TOTAL EXPERIENCE explores designing for experience: its theory, its practice, and how designing for experiences affects us socially and in our personal lives.
CO-AUTHORS
BOB JACOBSON is fascinated by the experience of experience. A planner and technologist, Bob has a Ph.D. in Urban Planning & Design from UCLA. He's been a policy researcher, technology CEO, science writer, and consultant. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied cellular telephony's impacts on transborder communities in the Nordic Arctic Circle. Bob edited Information Design (MIT Press 2000) and is now writing a book on the theory and practice of creating edifying, transformative experiences.
PAULA THORNTON says, "Understanding human behavior (economics), optimizing interactions (design) and facilitating conversations (markets), are the means to achieve strategic differentiation. This is the focus of our discipline. It is not a 'nice to have'‚ and is not, like documentation once was, an afterthought. It is the means by which to start a strategic discussion and the means by which to drive a tactical initiative. All design should be evidence-based."
Obviously, one of the critical bodies of knowledge for our discipline is the study of human behavior. With that, I have a recommendation. Eating my cereal and soy milk this morning I happened to flip to the Discovery Health network. I had the priviledge of catching the end of what is apparently a recurring three-part series: The Baby Human.
While I'll hopefully be catching the rebroadcast this afternoon (I can't go too far from home today, as the beginning of a winter snowstorm is quietly decending on the WDC area), I wanted to share the inspiration I gathered from this, in the hopes that some of you might also be inspired to watch.
Among the research featured is work being done under the direction of Dr. Patricia Kuhl with infants at the University of Washington (my alma mater), focusing on human learning (a video clip about some of the research can be played from this site; requires free registration).
In the episode I saw (I thought it was the one on 'learning' but the schedule says it was the one on 'talking'), I was most fascinated with the following discovery. Toddlers were presented two containers of food. One with small crackers and one with small pieces of raw broccoli. The choice of preference was the crackers. The researcher attempted to show her preference was broccoli. [I believe the first subject was 14 months old.] When the researcher asked for the child to put a treat in her hand the first subject gave her his favorite, even though she had shared great displeasure over eating that one. But with a difference of 4 months, an 18-month-old subject hesitatingly gave the researcher a piece of broccoli.
I can't avoid jumping to the immediate revelation that there is a tremendous lesson here for corporate executives who do not possess this same sense of 'understanding for others' expressed so poignantly through the simple innocent act of an 18-month-old child. Beyond that I relished what these efforts will bring forth (via new artifacts for our 'baskets') to help us with our work.
I was also struck by a concluding statement made in the episode. While I can't quote it, it effectively recognized this research as a means to celebrate human consciousness. At the end of my day, I know that's what I celebrate: still being conscious!
Now I'd be really happy if someone came up with a series that draws the connection between human choice and the fundamental principles of economics -- how we make choices by weighing factors and how one choice affects another. It is 'in' the fusion between these disciplines that our greatest learnings are yet to be uncovered.
I'm interested to notice how much more anyone can learn from babies if babies and adults know sign language. This seems not to have occurred to the neurologist in the clip.
Permalink to CommentGreat observation. As their research was on language, they appear to be focused on aspects of the spoken language. But you're right. If the research was more focused on communicating behaviors and the evolution of behaviors, sign language might be a more appropriate form of communicating.
I'd also be interested to discover, particularly since infant's verbal language stills are limited, whether or not they have a sufficient cognitive ability to learn limited signs in a reasonable period of time. That is, would the effort lengthen (add cost) to the research?
Permalink to CommentThe two kinds of language are separate issues here. The test was for the baby hearing and distinguishing phonemes (I infer) that distinguish one sound from another.
Sign language goes to the baby's ability to respond, "comment" as it were. I have seen small babies in arms who have been taught sign language with their mothers, though I don't know the conceptual depth they reached. It was certainly far more complex than their verbal abilities! There seems to be more info at inter alia http://www.signingbaby.com
Kind of off-thread. Thanks for your interest. I think babies can teach us a great deal about tapping others' experience, how often do marketers offer us crackers rather than broccoli, because they want crackers or assume we do? In fact, to the extent experiential marketing is a moderated variation on bonding and attachment, lots more observation can be expected.
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