University courses taught from 2020 – present.
In Design in Crisis, Decolonial scholars Madina Tlostanova and Ahmed Ansari argue design pedagogy is a critical site of action in our current crises. I take up their call in weaving critical thinking and agency throughout courses I teach.
I view my classroom as a lab for students to develop their own sophisticated lens for design–where their ethics, morals, values, and theories can manifest in material practices. In other words, I embrace Yuk Hui’s formulation of Cosmotechnics: “the unification of the cosmos and the moral through technical activities, whether craft-making or art-making.”
These big ideas become tangible and workable because my projects are scoped to the context of everyday life, wherein each student can begin to craft their own lens of design that is situated in their lived experience.
As a multitude of people come into class, I hold the door open for many kinds of designers, or cosmotechnics; a pluriverse. I intend to create a class in which many takes on design and life might fit.
Inquiries into Livability
In the wake of civilizational turmoil and climate crisis, interaction designers (wielding digital tools) have other roles to play beyond than crafting addictive platforms. This course explores how interaction design tools can be used for livability. Projects include designing interfaces to craft relationships of care and maintenance in place, creating rituals for community, and coding speculative critical interfaces.
Context: Interaction Design, The University of Texas at Austin, Fall 2021-2022
Timeline: 15 weeks
Tools: Framer, Javascript
Projects
I. Inquiries into making place
Students create an interface (print or app) that, through its use, assists people in developing a relationship (of curiosity, care, maintenance, appreciation (not instrumentalization), and / or respect) with an ecological aspect of the immediate area around UT Austin. Read the full brief.
Examples of student work
- designer’s detour, a alternative route for UT design students for appreciating ecology (by Erica Kwak)
- stop and smell the flowers, a zine for developing a relationship with UT’s flowers through smell (by Channing Lester)
- A Gremlin’s Guide to UT (by Kenny Ly)
- En Plein Air is an app that assists visual artists of all levels in cultivating relationships with nature through their process of creating art (by Jessica Nguyen)
II. Inquiries into Collaborative Resilience
In teams, students sought opportunities for interaction design at Festival Beach Food Forest (a permaculture project) volunteer days. Students conducted research (secondary research, ethnography, interviews) while serving as volunteers (to reciprocate the community for their time).
Student research addressed which human needs (Max Neef) are / aren’t being met. Their research informed the design of rituals that address opportunities / problems students found in the Food Forest community.
Examples of student work
- Erica Kwak, Salma Tehran, Thao Nguyen, Helen Prun: Research presentation + Ritual design
- Kenny Ly, Channing Lester, Joey Hobert: Research presentation + Ritual design
- Jessica Nguyen, Peter Alhoy, Niko Sabah: Research presentation + Ritual design
III. Inquiries into digital ecologies
In pairs, students create an experimental, speculative, and discursive interface (in HTML / CSS / JS) that take the form of notification systems, content streams, or writing interfaces. Their interface should embody the arguments in critical writing about digital plaforms to create a critical conversation about how interfaces guide our attention.. Students chose works from:
- Twittering Machine by Paul Klee
- Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford
- How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
- The House that Technology Built by Everest Pipkin
- Antisocial Media by Siva Vaidhyanathan
- Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Noble
Examples of student work
- Surveillance (writeup and prototype) by Yuning Zhang and Amy Li
- Notification doors (writeup and prototype) by Peter Alhoy and Niko Sabah
- Network recommendation (writeup and prototype) by Kenny Ly and Joey Holbert
Computational Design with Botanical Kin
A foundation in the practice of computational designing (using Javascript) with a focus on botanical simulations. Students explore the methods, poetics, and politics of designing for and with plants + cultivate a command of basic technical skills in computational designing.
Context: Elective, The University of Texas at Austin, Spring 2022
Timeline: 15 weeks
Tools: Javascript (p5.js, paper.js)
Feral Data Visualization
A course for creating data visualizations sensitive to the ecological, situatedness, and embodied nature of visual sensemaking. The course culminated into a documented process and concept for a data visualization grounded in the biological and cultural place of the designer.
Context: Perspectives in Design, The University of Texas at Austin, Spring 2021
Timeline: 5 weeks
Inquiries into Everyday Life
An exploration of the core competencies of an interaction designer through the lens of everyday life. The context of everyday life is the all-encompassing undercurrent of the human experience, enabling a critical exploration of design processes. Students develop an interaction design project and process blog about nudging an aspect of their everyday life. As they do, they develop a sensibility for designing by articulating the non-linear, ever emergent, and sensorial undercurrent of human life.
Context: Interaction Design Studio I, The University of Texas at Austin, Fall 2020-2022
Timeline: 5 weeks
Examples of student work
- Isabella Johnson’s inquiry into reading
- Kenny Ly’s inquiry into gacha games
- Daniela Lozano’s inquiry into choosing a wardrobe
- Avery Fox’s inquiry into picking an outfit
- Rey Tran’s inquiry into picking jewelry
Cyborg Inquiries into Everyday Life
Based on Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, this class poises the (often digital) interface in a border war between human and machine, a war about “production, reproduction, and imagination.” This course instructs students in the basics of interface design at this border, for “pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction.” Using the results from their previous course, Inquiries into Everyday Life (described above), students create experimental interfaces that capture the essence of each other’s everyday lives, exploring how interaction designers command and create interfaces as zones of play and possibility.
Context: Interaction Design Studio II, The University of Texas at Austin, Spring 2021-2022
Timeline: 5 weeks
Tools: Framer, Javascript
Examples of student work
- Isabella Johnson’s cyborg inquiry into collecting memories
Designing with Data
Data visualization affords us to visually make sense of the world, profoundly shaping how we might relate to it. With this in mind, this course offers an introduction to the art of designing visual form with data. Students will both learn to create data visualizations and how to frame and interrogate their politics and ethics.
Context: Elective, The University of Texas at Austin, Spring 2021-2022
Timeline: 15 weeks
Tools: RAWgraphs, Javascript (Leaflet.js)