Blog Category: KCAI

Wireframes Round 3

By Erika Goering,

Scenario 1: User Moves Modules to New Locations

 

Scenario 2: User Resizes Modules to Show More or Less Content

  Filed under: Information Architecture, KCAI, Learning
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Skinned Wireframes

By Erika Goering,

All of these use color to indicate certain categories. This is to correspond with the KC Star’s current color-coding system.

This first skin uses panels for section previews. The relation to printed media is very abstract.

 

 

This one uses tabbed folder-like sections and a paper texture to create a visual link with printed media.

 

 

This one uses a tight grid to divide section previews. The paper texture gives it some depth and makes it feel tactile.

  Filed under: Information Architecture, KCAI, Learning
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Yogi: Verbal Analysis

By Erika Goering,

Eight Limbs

  • Yama: universal morality
  • Niyama: personal sensitivity
  • Asanas: body postures
  • Pranayama: breathing exercises
  • Pratyahara: control of the senses
  • Dharana: concentration and inner awareness
  • Dhyana: meditation
  • Samadhi: spiritual or transcendent

 

Spiritual Terms:

  • Moksha: Hinduism freedom from the endless cycle of transmigration into a state of bliss
  • Brahman: the one supreme universal spirit that is the origin and support of the phenomenal universe
  • Om: the sound and symbol for the seventh chakra (crown); represents open mindedness and transcendence

 

Religious Affiliations:

  • Hinduism: a diverse body of religion, philosophy, and cultural practice native to and predominant in India, characterized by a belief in reincarnation and a supreme being of many forms and natures by the view that opposing theories are aspects of one eternal truth, and by a desire for liberation from earthly evils
  • Jainism: an Indian religion that prescribes a path of nonviolence toward all human beings
  • Buddhism: a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs, and practices largely based on teachings attributed to Buddha

 

Practitioners:

  • Yogi: a yoga practitioner
  • Guru: yogi with a great deal of knowledge, wisdom, and authority

  Filed under: KCAI, Learning, User Experience
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What is Typography? I Thought I Knew.

By Erika Goering,

This project will be different. Very different. In fact, it’s probably going to end up completely removed from traditional typography, and become more about invention and discovery of new ideas and ways to communicate.

This class is challenging my ideas of what typography even is. Maybe it’s no longer about letterforms and visible legibility. Maybe typography is, in a broader sense, how someone can convey an idea, through some sort of semi-controllable media. In fact, I don’t think this is a typography class at all anymore. It’s an innovation class.

My original idea of Twitter affecting physical type is a bit of a one-note idea. Sure, there’s a cause and effect, but what about some unknown variables? Well, that idea is starting to give birth to a million other ideas that are becoming less and less attached to typography as I know it. And I guess that’s okay.

What about a human element? Yes, there are humans at the other end of those Twitter posts, but what if an actual person were to physically interact and influence whatever this project is?

What happens if there’s more than one device or person affecting the project? How will that change/determine the ultimate message?

What if the type is digital and dynamic? What if it’s shown on a display, and it changes based on certain to-be-determined variables?

What if it’s not about Twitter specifically? What if the vibrations are in response to more personal, one-on-one messages? How does that aspect affect the message?

What if the typographical aspect is invisible? Can changes in kinds of vibrations themselves be typography? They can sure be communicative. (For example, I know without looking at anything that my phone is set up so that two soft vibrations is an email, and 5 crazy ones is a text from someone important.) So, yeah, I think vibrations can be typography.

What if vibrations are separated from the phone? What implications does that have? If the device with the message is detached from the device giving the alert, what does that do to the message?

What if vibrations are only one sensory aspect of notification? What about sound? Visual elements? Smell?? Taste??? Anything’s fair game.

What if there’s an augmented reality aspect to it? And the real world is supplemented with lots of intangible things? What if I look at a classmate and their tweets and blog posts and other status updates and whatnot just hover over their heads? That’d be cool. Or what about a live caption thing, where subtitles show up in realtime when someone’s talking? That could be very useful. Or how about having multi-lingual labels on real-life objects, in order to be exposed to a new language?

…I guess what I’ve gotten out of my first round of experimentation is just more questions. Which is fine. I’m here to learn and guess and adventure and hypothesize.

My goals for this project (until they change again) are:

  • Speculate what technology and social media could be. Maybe they will become more personal.
  • Don’t limit typography to just letterforms and reading. There’s more to it than that.
  • Invent something.
  • Discover something.
  • Have fun!
  • Take huge risks. Make this project worthwhile.
  • Fail if need be. But learn from it.

  Filed under: KCAI, Learning, Typography4
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