Intro to theme: Interaction Criticism

Lecture: What is professional criticism? Why is it important to us?

Whatever you design, it will most likely be subject to some form of critique, either informally to your face, or as a written commentary in a public blog post somewhere, as ratings in the app store, or a detailed analysis by professional critics in e.g. a newspaper. As designers it can be useful to have a developed idea of how professional criticism actually work.

Reading: 

Bardzell, J. (2013) The “Intentional Fallacy” and the “Affective Fallacy” of Interaction Design? http://interactionculture.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/the-intentional-fallacy-and-the-affective-fallacy-of-interaction-design/

(Optional reading: Bardzell, J. Interaction criticism: An introduction to the practice. Interacting with Computers 23, 6 (2011), 604–621.)

Task of the week (individually):

Revisit the mockup tool(s) that you used in the first project of the course.

Your task is to write a 1-2 page (+ pictures) review of your experience of using the tool. 


As your help, note that a professional review is not just random opinions, but typically contain (according to Bardzell, 2011):

1. The work’s qualities - e.g., elements and materials, structure, content, etc. (facts)
2. The critic’s own direct sensual, emotional, and intellectual experience of with the work, including what was felt and learned as a result of it. (subjective)
3. Taking a position with regard to e.g. moral or ethical consequences of the work and possible interpretations/uses of it. (subjective)
4. Knowledge of related expert perspectives from others: what other critics, experts, and scholars have said about the work or those relevant to it in some way. (critical tradition)
5. Other known works that in some way are comparable to the work. (critical tradition)
6. An awareness of the work’s position in history and location, including how audiences, consumers, users, etc., reacted to the artifact. (critical tradition)
7. Relevant theories, be they methodological or specific to a type of work and its tradition(s). (critical tradition)

And usually focus on one of these perspectives:

- Creator. With focus on the design team, who are they? What were their intentions? How do they describe their design?

-  Artifact. With focus on the design itself, what is it? How does it look like, what can you do with it?

-  Consumer. With focus on the type of people using this product, who are they? What do they use this for, how many are they, what have they had to say about this product?

- Social context. With focus on issues such as the historical setting, class, ideology, gender, etc. What does this product say about our society at large? Design trends?