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Friday, December 15, 2006

Freakonomics with Design

I believe that Freakonomics is analyzing problem in different perspectives. Have the meaning of "change roles between people, give a design task to physics, and let a software engineering draw some sketches. " At the same time, means sometimes between the design process, we really need to step back to re-analysis the original problem.

Here is the voices from my classmates:

dproyer
What does Freakanomics have to do with design? For me, it means considering the unintended consequences of our designs. A design is created for one purpose, but it will have other effects, immediately and down the road.

tympace
Freakonomics and design is definitely the idea of reaching beyond your initial design to look at the impact of your design in use. The idea of "sustainable design" is related to the "freakonomics" concept. What resources do our designs require and what resources to they replace? What can be reused by the replaced item and what is headed straight for the landfill? Why do we deliberately design for products to be replaced (consumer electronics)?

dproyer
Planned obsolescence, according to Wikipedia is "the conscious decision on the part of an agency to produce a consumer product that will become obsolete and/or non-functional in a defined time frame."


As a marketing undergraduate we learned about planned obsolescence and even how to decide how long a product should last. In a capitalist society, will this always exist? Can anything be done to stop it?

balchenn
I think it has relevance when we decide our design space. Maybe we're not identifying the real design problem, because we think what we know is right. If the fall in crime would have been attributed to economic boom, and not to the abortion law, and policy makers focused merely on incentives for the economy as a solution to decrease crime, and not tackle the problem of unattended children, the problem may not be solved.


ssshould
My concern in regards to Freakanomics is that as designers we have to be prudent and acknowledge that we do not put our needs before the users. There are a lot of good insights put forth in the book but I think that in a collabrative effort such as Freakanomics I think you have to be vigilant in making sure that your assessment is as objective as possible. I think that Levitt's research had several good points but the reflections by the co author Debner were somewhat suspect. I think the chapter about naming ones child and the subsequent success was not very well thought out. For design I think that this is a constant struggle to keep our needs out of the design process for the most part. If we are successful at this our design will be resilient and sustainable.

dproyer
I think the problem with parts of this book is the attribution of human behavior to a specific variable. Humans, and the societies we create are complex, and just because a behavior or societal change is correlated with a certain action, does not mean their is any causation.


I think this is important to remember when designing. Even if something "worked" for a previous design, it may not work for you. Changes in human behavior are affected by such a large number of variables, it is difficult to assume any causation. This is why user testing in context is such a good idea.

chang5
The user indeed matters. The predispositions of designers might lead to a totally different way after the user study or usability testing. I think Freakonomics values what is under beneath. I am really impressed by the cover: the peel is apple but something inside is orange. Maybe the idea is similar to what Marty said in class: dig deep. Finding out a nice solution to a specific problem needs not only thinking continuously and deeply, but also viewing the problem in different ways.

The discussion on this book also makes me think about another concept Marty mentioned. Sometimes, designers might confine themselves in a corner. The design ideas they come up with are going around a circle. If designers are able to achieve another corner, they might get some good insights and concepts. Freakonomics told me not to swamp into former logic and discipline, but to review the problem and find out a good approach to deal with or explain it.

sbhandar
Even I see, Freakonomics as a voice of researching in depth to find out connections that you never thought existed.


I will give you an example (again from one of the papers I read) -> an old lady was asked for a preference between a mobile phone with big buttons and one of those stylish sleeky phones.

What do you think she said --> no brainer --> big buttons right? since it is ultra usable for her (in most of the opinions), Right.

Actually no, she preferred the smaller phone since that would fit in her shirt pocket and she would not have to carry her bag (in which she would put her big mobile phone). And she disliked carrying bags because the bag kept slipping off her paralyzed arm.

I guess Freaknomics asked us to open our eyes to links like these though in itself the book was good, there are still few things which seemed to me too out there to believe (while i was reading it ) but point taken
the example also calls for need of good contextual inquiry, but a small question surfacing in my mind now --> how many old people we would be observing or keeping in mind. Few opinions can't predict general trend right.

everyone is different, their needs, choices, tastes, dislikes.

Changm: Why "old people?" RazzIt is true that everyone is different, but people have some kind of same desires, same characters. When we face one thing, wehave similar opinions. We use some tools in a similar way...?

kshgupta
I think Freakonomics does not just attempt to discover a cause-effect relationship from a big set of data. A mathmatical correlation of the data may say that A causes B, but it does not rule out the possiblity that B caused A or the presence of another variable X which caused A and B together due to which they appear correlated. The answer may lie in triangulating the verification of research by multiple research methods, not ruling out any possibility. We conduct a research to verify the predisposition, but sometimes uncosciously our predisposition may drive our research and in our eagerness to prove something right, we may design a research method specifically to prove that something. I think what I learnt from Freakonomics is to be honest as a designer, overcome my personal bias, to look at the problem from all different perspectives, not ruling out any possibility and in two words "dig deep".

sfarouk
I agree with the comments above, and particularly like the chapter on "Why Do Drug Addicts live with their Mothers?" The researcher had major incorrect predispositions and it was only until he reached beyond his target group and interviewed, and did the the contextual inquiry with the drug addicts that he figured it out. I saw this ethnographic part, particularly role

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