasons to the self. Experiences are a combination of both an internal and external elements, but it is within an autotelic experience that the optimal element is an end in itself that is intrinsically rewarding. Most experiences we have in our conscious day can be described as anaesthetic. For Dewey (1980) the description of an anaesthetic experience is one that does not begin or cease at any particular place, it is slack and discursive with no initiations or conclusions, where connections between incidental components within the experiences are unconcerning (p41). These everyday experiences are as Csikszentimihalyi names exotelic. They are external to our own existential self-determined purpose, and feature events we mechanically do as a norm of our existence.
Alternatively, an autotelic experience is an experience that in itself is self-purposeful which is analogous to a pragmatist philosophical aesthetic experience. From a pragmatist perspective an aesthetic experience is shaped not only through visuals, touch, smell, and hearing, but also from the past experiences of the individual experiencing it. But past experiences can at times be contradictory, ambiguous or complex. An aesthetic experience emerges from a lived experience, where the self can be lost in the moment but can return, feeling nourished and contented, the “irreducible totality of people acting, sensing, thinking, feeling, and making meaning in a setting, including the perception and sensation of their own actions” (McCarthy and Wright, 2004, p85). Dourish suggests from a pragmatist perspective that the world is “already filled with meaning. Its meaning is to be found in the way in which it reveals itself to us as being available for our actions” (2004, p116). The sharpness in contrast between a self-purposeful experience and everyday exotelic is immediately noticeable, even if consciously at the time it is not realised. In this sharp contrast it is impossible to combine the special qualities of the experience within the usual exotelic structure, so that the special qualities are given a status outside the everyday (p42).
So far this appears to be an intellectual process, but it is also an emotional, practical and mechanical process that together constitute integral components within experience. The complexity of these various components are interlinked and not ordered in succession during an interaction with events, people, objects and ideas. They do not assume ascendency over each other, but through the linkage move toward a culmination rather than a cessation. What is crucial here is that the culmination is not dependent upon the mechanistic component of the experience to finish, as the consummation is not wholly a conscious state. Within an aesthetic experience Dewey states that the experience is “anticipated throughout and is recurrently savored with special intensity” (p57). This type of experience is separated from the everyday anaesthetic experiences, and it is framed within this form of experiencing that a communicational situation is created by Visual Communication. As Frascara explains the act of communication is not the designer’s objective but designing the impact of that communication is (p13). The interaction between meaning and the viewer is paramount, and the interaction between visual elements within the graphic outcomes aids the reception, leading to the necessary change in behaviour. This interaction becomes a self-experience within the viewer once they take notice of the graphic outcome. How they engage making it a self-experience can be framed within a phenomenological flow proposed by Csikszentimihalyi. Dourish is aware that a phenomenological perspective framed using pragmatist aesthetics is only one perspective amongst others that has embodiment as a central focus. But he argues that phenomenology looks at “the pretheoretical, prerational world of everyday experience” (p106) making phenomenology a relevant starting point to account for the relationality between meaning and action.
References
CSIKSZENTIMIHALYI, M. (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper
DOURISH, P. (2004). Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Cambridge: MIT Press.
FRASCARA, J. (2004) Communication Design: Principles, Methods and Practice. New York: Allworth Press.
McCULLOUGH, M. (2005). Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowing. Cambridge: MIT Press.
The mere understanding of a Visual Communication graphic outcome in itself does not induce action. It is through the active interpretation of the outcome that shapes perceptual selectivity within the viewer (McCullough, 2005, p34). Through this cognitive processing, behavioural change is enacted through the viewer taking from the outcome a personal interpretation of varying strengths, dependent upon their own intellectual and socio-cultural ability. This intellectual appropriation of an action, suggested through the communicational situation created by the graphic outcome’s internal structure, happens within the communicational situation as a consummation of that very experience. When defining such an experience it is an essentially an autotelic experience that is being discussed. Psychologist Csikszentimihalyi (1990) frames two forms of experience - autotelic and exotelic (p67). These terms are derived from the Greek: telos meaning goal, auto meaning self and exo meaning outside. Csikszentimihalyi defines an autotelic experience as a self-contained experience where the reward is intrinsic to the experience itself, whilst exotelic is an experience where activities are performed for external reasons to the self. Experiences are a combination of both an internal and external elements, but it is within an autotelic experience that the optimal element is an end in itself that is intrinsically rewarding. Most experiences we have in our conscious day can be described as anaesthetic. For Dewey (1980) the description of an anaesthetic experience is one that does not begin or cease at any particular place, it is slack and discursive with no initiations or conclusions, where connections between incidental components within the experiences are unconcerning (p41). These everyday experiences are as Csikszentimihalyi names exotelic. They are external to our own existential self-determined purpose, and feature events we mechanically do as a norm of our existence.
Alternatively, an autotelic experience is an experience that in itself is self-purposeful which is analogous to a pragmatist philosophical aesthetic experience. From a pragmatist perspective an aesthetic experience is shaped not only through visuals, touch, smell, and hearing, but also from the past experiences of the individual experiencing it. But past experiences can at times be contradictory, ambiguous or complex. An aesthetic experience emerges from a lived experience, where the self can be lost in the moment but can return, feeling nourished and contented, the “irreducible totality of people acting, sensing, thinking, feeling, and making meaning in a setting, including the perception and sensation of their own actions” (McCarthy and Wright, 2004, p85). Dourish suggests from a pragmatist perspective that the world is “already filled with meaning. Its meaning is to be found in the way in which it reveals itself to us as being available for our actions” (2004, p116). The sharpness in contrast between a self-purposeful experience and everyday exotelic is immediately noticeable, even if consciously at the time it is not realised. In this sharp contrast it is impossible to combine the special qualities of the experience within the usual exotelic structure, so that the special qualities are given a status outside the everyday (p42).
So far this appears to be an intellectual process, but it is also an emotional, practical and mechanical process that together constitute integral components within experience. The complexity of these various components are interlinked and not ordered in succession during an interaction with events, people, objects and ideas. They do not assume ascendency over each other, but through the linkage move toward a culmination rather than a cessation. What is crucial here is that the culmination is not dependent upon the mechanistic component of the experience to finish, as the consummation is not wholly a conscious state. Within an aesthetic experience Dewey states that the experience is “anticipated throughout and is recurrently savored with special intensity” (p57). This type of experience is separated from the everyday anaesthetic experiences, and it is framed within this form of experiencing that a communicational situation is created by Visual Communication. As Frascara explains the act of communication is not the designer’s objective but designing the impact of that communication is (p13). The interaction between meaning and the viewer is paramount, and the interaction between visual elements within the graphic outcomes aids the reception, leading to the necessary change in behaviour. This interaction becomes a self-experience within the viewer once they take notice of the graphic outcome. How they engage making it a self-experience can be framed within a phenomenological flow proposed by Csikszentimihalyi. Dourish is aware that a phenomenological perspective framed using pragmatist aesthetics is only one perspective amongst others that has embodiment as a central focus. But he argues that phenomenology looks at “the pretheoretical, prerational world of everyday experience” (p106) making phenomenology a relevant starting point to account for the relationality between meaning and action.
References
CSIKSZENTIMIHALYI, M. (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper
DOURISH, P. (2004). Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Cambridge: MIT Press.
FRASCARA, J. (2004) Communication Design: Principles, Methods and Practice. New York: Allworth Press.
McCULLOUGH, M. (2005). Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowing. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Phenomenology of Enjoyment - notes
This post is part of a draft for a new academic paper aimed at a graphic design journal and represents an idea-in-progress. Feel free to comment but questions on how or what next will be answered in future posts as I construct my paper.
Within his work on Flow (1990) psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentimihalyi provides eight components for a phenomenology of enjoyment. These components are all (or mostly) present in a particular aesthetic experience and are:
#1 Chance of completing
The sense of enjoyment appears to sit at an interface between boredom and anxiety. To enjoy an activity there appears a need for the tension between boredom and anxiety in completing it. Based upon an individual’s existing skills if the activity is too easy a person will become bored too quickly. If it is too difficult they will feel anxious about not completing it. Therefore the enjoyment emerges out of an aesthetic experience where that tension is exciting, and the completion is possible with an application of the ‘self’ in its achievement.
#2 Concentration on actions
When a person is engaged in an experiential moment that is not anaesthetic, all other aspects of their life can be existentially forgotten for a time, as enjoyable activities command a complete focusing on that moments actions. The structured demands of that experience impose a sense of order in the person’s consciousness, in turn excluding any interference from their everyday worries and responsibilities within the duration of that same experience.
#3 clear goals
Within the experience clear goals of open-ended activities emerge out of ambiguities, but these are not superficial and simple, nor are they always preformed. The open-endedness of creative situations begin with vague goals that are subsequently fleshed out during the activity in a sense of exploration. Without an emergent clarity of goals to aim for the experience will unstructured and meander. With even initial vague goals feedback will inform of when they have been met.
#4 immediate feedback
The kind of feedback that is worked toward is valid in its symbolic message it contains. It informs us of our level of success in achieving our goals. It creates order in consciousness and strengthens the structure of the self. The feedback required by the individual is variable. The key is that as long as the feedback is logically related to our goal, any feedback can become enjoyable - even feedback that isn’t positive.
#5 effortless involvement
Once in an enjoyable experience the desire and purpose is not to peak and to come out of the Flow of the experience - to return to a conscious self. A state of effortless involvement is enacted but this not all that it feels. To feel that, on reflection, the involvement has been effortless does still involve skilled performance. A lapse in concentration returns the individual to a state of self-consciousness, and self-evaluation - the state of Flow is interrupted.
#6 sense of control over self
Enjoyment in leisure activities is distinct from mundane everyday activities where any bad things can happen. Within an autotelic experience where the end is itself rewarding, the enjoyment is consuming without anxiety of failure. There is a paradox here as there is a sense of control over the self - or a lack of worry of about losing control that we do not have in our everyday existence.
#7 concern for self disappears
The loss of self-consciousness and concern for their self during an experience, is due to little opportunity for the self to feel threatened. Enjoyable activities have clear goals, stable rules and the challenge within the skills of the individual. Comfort zones can thus be pushed where the challenge is enjoyable. The loss of self-consciousness does not involve a loss of self or of consciousness - but just a loss of consciousness of the self.
#8 Sense of time is altered
The freedom from the tyranny of objective time when in a state of complete involvement is exhilarating. The intense concentration an individual finds themselves in when absorbed in an enjoyable experience. Timing may still be objectively the same, but the sensation of passing of time is altered. It may be perceived as speeding up or slowing down despite pacing of actions or goals.
In these phenomenological components the four existentials of spatiality, corporeality, temporality and relationality manifest themselves. It is within this phenomenological space that Visual Communication can connect and consociate with Interaction Design by providing rich abstracted concepts to visually develop the discipline further toward the design of better interactions.
References
CSIKSZENTIMIHALYI, M. (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper
Within his work on Flow (1990) psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentimihalyi provides eight components for a phenomenology of enjoyment. These components are all (or mostly) present in a particular aesthetic experience and are:
#1 Chance of completing
The sense of enjoyment appears to sit at an interface between boredom and anxiety. To enjoy an activity there appears a need for the tension between boredom and anxiety in completing it. Based upon an individual’s existing skills if the activity is too easy a person will become bored too quickly. If it is too difficult they will feel anxious about not completing it. Therefore the enjoyment emerges out of an aesthetic experience where that tension is exciting, and the completion is possible with an application of the ‘self’ in its achievement.
#2 Concentration on actions
When a person is engaged in an experiential moment that is not anaesthetic, all other aspects of their life can be existentially forgotten for a time, as enjoyable activities command a complete focusing on that moments actions. The structured demands of that experience impose a sense of order in the person’s consciousness, in turn excluding any interference from their everyday worries and responsibilities within the duration of that same experience.
#3 clear goals
Within the experience clear goals of open-ended activities emerge out of ambiguities, but these are not superficial and simple, nor are they always preformed. The open-endedness of creative situations begin with vague goals that are subsequently fleshed out during the activity in a sense of exploration. Without an emergent clarity of goals to aim for the experience will unstructured and meander. With even initial vague goals feedback will inform of when they have been met.
#4 immediate feedback
The kind of feedback that is worked toward is valid in its symbolic message it contains. It informs us of our level of success in achieving our goals. It creates order in consciousness and strengthens the structure of the self. The feedback required by the individual is variable. The key is that as long as the feedback is logically related to our goal, any feedback can become enjoyable - even feedback that isn’t positive.
#5 effortless involvement
Once in an enjoyable experience the desire and purpose is not to peak and to come out of the Flow of the experience - to return to a conscious self. A state of effortless involvement is enacted but this not all that it feels. To feel that, on reflection, the involvement has been effortless does still involve skilled performance. A lapse in concentration returns the individual to a state of self-consciousness, and self-evaluation - the state of Flow is interrupted.
#6 sense of control over self
Enjoyment in leisure activities is distinct from mundane everyday activities where any bad things can happen. Within an autotelic experience where the end is itself rewarding, the enjoyment is consuming without anxiety of failure. There is a paradox here as there is a sense of control over the self - or a lack of worry of about losing control that we do not have in our everyday existence.
#7 concern for self disappears
The loss of self-consciousness and concern for their self during an experience, is due to little opportunity for the self to feel threatened. Enjoyable activities have clear goals, stable rules and the challenge within the skills of the individual. Comfort zones can thus be pushed where the challenge is enjoyable. The loss of self-consciousness does not involve a loss of self or of consciousness - but just a loss of consciousness of the self.
#8 Sense of time is altered
The freedom from the tyranny of objective time when in a state of complete involvement is exhilarating. The intense concentration an individual finds themselves in when absorbed in an enjoyable experience. Timing may still be objectively the same, but the sensation of passing of time is altered. It may be perceived as speeding up or slowing down despite pacing of actions or goals.
In these phenomenological components the four existentials of spatiality, corporeality, temporality and relationality manifest themselves. It is within this phenomenological space that Visual Communication can connect and consociate with Interaction Design by providing rich abstracted concepts to visually develop the discipline further toward the design of better interactions.
References
CSIKSZENTIMIHALYI, M. (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper
Friday, 25 November 2011
Book Commission - Basics Digital Media: Interface Design
I've just been commissioned to write a new book on Interface Design by AVA Publishing. It is aimed at design undergraduates and graphic designers transitioning from print to interactivity.
The book is to be called Basics Digital Media: Interface Design and will feature text by myself, visual examples, case studies and interviews to be published in 2013.
I am seeking good examples of UI design. The work can be your work, favourite work from others or student/graduate work. Hope you can suggest some?
I have a Wiki that breaks down each chapter, explaining the structure and asks (in red type) for your suggestions by set deadlines.
Any suggestions that make it in the book will gain a acknowledgement, and a link. Any copyright clearances and licences will be dealt with by the publisher's picture editor before publication.
If you want to see this Wiki can you email me at dave.wood[at]gcu.ac.uk and I'll send you an invite.
Ta
The book is to be called Basics Digital Media: Interface Design and will feature text by myself, visual examples, case studies and interviews to be published in 2013.
I am seeking good examples of UI design. The work can be your work, favourite work from others or student/graduate work. Hope you can suggest some?
I have a Wiki that breaks down each chapter, explaining the structure and asks (in red type) for your suggestions by set deadlines.
Any suggestions that make it in the book will gain a acknowledgement, and a link. Any copyright clearances and licences will be dealt with by the publisher's picture editor before publication.
If you want to see this Wiki can you email me at dave.wood[at]gcu.ac.uk and I'll send you an invite.
Ta
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Communicational Situation
This post is part of a draft for a new academic paper aimed at a graphic design journal and represents an idea-in-progress. Feel free to comment but questions on how or what next will be answered in future posts as I construct my paper.
With its pervasiveness, graphic outcomes of Visual Communication vie for our attention embedded in our Westernised waking world. From shop shelves, to our streets, to our screens and even our mobile devices we are surrounded by combinations of text and image that manipulate our decision making within a communicational situation. But despite this pervasiveness the impact of Visual Communication’s outcomes are under-valued and perceived as problematic. Some reasons for this are that graphic outcomes are judged as being too subjective, giving “the illusion of [false] benefits (…) to help us 'make sense' of complex situations” (Love, 11 April 2010); or they simply are taken for granted as ‘noise’ (Meggs, 1992) within a visual channel of communication that is so deeply ingrained in our socio-cultural existence (Crowley, 2004, p182). These misconceptions leaves out so much of the intellectual design process and the emotional and social contexts (Kolko, 2010, p102) that Visual Communication draws from. Visual Communication is beyond mere decoration of doing the 'aesthetic bit’ - the artifice at the end of a long engineering, marketing or construction process.
Therefore the interaction within the internal life of the graphic outcome that a designer carefully crafts between its visual communicational hierarchy of type and image is not where its purpose lies. This would be artifice. The communicational situation created by the interaction of the graphic outcome’s denotational and connotational meaning, rests in the act of public interaction with it. As Frascara suggests the impact that a graphic outcome has on “the knowledge, the attitudes, and the behaviour” of the public interacting with it (p13) is more important. This is the external life of the graphic outcome, and is where its ‘aesthetics of use’ rests that go beyond the issues of simply form.
This external life of a graphic outcome exists within an existential aesthetic experience across the visual, a time and a place; and develops a truly interactive rather than passive relationship between the audience and the outcome. This existential reception in time and place is of course manipulated by the designer through the internal variables of the design, but only partly. From a ‘perspective of proximity’ (Bergstrom, 2008, p32) the designer balances the semiological relationship of these internal variables - how the text and images are laid out; the choice and use of typography; the art direction of tone, colour, composition, and flow. The communicational aspect of the graphic outcome is constructed by the designer either connotationally or denotationally but not ‘set’ by the designer. The meaning of the intended communication can either be on a deep level or a surface level. This is dependent upon the initial purpose of the design, but in principal there is a relationship between the viewer and the design. This ‘reading’ of the graphic outcome may only be truly revealed over time, and open to reception on an individual basis. Depending upon the individual they may not experience the full meaning as it can be completely dependent upon the context it is received in by the viewer, pervaded by their personal “attitudes, values and experiences” (Bergstrom, 2008, p80). This is an affective phenomenon where the designer attempts to frame the message to be interpreted, reliant on a direct relationship with the person interpreting it. It is emotional, cognitive, interpretive, and cannot be reduced to a procedural process of measurement. It is an aesthetic experience that goes beyond the surface into use… and phenomenologically interpretive.
Under-pinning such a hermeneutic (interpretive) phenomenological perspective is essentially an existential philosophical ground espoused by Martin Heidegger. Simplifying some heavy philosophy I may be forgiven for summing this up as the being of being. That opens things up into a consideration of the self in the lifeworld which can be separated into four existentials: lived space; lived body; lived time; and lived human relation (Van Manen, 1990, p101). These four existentials of lived space; lived body; lived time; and lived human relation can be differentiated from each other. But they can never be separated from each other. Our sense of self - our being of being - is constituent of all for parts. We exist bodily in time, in space, and not in isolation - we have experiences in interconnected situated moments. It is these existentials that inform our behaviour and can be calibrated to alter our future approaches to experiences. It is within this phenomenological space that the visual graphic outcomes of Visual Communication communicate to the public across time and place.
The cultural identity of the individual is influential to construct and interpret the graphic outcomes meaning. Barnard argues that this is a semiological communication, an aesthetic choice that is culturally connected and carries meaning (p28) through evoking a cognitive and emotional response. This is socially situated, and within this socio-cultural context understanding through interpretation (relevant to their personal context) shapes actions affording a change in the behaviour of the viewer. The ‘aesthetics of surface’ attracts and retains attention, but it is within the ‘aesthetics of use’ that the communication is made. This is mostly performed subconsciously on the periphery of everyday life, hence being perceptively ingrained in visually cultured societies. McCullough argues that both Architecture and Interaction Design address how context shapes actions, the former frames intentions whilst the latter connects mental states “to available opportunities for participation.” He describes these processes as ambient with peripheral benefits that are not found “in the seductive objects of attention” (2005, p47). Visual Communication also frames intentions and creates opportunities for participation. It’s ground is in framing decisions (which is more than creating mere ‘aesthetics of surface’), a visual constructor for how a “society constructs and communicates meaning” for itself - a “signifying system, within a much larger system” (Barnard, 2005, p67).
Visual Communication as a visual constructor for ‘aesthetics of use’ must aesthetically be appropriate and congruent to “establish clear relations of importance, inclusion, connection, and dependence”, and then to “guide the sequence in the perception of a message” (Frascara, 2004, pp67-68). This is crucial to aid the construction of meaning that will then elicit embodied action and change in behaviour that the graphic outcome seeks. The aesthetic factor within the outcome attracts and retains the attention to communicate possible actions, enabling understanding in the individual. But understanding can merely be accepting without further engagement (Shusterman, 1992), it is through interpretation that behavioural changes are facilitated. Understanding the communication is an active process that can be personally revised, influenced by an individuals own existing knowledge and therefore prejudiced in a way that unless open challenge can lead to misunderstanding. Understanding helps ground and guide interpretation, and it is through interpretation that an individual can explore, validate and modify their understanding. Interpretation acknowledges that there may be other interpretations or meanings, whereas understanding merely accepts without engaging further. Shusterman suggests that understanding on a highly intelligent level is “unreflective, unthinking, indeed unconscious” whilst proper interpretation is deliberate, critical and conscious thought (p133).
References
BARNARD, M. (2005) Graphic Design as Communication. Abingdon: Routledge.
BERGSTRÖM, B. (2008). Essentials of Visual Communication. London: Laurence King Publishing.
CROWLEY, D. (2004). Design Magazines and Design Culture. In: R. Poynor, (Ed.), Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., pp182-199.
FRASCARA, J. (2004) Communication Design: Principles, Methods and Practice. New York: Allworth Press.
KOLKO, J. (2010). Thoughts on Interaction Design. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann.
LOVE, T. (2010) Are Visual Approaches to Design Outdated? 8 April. PhD-Design [online]. [8 April 2010]. Available from: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind1004&L=PHD-DESIGN#11
McCULLOUGH, M. (2005). Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowing. Cambridge: MIT Press.
MEGGS, P.B. (1992) Type and Image: The Language of Graphic Design. J. Wiley and Sons, Inc.
SHUSTERMAN, R. (1992). Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art (2nd ed). Blackwell.
Van MANEN, M. (1990) Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy. Ontario: The Althouse Press.
With its pervasiveness, graphic outcomes of Visual Communication vie for our attention embedded in our Westernised waking world. From shop shelves, to our streets, to our screens and even our mobile devices we are surrounded by combinations of text and image that manipulate our decision making within a communicational situation. But despite this pervasiveness the impact of Visual Communication’s outcomes are under-valued and perceived as problematic. Some reasons for this are that graphic outcomes are judged as being too subjective, giving “the illusion of [false] benefits (…) to help us 'make sense' of complex situations” (Love, 11 April 2010); or they simply are taken for granted as ‘noise’ (Meggs, 1992) within a visual channel of communication that is so deeply ingrained in our socio-cultural existence (Crowley, 2004, p182). These misconceptions leaves out so much of the intellectual design process and the emotional and social contexts (Kolko, 2010, p102) that Visual Communication draws from. Visual Communication is beyond mere decoration of doing the 'aesthetic bit’ - the artifice at the end of a long engineering, marketing or construction process.
Therefore the interaction within the internal life of the graphic outcome that a designer carefully crafts between its visual communicational hierarchy of type and image is not where its purpose lies. This would be artifice. The communicational situation created by the interaction of the graphic outcome’s denotational and connotational meaning, rests in the act of public interaction with it. As Frascara suggests the impact that a graphic outcome has on “the knowledge, the attitudes, and the behaviour” of the public interacting with it (p13) is more important. This is the external life of the graphic outcome, and is where its ‘aesthetics of use’ rests that go beyond the issues of simply form.
This external life of a graphic outcome exists within an existential aesthetic experience across the visual, a time and a place; and develops a truly interactive rather than passive relationship between the audience and the outcome. This existential reception in time and place is of course manipulated by the designer through the internal variables of the design, but only partly. From a ‘perspective of proximity’ (Bergstrom, 2008, p32) the designer balances the semiological relationship of these internal variables - how the text and images are laid out; the choice and use of typography; the art direction of tone, colour, composition, and flow. The communicational aspect of the graphic outcome is constructed by the designer either connotationally or denotationally but not ‘set’ by the designer. The meaning of the intended communication can either be on a deep level or a surface level. This is dependent upon the initial purpose of the design, but in principal there is a relationship between the viewer and the design. This ‘reading’ of the graphic outcome may only be truly revealed over time, and open to reception on an individual basis. Depending upon the individual they may not experience the full meaning as it can be completely dependent upon the context it is received in by the viewer, pervaded by their personal “attitudes, values and experiences” (Bergstrom, 2008, p80). This is an affective phenomenon where the designer attempts to frame the message to be interpreted, reliant on a direct relationship with the person interpreting it. It is emotional, cognitive, interpretive, and cannot be reduced to a procedural process of measurement. It is an aesthetic experience that goes beyond the surface into use… and phenomenologically interpretive.
Under-pinning such a hermeneutic (interpretive) phenomenological perspective is essentially an existential philosophical ground espoused by Martin Heidegger. Simplifying some heavy philosophy I may be forgiven for summing this up as the being of being. That opens things up into a consideration of the self in the lifeworld which can be separated into four existentials: lived space; lived body; lived time; and lived human relation (Van Manen, 1990, p101). These four existentials of lived space; lived body; lived time; and lived human relation can be differentiated from each other. But they can never be separated from each other. Our sense of self - our being of being - is constituent of all for parts. We exist bodily in time, in space, and not in isolation - we have experiences in interconnected situated moments. It is these existentials that inform our behaviour and can be calibrated to alter our future approaches to experiences. It is within this phenomenological space that the visual graphic outcomes of Visual Communication communicate to the public across time and place.
The cultural identity of the individual is influential to construct and interpret the graphic outcomes meaning. Barnard argues that this is a semiological communication, an aesthetic choice that is culturally connected and carries meaning (p28) through evoking a cognitive and emotional response. This is socially situated, and within this socio-cultural context understanding through interpretation (relevant to their personal context) shapes actions affording a change in the behaviour of the viewer. The ‘aesthetics of surface’ attracts and retains attention, but it is within the ‘aesthetics of use’ that the communication is made. This is mostly performed subconsciously on the periphery of everyday life, hence being perceptively ingrained in visually cultured societies. McCullough argues that both Architecture and Interaction Design address how context shapes actions, the former frames intentions whilst the latter connects mental states “to available opportunities for participation.” He describes these processes as ambient with peripheral benefits that are not found “in the seductive objects of attention” (2005, p47). Visual Communication also frames intentions and creates opportunities for participation. It’s ground is in framing decisions (which is more than creating mere ‘aesthetics of surface’), a visual constructor for how a “society constructs and communicates meaning” for itself - a “signifying system, within a much larger system” (Barnard, 2005, p67).
Visual Communication as a visual constructor for ‘aesthetics of use’ must aesthetically be appropriate and congruent to “establish clear relations of importance, inclusion, connection, and dependence”, and then to “guide the sequence in the perception of a message” (Frascara, 2004, pp67-68). This is crucial to aid the construction of meaning that will then elicit embodied action and change in behaviour that the graphic outcome seeks. The aesthetic factor within the outcome attracts and retains the attention to communicate possible actions, enabling understanding in the individual. But understanding can merely be accepting without further engagement (Shusterman, 1992), it is through interpretation that behavioural changes are facilitated. Understanding the communication is an active process that can be personally revised, influenced by an individuals own existing knowledge and therefore prejudiced in a way that unless open challenge can lead to misunderstanding. Understanding helps ground and guide interpretation, and it is through interpretation that an individual can explore, validate and modify their understanding. Interpretation acknowledges that there may be other interpretations or meanings, whereas understanding merely accepts without engaging further. Shusterman suggests that understanding on a highly intelligent level is “unreflective, unthinking, indeed unconscious” whilst proper interpretation is deliberate, critical and conscious thought (p133).
References
BARNARD, M. (2005) Graphic Design as Communication. Abingdon: Routledge.
BERGSTRÖM, B. (2008). Essentials of Visual Communication. London: Laurence King Publishing.
CROWLEY, D. (2004). Design Magazines and Design Culture. In: R. Poynor, (Ed.), Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., pp182-199.
FRASCARA, J. (2004) Communication Design: Principles, Methods and Practice. New York: Allworth Press.
KOLKO, J. (2010). Thoughts on Interaction Design. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann.
LOVE, T. (2010) Are Visual Approaches to Design Outdated? 8 April. PhD-Design [online]. [8 April 2010]. Available from: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind1004&L=PHD-DESIGN#11
McCULLOUGH, M. (2005). Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowing. Cambridge: MIT Press.
MEGGS, P.B. (1992) Type and Image: The Language of Graphic Design. J. Wiley and Sons, Inc.
SHUSTERMAN, R. (1992). Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art (2nd ed). Blackwell.
Van MANEN, M. (1990) Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy. Ontario: The Althouse Press.
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Obey the Visual - Synthesising a Visual Phenomenology?
This post is a draft for a new academic paper aimed at a graphic design journal. It continues on from the previous post, and represents writing-in-progress. Feel free to comment but questions on how or what next will be answered in future posts as I construct my paper.
I will be making a case for the development of a Visual Phenomenological Methodology within Visual Communication later in this paper. But before I do I wish to explore phenomenology’s existing connections. Phenomenology as a philosophical and a qualitative research methodology have yet to truly be adapted within a Visual Communication context. Design journalist Rick Poynor points out that the discipline “has long had an aversion to theory” (Poynor, 2003, p10).
This is no wonder because as young discipline Visual Communication does not have “a couple of centuries’ worth” of academic design literature (Rock and Poynor, 1995) that other disciplines may have. From the existing literature it does have the word phenomena is widely used (Heller & Ballance, 2001; Margolin & Buchanan, 1996; Williams & Newton, 2007; Huck et al, 1997; Hill & Helmers, 2004; Barry, 1997) to describe the internal and external characteristics of graphic outcomes or in pictorial representation. Kenney in his essay on Representation Theory in The Handbook of Visual Communication (2005, p112) discusses image representation through lenses of semiotics, rhetoric and phenomenology, concluding that a theoretical synthesis would be a useful model for understanding image representations.
In Kenney’s later book on Visual Communication Research Designs (2009) it features examples of qualitative research methodologies available to visual communicators such as ethnography, discourse analysis and content analysis. But still nothing on synthesising phenomenology into a useful methodology despite the liberal use of the term ‘phenomena’. At this point a brief review of phenomenology within a Visual Communication context would be beneficial. To begin this I will discuss Shepard Fairey’s “Obey The Giant” sticker campaign called by himself as an “experiment in Phenomenology” (Fairey, 1990).
The Obey The Giant sticker campaign began in 1989 and is still an active piece of Visual Communication as a meme and subversive street art. Using a reductively stylised stencil cut illustration of the deceased wrestler Andre the Giant (see fig. 1) stickers, posters and sprayed images have spread across cities in North America into the western world. The image of Andre’s face hypnotically stares straight out and solely features the command “obey”. Obey The Giant was originally an undergraduate illustration project initiated by Shepard Fairey. In 1990 he wrote a manifesto behind the sticker campaign in which he “attempts to stimulate curiosity and bring people to question both the sticker and their relationship with their surroundings” (Fairey, 1990).
(Fig. 1 - Shepard Fairey and Obey The Giant (poster variant). Photo: Elizabeth Daniels)
The underlying tension of the campaign is the ambiguous nature of the relationship between image and text and it’s interpretation. Without Fairey’s context the sticker has been both embraced and rejected by people in the environments it is seen. A cultivated sense of a cultish communication is intrinsically linked to the phenomenon. In a later interview (undated, but at least post-1997) Fairey admits that Obey was “about creating an individual dialogue process that can expand into people trying to interpret it, and asking someone else, and then there’s two people talking about it. Something just going on that people can’t pigeonhole along with everything else” (Goodfellow, N.D.).
When journalists and commentators discuss Fairey’s Obey campaign they usually lead with the first line of his manifesto “The OBEY sticker campaign can be explained as an experiment in Phenomenology” (Fairey, 1990). Fairey briefly contextualises this statement with a brief explanation of phenomenology from a Heideggerian perspective. But this framing of the Obey campaign as a phenomenological experiment is very weak. He himself admits in interview with Goodfellow that he wrote it to satisfy college-educated people who “want you to empirically break down what it is, what it’s doing, and why. So I wrote the explanation for those intellectual Doubting Thomases, who’ve got to stick their finger in the hole” (Goodfellow, N.D.).
Fairey’s manifesto (Fairey, 1990) makes a clear statement that Obey is meant to stimulate curiosity and questioning of both the image itself and the image in the context of its surroundings. To achieve this he claims that the “first aim of phenomenology is to reawaken a sense of wonder about one’s environment”. Citing Heidegger, Fairey’s definition of phenomenology is weakly understood, “Phenomenology attempts to enable people to see clearly something that is right before their eyes but obscured; things that are so taken for granted that they are muted by abstract observation” (ibid.). As an example of Visual Communication it is a very strong project as an exercise in creating debate over meaning and interpretation. But as an example of Visual Communication using phenomenological theory and practice, it is a misnomer.
(To be cont.)
References
BARRY, A.M. (1997) Visual Intelligence: Perception, Image and Manipulation in Visual Communication. New York: State University of New York Press.
FAIREY, S. (1990) Manifesto – Obey Giant [online]. [Accessed 20 September 2011]. Available from: http://obeygiant.com/about
GOODFELLOW, C. (N.D) Andre The Giant Is Watching You [online]. [Accessed 27 September 2011]. Available from: http://obeygiant.com/articles/andre-the-giant-is-watching-you
HELLER, S. and BALLANCE, G. (2001) Graphic Design History. Allworth Communications.
HILL, C.A. and HELMERS, M.H. (2004) Defining Visual Rhetorics. Routledge.
HUCK, F.O., FALES, C.L. and RAHMAN, Z. (1997) Visual Communication: An Information Theory Approach. Springer.
KENNEY, K. (2005) Representation Theory. In K.S. SMITH, S. MORIARTY, K. KENNEY, and G. BARBATSIS (eds) Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods, and Media. Routledge. pp99-115
KENNEY, K. (2009). Visual Communication Research Designs. New York: Routledge.
MARGOLIN, V. and BUCHANAN, R. (1996) The Idea of Design. MIT Press.
POYNOR, R. ed. (2003) No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd.
ROCK, M. and POYNOR, R. (1995) What Is This Thing Called Graphic Design Criticism? Eye. 4 (16) pp56-59
WILLIAMS, R and NEWTON, J.H. (2007) Visual Communication: Integrating Media, Art and Science. Routledge.
Images:
DANIELS, E. (N.D.) Shepard Fairey [online]. [Accessed 27 September 2011]. Available from:http://www.elizabethdanielsphotography.com/#/89542/898486
I will be making a case for the development of a Visual Phenomenological Methodology within Visual Communication later in this paper. But before I do I wish to explore phenomenology’s existing connections. Phenomenology as a philosophical and a qualitative research methodology have yet to truly be adapted within a Visual Communication context. Design journalist Rick Poynor points out that the discipline “has long had an aversion to theory” (Poynor, 2003, p10).
This is no wonder because as young discipline Visual Communication does not have “a couple of centuries’ worth” of academic design literature (Rock and Poynor, 1995) that other disciplines may have. From the existing literature it does have the word phenomena is widely used (Heller & Ballance, 2001; Margolin & Buchanan, 1996; Williams & Newton, 2007; Huck et al, 1997; Hill & Helmers, 2004; Barry, 1997) to describe the internal and external characteristics of graphic outcomes or in pictorial representation. Kenney in his essay on Representation Theory in The Handbook of Visual Communication (2005, p112) discusses image representation through lenses of semiotics, rhetoric and phenomenology, concluding that a theoretical synthesis would be a useful model for understanding image representations.
In Kenney’s later book on Visual Communication Research Designs (2009) it features examples of qualitative research methodologies available to visual communicators such as ethnography, discourse analysis and content analysis. But still nothing on synthesising phenomenology into a useful methodology despite the liberal use of the term ‘phenomena’. At this point a brief review of phenomenology within a Visual Communication context would be beneficial. To begin this I will discuss Shepard Fairey’s “Obey The Giant” sticker campaign called by himself as an “experiment in Phenomenology” (Fairey, 1990).
The Obey The Giant sticker campaign began in 1989 and is still an active piece of Visual Communication as a meme and subversive street art. Using a reductively stylised stencil cut illustration of the deceased wrestler Andre the Giant (see fig. 1) stickers, posters and sprayed images have spread across cities in North America into the western world. The image of Andre’s face hypnotically stares straight out and solely features the command “obey”. Obey The Giant was originally an undergraduate illustration project initiated by Shepard Fairey. In 1990 he wrote a manifesto behind the sticker campaign in which he “attempts to stimulate curiosity and bring people to question both the sticker and their relationship with their surroundings” (Fairey, 1990).
(Fig. 1 - Shepard Fairey and Obey The Giant (poster variant). Photo: Elizabeth Daniels)
The underlying tension of the campaign is the ambiguous nature of the relationship between image and text and it’s interpretation. Without Fairey’s context the sticker has been both embraced and rejected by people in the environments it is seen. A cultivated sense of a cultish communication is intrinsically linked to the phenomenon. In a later interview (undated, but at least post-1997) Fairey admits that Obey was “about creating an individual dialogue process that can expand into people trying to interpret it, and asking someone else, and then there’s two people talking about it. Something just going on that people can’t pigeonhole along with everything else” (Goodfellow, N.D.).
When journalists and commentators discuss Fairey’s Obey campaign they usually lead with the first line of his manifesto “The OBEY sticker campaign can be explained as an experiment in Phenomenology” (Fairey, 1990). Fairey briefly contextualises this statement with a brief explanation of phenomenology from a Heideggerian perspective. But this framing of the Obey campaign as a phenomenological experiment is very weak. He himself admits in interview with Goodfellow that he wrote it to satisfy college-educated people who “want you to empirically break down what it is, what it’s doing, and why. So I wrote the explanation for those intellectual Doubting Thomases, who’ve got to stick their finger in the hole” (Goodfellow, N.D.).
Fairey’s manifesto (Fairey, 1990) makes a clear statement that Obey is meant to stimulate curiosity and questioning of both the image itself and the image in the context of its surroundings. To achieve this he claims that the “first aim of phenomenology is to reawaken a sense of wonder about one’s environment”. Citing Heidegger, Fairey’s definition of phenomenology is weakly understood, “Phenomenology attempts to enable people to see clearly something that is right before their eyes but obscured; things that are so taken for granted that they are muted by abstract observation” (ibid.). As an example of Visual Communication it is a very strong project as an exercise in creating debate over meaning and interpretation. But as an example of Visual Communication using phenomenological theory and practice, it is a misnomer.
(To be cont.)
References
BARRY, A.M. (1997) Visual Intelligence: Perception, Image and Manipulation in Visual Communication. New York: State University of New York Press.
FAIREY, S. (1990) Manifesto – Obey Giant [online]. [Accessed 20 September 2011]. Available from: http://obeygiant.com/about
GOODFELLOW, C. (N.D) Andre The Giant Is Watching You [online]. [Accessed 27 September 2011]. Available from: http://obeygiant.com/articles/andre-the-giant-is-watching-you
HELLER, S. and BALLANCE, G. (2001) Graphic Design History. Allworth Communications.
HILL, C.A. and HELMERS, M.H. (2004) Defining Visual Rhetorics. Routledge.
HUCK, F.O., FALES, C.L. and RAHMAN, Z. (1997) Visual Communication: An Information Theory Approach. Springer.
KENNEY, K. (2005) Representation Theory. In K.S. SMITH, S. MORIARTY, K. KENNEY, and G. BARBATSIS (eds) Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods, and Media. Routledge. pp99-115
KENNEY, K. (2009). Visual Communication Research Designs. New York: Routledge.
MARGOLIN, V. and BUCHANAN, R. (1996) The Idea of Design. MIT Press.
POYNOR, R. ed. (2003) No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd.
ROCK, M. and POYNOR, R. (1995) What Is This Thing Called Graphic Design Criticism? Eye. 4 (16) pp56-59
WILLIAMS, R and NEWTON, J.H. (2007) Visual Communication: Integrating Media, Art and Science. Routledge.
Images:
DANIELS, E. (N.D.) Shepard Fairey [online]. [Accessed 27 September 2011]. Available from:http://www.elizabethdanielsphotography.com/#/89542/898486
Monday, 19 September 2011
Moving Across Boundaries REDUX - Dwiggins, Frascara and Cement (2nd edition)
This post is a draft of an introduction for a new academic paper aimed at a graphic design journal. It continues on from the previous post, and represents writing-in-progress. Feel free to comment but questions on how or what next will be answered in future posts as I construct my paper.
Before I begin this (see previous post) I want to establish a context to the problem and solution that I propose Visual Communication as a discipline can address. To do this I first wish to unpack what I mean as ‘aesthetics of surface’ and to establish what I mean by the ‘aesthetics of use’. This will be crucial for the main thrust of this paper’s thesis.
Firstly I want to define my use of Visual Communication as the disciplinary name. The term ‘Graphic Design’ was coined in 1922 by American typographer and printer William A. Dwiggins “to confer a loftier professional standing” (Heller, 2006, p10). In doing so graphic designers were raised from artisan to professional designer, predominantly servicing the commercial world. This new term also 'cemented’ graphic designers into a fixed narrow view of their socio-cultural contribution to contemporary visual culture, that was unfairly denigrated by others as "decorationists/dictators of style" (Laurel, 2003). Design critic Rick Poynor reminds us that the Modernist progenitors of the discipline such as Rodchenko, Lissitzky and Moholy-Nagy had naturally “moved freely across the boundaries” in the twenties and thirties “that later, more professionally-minded generations attempted to cement in place” (Poynor, 2004).
In 1999 Poynor made a statement that if, at the close of the twentieth century, the term Graphic Design had become too rigid it was “partly because it sounds like a largely technical procedure, but particularly because it fails to suggest the expanded possibilities of contemporary visual culture” (Poynor, 1999, p28). I argue that the term of graphic designer or graphic design is too narrow to describe the actual discipline that produces graphic forms of communication through the manipulation of the relationship between text | image. The outcomes of the design discipline have been more than graphic design, as it also encompasses illustration and now design for motion and interaction.
Since the end of the twentieth century the discipline has been undergoing true re-evaluation of it’s outcomes and boundaries. Therefore I follow Jorge Frascara’s use of the term Visual Communication as the purer definition of the creative design discipline, as it places the emphasis upon the method [design], the objective [communication] and the medium [visual], rather than just the creation of graphic forms [outcomes] (Frascara, 2004, p4). Frascara argues that the discipline of Visual Communication was deeper and richer than just the perceived design of the ‘artifice’, and it’s designers were more than mere creative facilitators of the ‘aesthetics of surface’ but facilitators of behavioural change. He suggests that the heart of Visual Communication is not the design of visual elements as artifice or surface, but the design of a “communicational situation” within which the design outcome impacts on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of its receiving audience.
The composition of aesthetic elements that rightly absorbs the attention of graphic designers is merely surface, tools and processes. It belies the actual true disciplinary strength of designing a communicational event through graphic outcomes that affect the “knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour of people” (ibid., p13) over time and space. Such a relational configuration of image and text affecting behaviour is reliant on a direct relationship with the person interpreting the graphic outcome. This relationship is situated within the internal and external life of the graphic outcome - within “itself, the medium, the place and the time” (Bergstrom, 2008, p82). This is where my argument for Visual Communication contributing more than what is usually expected beyond mere ‘aesthetics of surface’ through a communicational situation into a communicational event within the ‘aesthetics of use’. A way of achieving this, I will argue rests in a phenomenological methodology.
References
BERGSTRÖM, B (2008) Essentials of Visual Communication. London: Laurence King Pub.
BRUINSMA, M. and VAN DER MEULEN, S. (2003) Deep Sites: Intelligent Innovation in Contemporary Web Design. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.
BURGOYNE, P. (2002) GB: Graphic Britain. London: Laurence King Publishing.
FRASCARA, J. (2004) Communication Design: Principles, Methods and Practice. New York: Allworth Press.
HELLER, S. (2006) Better Skills Through Better Research. In: A. BENNETT, ed. Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design - A Reader. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, p10-13
LAUREL, B. ed (2003) Design Research: Methods and Perspectives. London: MIT Press.
MACDONALD, N. (2004) British Web Design: A Brief History. In: R. POYNOR, ed. Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., pp200-215.
POYNOR, R. (1999) Made in Britain: The Ambiguous Image. In N. BARLEY et al. Lost and Found: Critical Voices in New British Design. London: Birkhauser Verlag AG/The British Council. Pp 28-31
POYNOR, R. (2004) Spirit of Independence. In: R. POYNOR, ed. Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., pp.12-47
Before I begin this (see previous post) I want to establish a context to the problem and solution that I propose Visual Communication as a discipline can address. To do this I first wish to unpack what I mean as ‘aesthetics of surface’ and to establish what I mean by the ‘aesthetics of use’. This will be crucial for the main thrust of this paper’s thesis.
Firstly I want to define my use of Visual Communication as the disciplinary name. The term ‘Graphic Design’ was coined in 1922 by American typographer and printer William A. Dwiggins “to confer a loftier professional standing” (Heller, 2006, p10). In doing so graphic designers were raised from artisan to professional designer, predominantly servicing the commercial world. This new term also 'cemented’ graphic designers into a fixed narrow view of their socio-cultural contribution to contemporary visual culture, that was unfairly denigrated by others as "decorationists/dictators of style" (Laurel, 2003). Design critic Rick Poynor reminds us that the Modernist progenitors of the discipline such as Rodchenko, Lissitzky and Moholy-Nagy had naturally “moved freely across the boundaries” in the twenties and thirties “that later, more professionally-minded generations attempted to cement in place” (Poynor, 2004).
In 1999 Poynor made a statement that if, at the close of the twentieth century, the term Graphic Design had become too rigid it was “partly because it sounds like a largely technical procedure, but particularly because it fails to suggest the expanded possibilities of contemporary visual culture” (Poynor, 1999, p28). I argue that the term of graphic designer or graphic design is too narrow to describe the actual discipline that produces graphic forms of communication through the manipulation of the relationship between text | image. The outcomes of the design discipline have been more than graphic design, as it also encompasses illustration and now design for motion and interaction.
Since the end of the twentieth century the discipline has been undergoing true re-evaluation of it’s outcomes and boundaries. Therefore I follow Jorge Frascara’s use of the term Visual Communication as the purer definition of the creative design discipline, as it places the emphasis upon the method [design], the objective [communication] and the medium [visual], rather than just the creation of graphic forms [outcomes] (Frascara, 2004, p4). Frascara argues that the discipline of Visual Communication was deeper and richer than just the perceived design of the ‘artifice’, and it’s designers were more than mere creative facilitators of the ‘aesthetics of surface’ but facilitators of behavioural change. He suggests that the heart of Visual Communication is not the design of visual elements as artifice or surface, but the design of a “communicational situation” within which the design outcome impacts on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of its receiving audience.
The composition of aesthetic elements that rightly absorbs the attention of graphic designers is merely surface, tools and processes. It belies the actual true disciplinary strength of designing a communicational event through graphic outcomes that affect the “knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour of people” (ibid., p13) over time and space. Such a relational configuration of image and text affecting behaviour is reliant on a direct relationship with the person interpreting the graphic outcome. This relationship is situated within the internal and external life of the graphic outcome - within “itself, the medium, the place and the time” (Bergstrom, 2008, p82). This is where my argument for Visual Communication contributing more than what is usually expected beyond mere ‘aesthetics of surface’ through a communicational situation into a communicational event within the ‘aesthetics of use’. A way of achieving this, I will argue rests in a phenomenological methodology.
References
BERGSTRÖM, B (2008) Essentials of Visual Communication. London: Laurence King Pub.
BRUINSMA, M. and VAN DER MEULEN, S. (2003) Deep Sites: Intelligent Innovation in Contemporary Web Design. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.
BURGOYNE, P. (2002) GB: Graphic Britain. London: Laurence King Publishing.
FRASCARA, J. (2004) Communication Design: Principles, Methods and Practice. New York: Allworth Press.
HELLER, S. (2006) Better Skills Through Better Research. In: A. BENNETT, ed. Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design - A Reader. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, p10-13
LAUREL, B. ed (2003) Design Research: Methods and Perspectives. London: MIT Press.
MACDONALD, N. (2004) British Web Design: A Brief History. In: R. POYNOR, ed. Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., pp200-215.
POYNOR, R. (1999) Made in Britain: The Ambiguous Image. In N. BARLEY et al. Lost and Found: Critical Voices in New British Design. London: Birkhauser Verlag AG/The British Council. Pp 28-31
POYNOR, R. (2004) Spirit of Independence. In: R. POYNOR, ed. Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., pp.12-47
Saturday, 17 September 2011
Moving Across Boundaries - Dwiggins, Frascara and Cement
This post is a draft of an introduction for a new academic paper aimed at a graphic design journal. A rewritten version of this draft is featured in the next post.
Before I begin this (see previous post) I first need to establish a context to the problem and solution I propose that Visual Communication can address. To do this I first wish to unpack what I mean as ‘aesthetics of surface’ and to establish what I mean by the ‘aesthetics of use’. This will be crucial for the main thrust of this paper’s thesis. Firstly I want to explain my use of the disciplinary term of Visual Communication. The term ‘Graphic Design’ was coined in 1922 by American typographer and printer William A. Dwiggins “to confer a loftier professional standing” (Heller, 2006). In doing so graphic designers were raised to a profession predominantly servicing the commercial world, but it had also 'cemented’ them into a fixed view of their contribution that was unfairly denigrated as "decorationists/dictators of style" (Laurel, 2003).
In 1999 design critic Rick Poynor made a statement in an essay in the book Made in Britain. At the close of the 20th century he commented that if the term Graphic Design had become a too rigid term it was “partly because it sounds like a largely technical procedure, but particularly because it fails to suggest the expanded possibilities of contemporary visual culture” (Poynor, 1999, p28). He expands on this further in another essay in 2004, giving some indication that the discipline of Visual Communication was more than mere creative facilitators of the ‘aesthetics of surface’ merely creating pretty business stationary or adverts. Poynor reminds us that the Modernist progenitors of the discipline such as Rodchenko, Lissitzky and Moholy-Nagy had naturally “moved freely across the boundaries” in the twenties and thirties “that later, more professionally-minded generations attempted to cement in place” (Poynor, 2004). I argue that the term of graphic designer or graphic design is too narrow to describe the discipline.
Therefore I follow Jorge Frascara’s use of the term Visual Communication as the purer definition of the creative design discipline that produces graphic forms of communication through the manipulation of the relationship between text | image. Visual Communication places the emphasis upon the method [design], the objective [communication] and the medium [visual], rather than just the creation of graphic forms [outcomes] (Frascara, 2004, p4). The outcomes of Visual Communication have been more than graphic design, as it also encompasses illustration and now design for motion and interaction. Since the end of the 20th century the pure discipline of Visual Communication has been undergoing true re-evaluation, and positively can be viewed as a re-strengthening of its disciplinary roots in communication.
This is in part attributed to Visual Communication’s roots of ‘moving across boundaries’, knowing no bounds when adapting to the design within other forms of media beyond print. Some momentum and professional ground had been lost in the 1990s due to reticence of ‘cemented’ on trying to control the design process and the visual outcomes of new media that called for dynamic rather than static design solutions (Bruinsma and Van Der Meulen, 2003; Burgoyne, 2002; MacDonald, 2004). A different ‘mind-set’ that knew no bounds when it came to working with other forms of media was needed, that reflects the true “open”, “diverse”, “inclusive” and “inventive” heart of the discipline (Poynor, 2004) that constantly challenged its own established ‘rules’. These new designers chose to design for interactivity accepting a new mind-set that the user is king. They learnt to collaborate within multi-disciplinary teams of experts with different skill-sets to achieve solutions that contributed to the ‘aesthetics of use’.
References
BRUINSMA, M. and VAN DER MEULEN, S. (2003) Deep Sites: Intelligent Innovation in Contemporary Web Design. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.
BURGOYNE, P. (2002) GB: Graphic Britain. London: Laurence King Publishing.
FRASCARA, J. (2004) Communication Design: Principles, Methods and Practice. New York: Allworth Press.
HELLER, S. (2006) Better Skills Through Better Research. In: A. BENNETT, ed. Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design - A Reader. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, p10-13
LAUREL, B. ed (2003) Design Research: Methods and Perspectives. London: MIT Press.
MACDONALD, N. (2004) British Web Design: A Brief History. In: R. POYNOR, ed. Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., pp200-215.
POYNOR, R. (1999) Made in Britain: The Ambiguous Image. In N. BARLEY et al. Lost and Found: Critical Voices in New British Design. London: Birkhauser Verlag AG/The British Council. Pp 28-31
POYNOR, R. (2004) Spirit of Independence. In: R. POYNOR, ed. Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., pp.12-47
Before I begin this (see previous post) I first need to establish a context to the problem and solution I propose that Visual Communication can address. To do this I first wish to unpack what I mean as ‘aesthetics of surface’ and to establish what I mean by the ‘aesthetics of use’. This will be crucial for the main thrust of this paper’s thesis. Firstly I want to explain my use of the disciplinary term of Visual Communication. The term ‘Graphic Design’ was coined in 1922 by American typographer and printer William A. Dwiggins “to confer a loftier professional standing” (Heller, 2006). In doing so graphic designers were raised to a profession predominantly servicing the commercial world, but it had also 'cemented’ them into a fixed view of their contribution that was unfairly denigrated as "decorationists/dictators of style" (Laurel, 2003).
In 1999 design critic Rick Poynor made a statement in an essay in the book Made in Britain. At the close of the 20th century he commented that if the term Graphic Design had become a too rigid term it was “partly because it sounds like a largely technical procedure, but particularly because it fails to suggest the expanded possibilities of contemporary visual culture” (Poynor, 1999, p28). He expands on this further in another essay in 2004, giving some indication that the discipline of Visual Communication was more than mere creative facilitators of the ‘aesthetics of surface’ merely creating pretty business stationary or adverts. Poynor reminds us that the Modernist progenitors of the discipline such as Rodchenko, Lissitzky and Moholy-Nagy had naturally “moved freely across the boundaries” in the twenties and thirties “that later, more professionally-minded generations attempted to cement in place” (Poynor, 2004). I argue that the term of graphic designer or graphic design is too narrow to describe the discipline.
Therefore I follow Jorge Frascara’s use of the term Visual Communication as the purer definition of the creative design discipline that produces graphic forms of communication through the manipulation of the relationship between text | image. Visual Communication places the emphasis upon the method [design], the objective [communication] and the medium [visual], rather than just the creation of graphic forms [outcomes] (Frascara, 2004, p4). The outcomes of Visual Communication have been more than graphic design, as it also encompasses illustration and now design for motion and interaction. Since the end of the 20th century the pure discipline of Visual Communication has been undergoing true re-evaluation, and positively can be viewed as a re-strengthening of its disciplinary roots in communication.
This is in part attributed to Visual Communication’s roots of ‘moving across boundaries’, knowing no bounds when adapting to the design within other forms of media beyond print. Some momentum and professional ground had been lost in the 1990s due to reticence of ‘cemented’ on trying to control the design process and the visual outcomes of new media that called for dynamic rather than static design solutions (Bruinsma and Van Der Meulen, 2003; Burgoyne, 2002; MacDonald, 2004). A different ‘mind-set’ that knew no bounds when it came to working with other forms of media was needed, that reflects the true “open”, “diverse”, “inclusive” and “inventive” heart of the discipline (Poynor, 2004) that constantly challenged its own established ‘rules’. These new designers chose to design for interactivity accepting a new mind-set that the user is king. They learnt to collaborate within multi-disciplinary teams of experts with different skill-sets to achieve solutions that contributed to the ‘aesthetics of use’.
References
BRUINSMA, M. and VAN DER MEULEN, S. (2003) Deep Sites: Intelligent Innovation in Contemporary Web Design. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.
BURGOYNE, P. (2002) GB: Graphic Britain. London: Laurence King Publishing.
FRASCARA, J. (2004) Communication Design: Principles, Methods and Practice. New York: Allworth Press.
HELLER, S. (2006) Better Skills Through Better Research. In: A. BENNETT, ed. Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design - A Reader. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, p10-13
LAUREL, B. ed (2003) Design Research: Methods and Perspectives. London: MIT Press.
MACDONALD, N. (2004) British Web Design: A Brief History. In: R. POYNOR, ed. Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., pp200-215.
POYNOR, R. (1999) Made in Britain: The Ambiguous Image. In N. BARLEY et al. Lost and Found: Critical Voices in New British Design. London: Birkhauser Verlag AG/The British Council. Pp 28-31
POYNOR, R. (2004) Spirit of Independence. In: R. POYNOR, ed. Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., pp.12-47
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
An Ontological Bangle
This post is a draft of an introduction for a new academic paper aimed at a graphic design journal. Feel free to comment but questions on how or what next will be answered in future posts as I construct my paper.
In a recent Tweet from Nico MacDonald (a commentator on design communication, facilitation, and research) he quoted ex-BMW designer Chris Bangle’s provocative comment from a Creatives Morning lecture that “Designers are good at visualising possibilities but we are not showing possibilities to people” (MacDonald, 2011). This statement struck a chord as my current research is focused on expanding the resources of Visual Communication, through a hermeneutic visual discourse, to aid the design of better interactions. To unpack that thought further my interest lies in how Visual Communication itself can influence the design processes within Interaction Design beyond the mere artifice of skinning code.
The visual possibilities of how the interaction’s interface will look (the aesthetics of surface) is not the only point in a design process that Visual Communication design can contribute to. I wish to not only propose a thesis that Visual Communicators can and should be brought into a multidisciplinary team for designing interactions much earlier in the design process; but also to propose a new visual methodology that will demonstrate how this can be achieved. I will build an argument for the embracing of Visual Communication by Interaction Design teams as an ideal facilitator of not only behavioural change in the audience (Frascara, 2004), but also an actual contributor to the design of the aesthetics of use (Dunne, 1997).
My main thrust to this thesis is the argument that within the design discipline of Visual Communication it can and does help to reveal things “from concealment” (Palmer, 1969, p129) and this process falls within hermeneutic phenomenology. I will discuss how a fusion of Visual Communication and techniques of interpretative phenomenology can be adapted to reveal the structure of an experience, which can then be visually captured and interpreted as themes of an experience - in turn “showing possibilities to” interaction designers of how people experience interactions. This may go some way to reassure Bangle that design, especially Visual Communication, can contribute more than what is usually expected of a designer.
References
DUNNE, A. (1999). Hertzian Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience and Critical Design. London: RCA CRD Research.
FRASCARA, J. (2004) Communication Design: Principles, Methods and Practice. New York: Allworth Press.
MacDONALD, N. (2011) @Nico_Macdonald Chris Bangle @London_CM: Designers are good at visualising possibilities but we are not _showing possibilities_ to people #CreativeMornings. Twitter [online] Posted: 9:44am Tuesday 6th September. Available from: https://twitter.com/#!/Nico_Macdonald/status/110996796733534208, [Accessed on: 6th September 2011]
PALMER, R.E. (1969) Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
In a recent Tweet from Nico MacDonald (a commentator on design communication, facilitation, and research) he quoted ex-BMW designer Chris Bangle’s provocative comment from a Creatives Morning lecture that “Designers are good at visualising possibilities but we are not showing possibilities to people” (MacDonald, 2011). This statement struck a chord as my current research is focused on expanding the resources of Visual Communication, through a hermeneutic visual discourse, to aid the design of better interactions. To unpack that thought further my interest lies in how Visual Communication itself can influence the design processes within Interaction Design beyond the mere artifice of skinning code.
The visual possibilities of how the interaction’s interface will look (the aesthetics of surface) is not the only point in a design process that Visual Communication design can contribute to. I wish to not only propose a thesis that Visual Communicators can and should be brought into a multidisciplinary team for designing interactions much earlier in the design process; but also to propose a new visual methodology that will demonstrate how this can be achieved. I will build an argument for the embracing of Visual Communication by Interaction Design teams as an ideal facilitator of not only behavioural change in the audience (Frascara, 2004), but also an actual contributor to the design of the aesthetics of use (Dunne, 1997).
My main thrust to this thesis is the argument that within the design discipline of Visual Communication it can and does help to reveal things “from concealment” (Palmer, 1969, p129) and this process falls within hermeneutic phenomenology. I will discuss how a fusion of Visual Communication and techniques of interpretative phenomenology can be adapted to reveal the structure of an experience, which can then be visually captured and interpreted as themes of an experience - in turn “showing possibilities to” interaction designers of how people experience interactions. This may go some way to reassure Bangle that design, especially Visual Communication, can contribute more than what is usually expected of a designer.
References
DUNNE, A. (1999). Hertzian Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience and Critical Design. London: RCA CRD Research.
FRASCARA, J. (2004) Communication Design: Principles, Methods and Practice. New York: Allworth Press.
MacDONALD, N. (2011) @Nico_Macdonald Chris Bangle @London_CM: Designers are good at visualising possibilities but we are not _showing possibilities_ to people #CreativeMornings. Twitter [online] Posted: 9:44am Tuesday 6th September. Available from: https://twitter.com/#!/Nico_Macdonald/status/110996796733534208, [Accessed on: 6th September 2011]
PALMER, R.E. (1969) Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Abstract: Visual Communication and the Aesthetics of Use: A Visual Phenomenological Methodology
I'm coming to a point where my transfer from MPhil to the full PhD is imminent. I have been drafting my transfer document for what feels like aeons in between writing and presenting papers, teaching and assessing. The last step is here and below is the newly written abstract for the transfer document. Once the transfer has happened I'll archive the document on this blog.
Visual Communication and the Aesthetics of Use:
MPhil Transfer Document
Abstract
As a part-time ECA postgraduate student I am proposing my transfer to complete a practice-based PhD in Visual communication. My researched thesis is an inquiry into a new practical Visual Phenomenological Methodology to aid interaction designers to design better interactions. This is proposed by using visual hermeneutic interpretation of collected “sensory data” to reveal to a designer the phenomenological structure of a studied experience. The development of a hermeneutic phenomenological framework to generate visually interpreted “inspirational data” will enable interaction designers to design from a fresh perspective of proximity to their users. By understanding the experiences a user actually has within an interaction, the designers can inform their future design decisions based on users' aesthetic perception of what they (want to) experience.
In synthesising Visual Communication methods with phenomenological research methods, Visual Communication can demonstrate its worth in the development of the ‘aesthetics of use’ beyond the ‘aesthetics of surface’. The creation of such a design methodology would cultivate a closer alignment between HCI and Visual Communication, repositioning it as a fresh influence over Interaction Design much earlier in the idea-generation and modelling phases. This paper will present my thesis in a context that argues for a successful transfer from MPhil to PhD in order to complete the doctorate. In this paper I succinctly introduce the framework and area of study before explaining my research plan. This plan includes research questions, methodology, timeframe and proposed PhD chapter titles. It will end with a discussion of work completed to date including peer reviewed papers and practical project work. The appendices include more detail on aspects of the practical work beyond the scope of the main paper.
Visual Communication and the Aesthetics of Use:
A Visual Phenomenological Methodology
MPhil Transfer DocumentAbstract
As a part-time ECA postgraduate student I am proposing my transfer to complete a practice-based PhD in Visual communication. My researched thesis is an inquiry into a new practical Visual Phenomenological Methodology to aid interaction designers to design better interactions. This is proposed by using visual hermeneutic interpretation of collected “sensory data” to reveal to a designer the phenomenological structure of a studied experience. The development of a hermeneutic phenomenological framework to generate visually interpreted “inspirational data” will enable interaction designers to design from a fresh perspective of proximity to their users. By understanding the experiences a user actually has within an interaction, the designers can inform their future design decisions based on users' aesthetic perception of what they (want to) experience.
In synthesising Visual Communication methods with phenomenological research methods, Visual Communication can demonstrate its worth in the development of the ‘aesthetics of use’ beyond the ‘aesthetics of surface’. The creation of such a design methodology would cultivate a closer alignment between HCI and Visual Communication, repositioning it as a fresh influence over Interaction Design much earlier in the idea-generation and modelling phases. This paper will present my thesis in a context that argues for a successful transfer from MPhil to PhD in order to complete the doctorate. In this paper I succinctly introduce the framework and area of study before explaining my research plan. This plan includes research questions, methodology, timeframe and proposed PhD chapter titles. It will end with a discussion of work completed to date including peer reviewed papers and practical project work. The appendices include more detail on aspects of the practical work beyond the scope of the main paper.
Running in Hermeneutic Circles: A Visual Phenomenological Methodology
Just been notified that my new paper has been accepted for the Second Interaction Symposium on Culture, Creativity, and Interaction Design at BCS HC I2011 in Newcastle in July. The paper is called Running in Hermeneutic Circles: A Visual Phenomenological Methodology and it is the first stage of developing a Visual Communication methodology synthesising phenomenology.
I'm adding this abstract to the list of papers above.
More info on the symposium as I get it.
I'm adding this abstract to the list of papers above.
More info on the symposium as I get it.
Friday, 15 April 2011
4 months in
OK a lot has happened in the last 4 months of silence on here. I am in the process of writing my MPhil transfer document to proceed fully with my PhD. This is proving more challenging than anything else I've written so far. I have probably 16,000+ words and appear to have a block on how to concise communicate what I've done so far. My main block, I believe, lies in knowing what to leave out of this simple transfer document.
Whilst attempting this I have written a third paper, presented that at conference, and now got that same paper published (or soon to be) in a peer-reviewed design journal. Easy-peasy compared to writing this transfer document! Counter-intuitive. Go figure!
The above paper "A Can of Worms: Has Visual Communication a Position of Influence on Aesthetics of Interaction?" was presented at Design Principles and Practices 2011 in Sapienza University of Rome on 2nd February. It will be published soon in the peer-reviewed Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal, and can be read on this blog (see tabs above).
Anyway, enough plugging. Back to the transfer document - draft 2.
Whilst attempting this I have written a third paper, presented that at conference, and now got that same paper published (or soon to be) in a peer-reviewed design journal. Easy-peasy compared to writing this transfer document! Counter-intuitive. Go figure!
The above paper "A Can of Worms: Has Visual Communication a Position of Influence on Aesthetics of Interaction?" was presented at Design Principles and Practices 2011 in Sapienza University of Rome on 2nd February. It will be published soon in the peer-reviewed Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal, and can be read on this blog (see tabs above).
Anyway, enough plugging. Back to the transfer document - draft 2.
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Validity and Reliability of a Phenomenological Methodology
Validity and reliability within qualitative research compared to quantitative has been widely debated. As phenomenology’s ground is in the lived experience of a phenomena, its validity is held within understanding that experience as experienced. Jasper (1994) describes this as understanding the phenomenon from the “accounts of those who have experienced it” and revealing “the 'essence' of an experience” p312). This differs from a broader generalizable research paradigm of explanative or predictive results from objective reality, “thus a question of generalizability within phenomenology is inappropriate in that the researcher does not intend to produce a theory of general application at the outset. On the contrary, ‘the purpose of phenomenology as a research method is to generate concepts and theories' which can then be tested using other methods” (p313). Therefore within a phenomenological methodology it’s validity is in the revealed essence, and its truth is contained, in my study’s case, in the visual hermeneutic circle of interpretation. The reliability of interpretation may be quantifiably problematic, but by keeping as closely to each participant’s felt experience from their interview and observation data, my methodology will prove both valid and reliable. As with qualitative research my method will be transparent and therefore its rigour will be clear.
References used:
JASPER, M.A. (1994) Issues in Phenomenology for Researchers of Nursing. Joumal of Advanced Nursing,19, 309-314
JASPER, M.A. (1994) Issues in Phenomenology for Researchers of Nursing. Joumal of Advanced Nursing,19, 309-314
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