Ensoulment

In The Design Way, Nelson and Stolterman said, “In any creative act, something new is brought into the world at the expense of the old—which is then destroyed.” But in today’s class, what we discussed about “ensoulment” destroyed this sentence. I have a kind of feeling that what Stolterman said in his book is always the first part, and if you want to know further or the “true reality”, you need to come to the class. HAHA …^_^

I was wandering that something exits or existed in this world was never destroyed by another design. Maybe it is much harder to destroy something than to create a new one, because the old things, something ever exists, was involved in users’ experience, the process people get knowledge and horizons, and becomes a part of the old world as the past, history and knowledge for ever. We need either a long time or very big effort to destroy or totally remove something from the existing compared with the creating process.

When we talk about ensoulment, usually we think about people give the additional meaning or value to the thing because of their own experience or the special relationships which the thing connected for them. For example, someone treasured his pen as a special thing for him because it was a gift from his loved ones. The pictures of dragon in the buildings of every China town in the big cities of the US become a kind of sign, or Chinese spirit symbol.

When we talk about the ensoulment, it is easy to think something concrete, real, or physical existing thing. They have their own aura. They were created by great effort, energy or time. They have their material characters, culture background or family or personal meanings.

How about the things in digital world? They have “no material quality”, and come and go very often which means usually very short live span. However, loyalty happens in the digital world. One of my classmates just like to use Powerpoint to create prototype and he doesn’t care other softwares which could perform similar tasks. A special thing for me is an online forum (http://www.smth.org). I went to the forum very often since I was an undergraduate student, around 8 years ago. At the first three or four years, I published posts on the forum, and talk with other people, some times we played together both online and in reality. Now, the old friends we make from that forum are all over the world. And people who goes to the forum very often now and I don’t know each other at all. But I ensouled that forum and feel be proud of it when people talk about it. I remember the virtual funeral hold for a real person who died in real world on World war of craft mentioned on Jeff’s class. There is some same thing in them. Virtual world or digital craft becomes a part of real life.

What is it good for HCI design? Yes, it is hard to design something eternal or ensoul it during the designing process. And no one knows how to design something to let people ensoul it. It is totally non-sense. However, before we begin the design process, we are kind of making an argument of why we need a new thing, or the design. The more we connect with people’s fundamental understanding of the need, and the meaning of the world and life, our design more tend to be ensouled later by people and deeply rooted in people’s lives. Or otherwise, who knows? !