Moment Visit

In this post I will be talking about my visit to Moment: A digital product design firm. Going into their offices I didn't really know what I was expecting, I had never really visited a digital product design firm before and the term seemed so narrow, I kept wondering what was their job and what were their expertise? Moment is a company that is responsible for designing products and services for things like the web, mobile devices, and emerging platforms. Their main goal is to work together with the collaboration of each other using their various skills in order to solve problems. They have worked with several important companies such as ESPN, Tiffany & Co, Disney.. and those projects were successful due to their continuous communication between the people that work at the moment and their clients. They refer as creating a "long lasting business value."Their motto is to design things and application that work for people that makes people's lives easier. For example one of the projects that fascinated me the most is the medical application that they were able to create for people with Diabetes. The application that they created allows you to track the food your eating, reminds you to to take your medicines, to keep track of your medicines, your check up, you tests... This project fascinated me and made me realize how important   web design actually is. Also it made me notice another really fascinating elements, without the creation of the Iphone really, applications wouldn't have been so efficient, so easy to use and so popular, that it in fact also created a whole new fileds and opened a whole lot of creative opportunities to take part. I really enjoyed my visit to the Moment firm it was a great experience.

Cindy Sherman

Art is a field that has no boundaries when it comes to creativity, however when taking an artist such as Cindy Sherman, such boundaries may be questioned. Cindy Sherman has managed to portray art in a light that includes acting, art, and her own personal identity in one. Though her work of art may not be considered beautiful by many, she manages to portray her views on society, by not only using disrespectful and disturbing images, also by allowing these to be presented in the public as her views. She has spent much her time dealing with close friends who have suffered from AIDS, cases of sexual harassment, bulimia, etc. and has managed to show her personal political views on such cases through her art. Cindy Sherman’s “sex pictures” collection, it was produced between the years of 1992 and 1994. Since Sherman’s childhood she has had a fascination for dolls as well as participating in games of dress up. She began to worry that she was becoming too dependent on herself as a model, therefore she decided to remove herself from her photographs and use pros ethic body parts, in order to make materials that reinforce the message that she was trying to evoke. Sherman became more interested in the basics of what these pros ethic body parts can do in the essence of a photograph. One can depict figures created from a jumble of pros ethics, which include a disembodied, legless, a mask of an old scary looking woman and fabric. Also, she added makeup and pubic hair to the plasticized, hairless medical dolls in order to make them more diverse and lifelike. In her images, Sherman is fulfilling her goal; she is “playing on our disgust with old age and sexuality, without pushing us to ask ourselves why we are so disgusted.” Her photographs show her belief in the world of sexuality whether it being straight, gay, lesbian or transgender should be glorified rather than fought against. AIDS also had a big influence on most of her “sex pictures.” She works with painting, sculptors, film, installation, performance, collage and assemblage.
            Sherman’s work may be considered rather simple to an average eye, however when actually observing the art and the true meanings behind it, the complexity and difficulty behind her work becomes apparent. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, the spread and concern of AIDS became drastic. She was living in New York City at the time, a place where many queers would join together to elaborate on their sexual desires. Through her experiences in New York, Sherman managed to create an incredibly influential and vulgar collection, know as “Sex Pictures.” The artist refers to her work as “angry art,” as she is very much aware of the fact that many people respond negatively to her over exposed and exaggerated photographs. A lot of Sherman’s friends had suffered from AIDS and discrimination due to same sex relationships. She has witnessed several of her close friends suffer physically and emotionally under such stress. Thus, she felt as though she owed a form of solidarity to those individuals who she thinks haven’t received enough recognition.            The postmodernism presented within Sherman’s work has been debated greatly amongst several art historians. In most of her photographs, Sherman is trying to create a sense of the subjective individual as well as a sense of ones self. The first thing is that her photographs break down the wall of the subject-object boundaries, and the second thing is that the subject photographed has become framed and mixed in its gender and material makeup. Through this Sherman is creating a vague line between a man and a woman. All of Sherman’s photographs are inspired by female identity, however historians keep on asking the same question, “Who is the real Cindy Sherman?” No one can seems to be able to tell, due to her photographs not exposing only her personal identity. Thus, her images don’t represent anyone in specific, but they represent the nature of identity of the “real” popular culture within her eyes.
Through researching much of Sherman’s work and history, it has become clear to me that she falls far from what society what accept as normal. She was able to look beyond these categories implemented by society and attempted to act herself. The artist believed that society has created very strict roles for both gender roles; therefore, when falling outside one of the two gender norms, one faces an automatic inequality in society. In addition, many of Sherman’s friends are queer, and as a queer individual rights in society get taken away from you. Through much experience of being exposed to oppressed behavior, Sherman allowed herself to create her “sex pictures” collection. Although she may be considered as “horrific, weird and disturbing” she has fulfilled her goal as an artist. Her aim through her artwork was to shock people by exaggerating the “norms of society”. She wanted to create a realization that several individuals fall outside of what is considered to be normal and stress to her audience that everyone should have the right to their own identity. Sherman clarifies her aims as she says, “If I disgusted you, then I did my job.

the 5 E's of the Chase mobile application

The Digital Product that I am going to use is in my opinion one of the easiest and most convenient free applications that are available in the app store. The Chase mobile application comes in handy at all times, since I live in NewYork City and Chase banks are almost as frequent as strarbucks cafe's, chase is the most popular and available bank in the city. However with the chase application everything is made a lot easier for you, it is created for teens as well as adults. First of all you when you enter the application,it is usually to check how much money is available on your account, that is what ENTICES you, after deciding to check your balance or to look for Chase branches around you, you would need to enter the application. Once you ENTER the application you have the option of doing several things such as looking for Chase branches near you, logging on to your Chase account or contacting Chase. One can ENGAGE with this digital product in several ways, if you are entering your bank account, the screen will give you the different things you can do, check your balance, transfer money from your savings to your checking account, look at your recent activities, pay your bills, deposit checks (by taking a picture of the checks front and back), and look at the alerts you receive. I must say one things that I don't think is really successful with the application is the alert component, the alerts aren't clear and are usually hard to spot within the application. One can also pick "find an ATM branch" and the application will directly find the branch that is closes to you and tell you the directions of how to get there. Once your done using the application it is always safer to log out therefore in order to EXIT the application properly you should press on the "log out" button. Finally the EXTENSION will be the fact that you will eventually need to go on the application again and use it while you have to, it is no longer a pain to deposit checks or transfer money all of these little details are available to you right on your phone through the use of a great digital product interface.

Best and Worst Digital Products

Technology has become an essential in almost everybody's life. Children, parents, grandparents are mostly all familiar with a computer or a phone. Throughout the development of technology many different stages were created. Nowadays the current stage is the consumer stage meaning it is no longer about understand the technological bits of the machine but for it to be designed in a way that everybody can understand how to use it without being an expert. Designing for Everyday Life "describes the challenges designers face in making this powerful technology fit easily into people's everyday lives, rather than forcing their lives to fit the dictates of technology."

Since the second I woke up I have been dealing with different technologies. Most importantly the IPhone has created a whole new field of digital products, that have to do with the apps that we use everyday, everything is slowly being shifted towards the digital world.

In my opinion there is a large number of great applications on the Iphone and some really horrible ones as well.

My favorite digital product is Seamless, being a college student, it is one of the application that I use the most to order food. Seamless is a delivery service that combines all the restaurants that deliver in NYC and from that application you have acces to all the restaurants around your area and you have the choice to look at the menu and to order from this one application without having to talk to anyone. No only is the application extremely helpful it is very easy to use, the screen is clear and all you need is available on the page. I really like the way it is organized and the fact that you can write down special instructions for the food that you are order if you wish to have your sauce on the side for example. Although I find it one of the most helpful application to use in NYC as a college student, I think that the application is lacking one thing: the use of pictures, something that Yelp (another application) provides us with but not seamless, people tend to like pictures, and not having any makes it harder to choose where to order from. 

Although most applications on the Iphone are great there are a lot that are not so great, my least favorite application  is Viber. Viber's function is great it allows every Iphone user to call for free even if it is international calling, however the application is very poorly designed. The applications shuts consistently when it is being used, and rarely ever rings when someone is actually calling me. Skype for example is sort of the same type of application both apps do the same things however Skype is designed in a much more appealing way, it is easier to use and contains many more customization. 

Position Map

I decided to create a position map for coffee shops around Union Square in New York City, since that area is filled with students and we all know that coffee is a necessity in a student's life; therefore I thought that it would be interesting to evaluate the successes or failures of these  coffee brands. A perceptual brand map is an excellent tool to help understand optimal product positioning. Brand's are known to occupy a space in a consumer's mind while other brands compete within that space. Since people use specific criteria in order to evaluate the brand, and easier way to draw out information is to structure the map depending on what the consumer values. Therefore I thought of four big criteria sections: 1) a comfortable environment, 2) Wide choice, 3) limited choice, 4) wide choice. Based on that I was able to position the different coffee shops around Union Square on the map and I was able to draw out some interesting information. Two of the important criteria used by consumers when they are making judgements in the marketplace are the typres of environment created by the location and the range of coffe that is offered. One can notice that MacDonald's is the fastest delivery environment however, their choice of coffee is extremely limited, while Caffe Nero has a much more comfortable environment and a wide range of coffee drinks available for example. Book Shop caffe creates a comfortable environment with a limited range of coffee choices while The Bean is a fast delivery environment with a wider choice of coffees. This is not to say that one is better than the other just different. As a result this helps inform decision about a brand marketing.

Best and Worst Product Evaluation

From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, design is constantly around us. We as human beings sometimes take that for granted or don't even realize how important design is in our everyday life. After watching the documentary objectified and reading some articles that focus on product evaluation and what makes a product good or bad, I was able to really notice how big of an effect products and designers have in our life. Every single one of these object has a story, and a group of engineers and designers behind    it that spend hours trying to put together a product that facilitates our daily routines. For a whole day I wanted to note down almost all the designed products I use on a regular day. As the day went buy I noticed my list getting bigger and bigger and it was then that I realized that if design or products did not exist my life and all of our lives would just not function the same. The first product I use in the morning is my alarm clock, ten I brush my teeth and shower, wear my bathrobe, pick out my clothes use the hairdryer, put some make up on, head to the kitchen feed the dog, put his leach on take him down, (meanwhile Ive used my phone and an ipod to put on some music), I use the elevator to go down, my key to reenter my building, finally I make my coffee using my nespresso machine and cut myself some fruits using a knife. I've only gone through less than a quarter of my day and I realized that I've already used at least fifteen designed products. However, throughout my morning experience I noticed that there were some product that functioned a lot better than others. The product that was the most efficient and easiest to use was the Nespresso coffee machine. Nespresso is a coffe machine that was created in 1976 by Eric Favre in Switzerland and has been an enormous success ever since. I find the machine extremely easy to use, the buttons indicate exactly what you are suppose to do, and you result with a coffee that could be even better than starbuck's coffee straight from your own kitchen at home. Besides the function, Nespresso machines are also very visually appealing, they come in different sizes and colors and most of their forms are rounded, therefore it creates an organic feel to the product. In order for the machine to produce coffee, one must buy the disposable capsules, those could be found online or at the nespresso store. I have to say that that's the only annoying or frustrating aspect of the coffee making process. A way to improve that would be to make capsules more available in supermarkets, or maybe having a capsule that would last for more than one cup of coffee. Finally another argument that I can also point out is the prices of the machine and the capsules, tehy are priced pretty high which makes it also hard for it to be available for everyone. Moreover, in my opinion the worst product that I used that morning was the hairdryer. A hairdryer or a blowdryer is a electromechanical device, designed to blow cool or hot air over wet damp hair in order to accelerate the drying of the hair process. Although the buttons on the hairdryer are usually easy to use and indicate exactly what you need to do most of the time, there are still so many elements about that product that make the use of the hairdryer a frustrating process. First of all the product is big and bulky, it is heavy, hard to transport and during trips it takes up a lot of room in a suitcase, however travelling with is necessary for most women. In addition the cord is too long or too short, it is never the right size, it gets tangled into everything such as the knobs or the drawer and it knocks over most of the products on my dresser. But the most frustrating aspect in this product is the noise that a blowdryer makes. The noise of a blowdryer is the worst thing to hear in the morning, especially if its not you using the actual machine. We live in such an advanced world that people have been able to facilitate and improve a large number of products that are used every day, however we still havent managed to find a way to reduce or eliminate the noise of a blowdryer ( even though the world we live in today meets all the capabilities of having an improved and easier to use hairdryer.)

Post office: Not as efficient as we thought!

The United States Postal Service, which is often referred to as USPS, the Post Office, or U.S Mail, is in charge of providing postal service in the U.S. It consists of 574,000 employed workers and operates over 218,000 vehicles. The service is very useful, in which it allows packages to be sent from one destination to another and is one of the most important features in several businesses that use this service to send goods across the globe.  Though it may seem that the U.S Postal Service is efficient and currently working well, there are many faults to the service, some of which I have experienced myself. When I lost my passport, I had to report straight to the post office in order to receive a new one. As I arrived there, the post office only had one man working behind the counter for lost passports and the line was immense. This resulted in me waiting for three and a half hours, missing a lecture that I needed to attend, and then leaving the post office in pure frustration. The one thing I promised myself when leaving was to prevent using the system to the best of my ability, unless very necessary, something that several individuals feel about the service. The individuals in the line, some of which were previous activists at the Occupy Wall Street Movement, got very upset and began yelling across the post office. One man yelled “this is a monopoly and we need to change it!” The post office is a service that everyone can use and needs to use in order to send their mail; however seems to be a service that not many people are accepting as a positive service. What is that individuals hate the post office so much? The main answer is, the time and process it takes for anything to be accomplished. Whether it’s actually going to the post office, filling out the information required for your item to be shipped and then spending hours in line, or waiting patiently for a package to arrive, there always seems to be this notion of waiting that individuals are very unhappy with. The lines in the post office move far to slowly, which causes individuals to get frustrated. In order for them to improve this, one may want to increase further employment in the service, so for example in my case, having three people working behind the counter, would have already saved everyone so much time. Another aspect they may want to improve on is the process of filling out forms at the post office; these could be prevented by just having a kiosk, which allows you to fill out any information required instead of four different papers that need to be given off when sending a package. Though there are many faults the post offices, it is a service that does provide employment and works some of sufficiently, however needs to increase its consumer confidence.