Interview

This is a long conversation with David Parrot, over possible ideas for work stations this quarter. He actually mentioned a digital work station with out me asking him about one, it was cool, I knew then that I wanted to do it, good confirmation.

Dave thanks for looking this one over with me,

This is the Problem Statement:

Employing analytical design development procedures, design an

workstation for institutions for 2015. Both functional utility and

physiological utility must be carefully considered. They are to be

designed so as to impart the excellence of their manufacture and the

specific purse for which they are intended. It will be designed to

interact with the user's anatomy with the least amount of restriction

and physical stress. In other words, the workstation should provide

maximum freedom of movement and control based on the findings

determined by your analysis. Flexibility, convenience, comfort,

privacy, security, personal amenities, the advantages of user

adjustment of the workstation and all other features suggested by

analysis are now design challenges.

I am "behind" because I can't think of a direction, but I know that a

good direction is key to the success of a thoughtful design.

Andrew

That last bit, " a good direction is key to the success of a thoughtful design" sounds like it came in a fortune cookie, man.

Anyway, let's break this down:

Employing analytical design development procedures, design a workstation for institutions for 2015. What kind of institutions? Professional ones? Many (if not most) professionals work at a computer, but those who don’t might be more interesting. There are tons of problems with working at a computer all day, though, not the least of which is developing crappy posture and “office butt.” With your interest in fitness, this might be a good opportunity to interview some office workers (this is also an opportunity to get in bed, so to speak, with someone you’d like to work for when you graduate. By that I mean—If you’re going to interview someone, it may as well be someone you want to get your foot in the door with). Both functional utility and physiological utility must be carefully considered. This implies a task analysis and some observation (obviously the point of a project in “analytical design development procedures”, whatever that means). Who do you have available to you to observe? Is there a particularly underserved market that you have seen in your career? Model makers? Electrical engineers? Gamers? UPS package sorters? Airline Ticket Sales people? The TSA monkey who watches the X-Ray machine? A barista? A Subway employee? They are to be designed so as to impart the excellence of their manufacture and the specific purpose for which they are intended. This implies some materials and manufacturing research and offers tons of opportunities for integrating the concept with its execution—e.g. could a work station for woodworkers be made in kit format by the woodworker (or wooden boat builder!… talk about a bad ergonomic situation…)? This could have sustainable benefits in terms of flat packing, dematerialization, etc. while teaching woodworking at the same time… Maybe the final deliverable is not only an example of the work station (which you could actually build!) but also the instructions/book/dvd that is the real deliverable. (Look at the book Anthony Garay (a DAAP grad) published a couple years ago. His deliverable was the book, not the furniture.) It will be designed to interact with the user's anatomy with the least amount of restriction and physical stress. If you wanted to do some seriously impressive task analysis, you could actually video tape many users doing repetitive operations (like making sandwiches or coffee or using a computer) and overlay the video with indicators showing touch points, travel paths, etc. This would be seriously compelling and impressive data, but might not be that interesting in terms of the final product you’d produce. Also, it’s a pain in the ass. It has the benefit, however, of providing serious, rock solid buttressing to the argument you are delivering in your final concept. The downside is that the process is truly deductive. There will be one, final answer that is most efficient. Any attempt to introduce other aspects of design (visceral or reflective) will water down your argument. In other words, the workstation should provide maximum freedom of movement and control based on the findings determined by your analysis. Flexibility (castor wheels!), convenience, comfort, privacy, security, personal amenities, the advantages of user adjustment of the workstation and all other features suggested by analysis are now design challenges. To make this more interesting, you may want to focus on a work environment that’s less static. Something like an assembly line operation or the boat building thing or something else. This means the user will be up and moving and you can focus less on the tedium of deductive design and more on the inspiration of inductive design.

So anyway, you can go two directions, strategically: Deductive or Inductive.

If you want to answer the core of the assignment, I would go straight analytical (deductive)—do a robust task analysis using video or some method of marking touch points (e.g. wet paint on the user’s hands, etc.) and drive your whole design down a deductive path toward a final, efficient solution but, at the last minute, veer it toward a compromise that balances efficiency (behavioral) with aesthetics (visceral appeal) and meaning (reflective value). I would document all this too. That is, show the most efficient solution and show how you tweaked it to balance Donald’s Three Levels of Design to create a great, balanced product. This could be a traditional cubicle redesign (though there is a ton out there already) for an office worker, a barista’s stand, a commercial (or residential) kitchen, a painter’s easel for plein air (portability!) or indoor painting, a semi truck interior, etc.

You might start by looking into some of the foundational theory behind task analysis and that kind of thing, perhaps bringing the history into your work station in the form of a name or reference (for a little reflective value). (E.g. you might design a hyper efficient, barebones computer workstation for accountants and name it “Taylor”.) For a bit of history on the subject, check out the work of Frederick Taylor.

If you want to go inductive, look for a problem situation, (e.g. wooden boat building at home) and make an integrated solution driven by your observations of the process and user interviews (quotes!). Then create a balanced solution that solves the identified problem by balancing materials, reflective value, manufacturing, etc. E.g. a wooden work station kit that flat packs and can be shipped along with a boat kit and is made with similar materials and methods, allowing the user to practice the techniques (during the construction of the work station) and have an optimized work station for the construction of the real project (the boat, in this case). The same implementation could be applied to: electrical engineers (lots of soldering and assembly), model makers, wood workers, engravers, quilters, or any other hobbyist.

Within those strategies, you could go big and redesign the layout of a Starucks, Subway, a bar, etc. considering the entire interior as the work space. You can go non-traditional—think of unconventional work spaces—the semi truck cabin, a navigator’s station for round-the-world sailing races, an ROV pilot’s station, a tugboat wheelhouse, etc. If you want to go sophomoric (by that I mean, do something everyone else is doing and that only a sophomore would think is clever), there’s the dorm room work station/bunk bed, a wacom-specific computer work station for designers, a redesigned drafting table for modern tools (wacom, etc…. actually, I kind of like this one), the standard office cubicle, a home gym, a receptionist’s desk (designed to enhance sex appeal and efficiency simultaneously), a gynecological exam table (I can hook you up with a gynecologist), a dentist’s chair and work space, etc.

Those are my initial thoughts…

D.

Wow,

I just learned more in that email than an entire quarter with Steve D.

Bless you.

I love your insight into the difference on an inductive and deductive
responses to a workstation. I particularly love the idea of the user
building the workstation they are about to use and thus learning more
about the project they are going to do in the process.

The two main Ideas that I am vacillating between right now are a hair
stylist station and a Digital Artist/ I.D. station. I worked for four
years in a salon and I have strong ties in the industry. This could be
a good one to do. The Artist station was one I originally thought of
while I was working for Hasbro over the Winter Quarter, every one had
just received Cintiq's, yes even the Interns, and the desks were
really fighting their true potential.

With these two things in mind, I can see that doing an Artist/ I.D.
station could really blow for interviews, because lets face it, every
designer is going tot be comparing their work stations with what your
proposing?

I guess I am really worried that either of the two really speak to
what I want to do when I graduate, but should that even matter? Any
thoughts?

Andrew

To save space on the blog and more personal information from making it onto the internet I am going to stop posting the conversation here, case in point though, I learn a lot from David and am excited to be working with him next quarter