Getting around New

The last minute planning for my trip to New York entailed going onto the internet and searching for various museum and store locations addresses on Google maps and then transferring these addresses and small maps of their locations into my sketchbook. While I was doing this I was thinking about how if I had an I phone I could just get the directions when I got there and that if I had a Google phone I could even get street level pictures of the places I wanted to go to so I would know when I was there. This then made me think of how one would get these directions before the internet and the advent of mapping solutions like MapQuest and Google maps. I would have had to look in the phone book when I got to New York and then ask around to find out where to go and then make sure to follow those oral directions carefully or else I might spend half the day lost. By comparison even my slightly antiquated Google maps to sketchbook conversion method started to look pretty convenient. I started to wonder how many different designed tools I was taking advantage of when planning my day’s travels, turns out it was quite a few. If I define something as being designed if it is not naturally occurring then the macro list of designed things I used to plan my trip is, sketchbook, pen, computer, internet (Google search, Google maps, Google street view, websites for the Metropolitan museum of art, Mood fabrics, GROM gelato, Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum), the system of addresses, my cell phone and the system of phone numbers. That is a pretty long list but the list of designed tools that people can use and have used to get around is probably approaches the infinite, starting with the astrolabe and probably ending with the Zebra.

If an astrolabe and a zebra were the tools that you had to get around New York then you would only be able to navigate at night when the stars were out and it would be pretty hard to find out anything more specific than your latitude and then you would never get really good gelato. On the other hand if you have a fully charged Google phone you can just get off of the bus and walk around with your phone on showing you a satellite view of where you are and a little dotted line showing you which way to go to get just about anywhere you desire as long as its address is on the web. The exaggerated example of zebra guy and super tech phone guy makes it easy to see the ways in which a designer can affect how we experience the world around us. By creating objects and systems with certain uses a designer can offer us a solution for a problem that we might have. This solution will most likely require us to act in a certain way for it to produce its intended effect and we as users can decide to participate in this way or not. When viewed like a formula it is easy to see how a designer can change or direct human behavior in the way he sees fit. For instance the astrolabe inventor demanded that we stay up at night to find our location on the globe while the cell phone designer requires that we have a source of 110v regulated electricity and a monthly communications contract to get directions. At this basic level the control the designer can have over our actions can be easy to spot, however, when we consider the effects of culture and ingenuity we can see a different picture. In the hands of a more savvy user a Google phone might be the best way to orchestrate a crime or check out porn on your coffee break or maybe cheat on a test and if you were to try to commercially navigate the seas with an astrolabe you would probably get a fine and end up selling it on eBay to pay for that fine to someone who would use it to show how sophisticated they were as a paper weight in their office. Each alternate use for a product changes the products meaning from what the designer envisioned it as to what the individual user thinks it is. Because each individual sees the world and the things in it differently the gap between the designer and the user will always be there. No object can ever have the same meaning to any two people. As designers we can try to bridge this gap through research of our target groups environments and beliefs and styles but in the end we have to realize that once an idea becomes material it will be interpreted in ways that we can never imagine.

I often interpret my own ideas in ways I have never imagined