Paleo Journey: An Interactive Paleolithic Cave Art Experience. Using the User Experience (UX) Design Process to Develop An Interactive and Immersive Paleolithic Cave Art Exhibit Suitable for Children Between Five (5) and Seven (7) Years Old.

Most European caves containing Paleolithic cave art paintings (dating from approximately 10,000 – 50,000 years BP) are no longer accessible to the general public, and their visitor centers often require lengthy travel for tourists. In addition, the interactivity associated with these exhibits largely focus upon computer screens, and not a tactile interface. This Thesis project seeks to create a prototype of a tactile interface on a mock cave surface using projection mapping and motion tracking. In developing this exhibit, the user experience (UX) design process was used as a methodology for defining, researching and co-designing for a particular user segment. While this Thesis only focuses on the users between the ages of five (5) to seven (7) years old, it can be used as a model for other user segments. In researching and testing prototypes with children from this age cohort, it was determined that young children have visual-spatial development issues that hinder their ability to identify common animals in static cave art such as lions, rhinos and bison. After viewing the same cave art animals in motion graphics, 100% of all children were able to correctly identify the animal types

Translating the fashion story: analyzing fashion captions in two women\u27s magazines

Fashion magazines are the most accessible source for women to learn the latest about fashion and trends. Publishing company Condé Nast owns many consumer fashion magazines including the American editions of Lucky and Vogue. Even though both magazines are classified under the genre of fashion, these magazines are branded differently. Vogue features editorial styling, which is garments arranged lavishly and creatively for the glossy fashion spreads. However, Lucky magazine contains both editorial and lifestyle styling. To reinforce the styled image, fashion magazines place captions in these editorials. Captions transform these garments into written language. Since each magazine uses different types of styling, editors are writing captions in different formats. The purpose of the study is to investigate the stylistic similarities and differences of fashion captions in Lucky and Vogue. Additionally, semantic-syntax tree diagrams were used to determine how the fashion captions communicate meaning. This study followed a mixed methods approach using a purposive sample (n=14). The March and September issues were examined from 2010-2013. Data results show magazines are written primarily in grammatical modifiers. Different from prior research, nouns were the largest category, and adjectives composed the second largest category. Some captions did not have verbs resulting in mainly a descriptive narrative. Each magazine differed in the types of verbs used, frequency of proper nouns, and types of prepositions. Furthermore, when editors are not telling a ‘fashion story’, then captions are written as imperative commands. When telling a ‘fashion story’, the garment is often personified to take on human characteristics or described as possessing certain characteristics. Both magazines use these writing styles to convey different ideas and content to the reader. The results of this study strengthened the belief that a distinct stylistic form of writing exists in fashion captions. From this study, fashion editors and scholars may become more aware of the current stylistic formations featured in fashion captions, and further enhance their knowledge of how to communicate editorial trends and themes to their intended audience

Assessing visual variables of cartographic text design

This dissertation presents a series of usability studies, which examines the usability of the application of visual variables on cartographic text. Labels’ size, shape, orientation, texture, and colour were tested. The study also examines different lettering systems and their impact on cartographic text design. The obtained users’ preference, time measurement, questionnaires and eye tracking data were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Insights are acquired to improve the quality of map through Improving cartographic text design

Reading with early-stage Alzheimer's disease. Modifications to book design as a way of supporting preserved literacy skills

Little attention has been paid by publishers of accessible texts to the needs of readers who have early-stage Alzheimer’s disease but who want to continue to read for pleasure. The aim of this thesis is to explore the effect on reading of the specific memory impairment that is characteristic of this form of dementia and to investigate whether there are modifications to text design or content that would be beneficial. A qualitative approach involving iterative testing was taken to the research. An initial scoping study established the nature of the condition and assessed the feasibility of volunteer recruitment. Collaboration with established organisations was chosen to ensure consistency of participant diagnosis and adherence to strict ethical guidelines. Three small-scale participant-centred studies were carried out involving both one-to-one interviews and group meetings. A reflexive approach ensured that the research findings were constantly reviewed. Sample materials were devised to simulate the experience of reading a printed book. Using a combination of published texts and improvised visual materials, the samples highlighted specific problems with content and presentation that had been identified in the published literature and by informants during the scoping study. With careful questioning by the researcher, participants were able to choose between contrasting memory-supporting features and to articulate their further needs. A favourable response was received to the addition of descriptive illustrations to works of fiction, providing plot summaries at the start of each new chapter, and printing a list of characters in the prelims or on a jacket flap. Visualisation skills were also reported by a number of informants as being unaffected by a cognitive impairment. The studies confirm the contribution made by multidisciplinary research to the field of dementia studies. Participant involvement in the research combined with medical knowledge and publishing heuristics produced an innovative approach to a multifaceted problem

Spastic Logic: Artwork as intervention in social relationships, formed in retrograde through writing

If we consider the hidden relations behind the evolution of an artwork to be a negotiation of beliefs, social status and ideological positions, how might an artwork intervene in these relationships, reconfiguring the context through which it is informed rather than being confined by it? I propose an understanding of methods that place an alternative ethical universe upon the financial, material and social hierarchies that operate in the background of artistic production. The research signals that, within these relations, strategies can be enacted that relentlessly produce fictions of autonomy and agency. I begin by taking a specific artwork of mine as a model—one which began in 1987 as an unsolicited brief to rebrand the British Marxist newspaper Morning Star— asking the editors to reconsider what might be an accepted relationship between class and form. Over eleven chapters, at dated intervals along a timeline from the present back to 1987, I move between a number of approaches to thread particular ideological rationales with their counters, contingent factual information, and characters of varying social status and interests. My research becomes the evolving history of the model itself. Throughout the research I envisage a mechanism that I term ‘spastic logic’ as a conditioning characteristic of meaning. Spasticity is a manner through which something becomes contorted or displaced when stimulus provokes an act of reflex. The writing of the chapters is an attempt to introduce stimulus that would provoke this sense of ‘spastic logic’. Instead of relating a precise genesis of an artwork, I aim to form its history through a fitful relationship between content that is heterogeneous and proceeds associatively rather than by incident. Meaning is shaped through contingency, the structural interstices between an artwork’s thematic parts are remodelled and scenarios can be introduced in which expected ethical positions are displaced

Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 4: Learning, Technology, Thinking

In September 2019 Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University was honoured to host the bi-annual conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) under the unifying theme of DESIGN REVOLUTIONS. This was the first time the conference had been held in the UK. Through key research themes across nine conference tracks – Change, Learning, Living, Making, People, Technology, Thinking, Value and Voices – the conference opened up compelling, meaningful and radical dialogue of the role of design in addressing societal and organisational challenges. This Volume 4 includes papers from Learning, Technology and Thinking tracks of the conference

Retracing the 1910 Carruthers Royal Geographical Society Expedition to the Turgen Mountains of Mongolia – Reconstruction of a Century of Glacial Change

The Turgen Mountains lie in northwestern Mongolia, roughly 80 kilometers south of the Russian border. The area was visited in 1910 by a Royal Geographical Society (RGS) expedition led by Douglas Carruthers. They undertook an extensive survey of the range and produced a detailed topographic map. They also documented the extent of the glaciers with photographs. This modern study consisted of three phases. The first step was to procure the historical documents from the RGS in London, including copies of the photos, journal entries, and the map. Field work in Mongolia entailed traveling to the remote study site and retracing portions the 1910 expedition. Camera locations were matched to the historical photographs and repeat images taken. In addition, the termini of the two main glacial lobes were surveyed by GPS. Finally, spatial analysis was conducted in the computer laboratory using a GIS to generate a „historic‟ elevation model from the 1910 map and compare it to a modern DEM generated from SRTM data. Map analysis software was employed to evaluate cartometric accuracy of the 1910 map against modern Russian topographic sheets. The results of the DEM and map analysis were then validated using the field GPS data and remotely sensed imagery to quantitatively describe the changes in the glacial system. The repeat photography was analyzed using photogrammetric techniques to measure glacier changes. Also, a custom cartographic product was produced in the style of the 1910 Carruthers map. It displays the extent of the glaciers in 2010 and the locations of repeat photography stations for future expeditions. Placing the results of this study alongside previous work paints a clear picture of the Turgen glacial regime over the last century. The results suggest that while the snow and ice volume on the summits appears to be intact, lower elevation glaciers show significant ablation. This study successively demonstrates the utility of using historic expedition documents to extend the modern record of glacial change

Frameworks of representation: A design History of the district six museum in Cape Town

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDSince 1994, the District Six Museum, in constructing histories of forced removals from District Six, Cape Town, commenced as a post-apartheid memory project which evolved into a memorial museum. Design has been a central strategy claimed by the museum in its process of making memory work visible to its attendant publics evolving into a South African cultural brand. Co-design within the museum is aesthetically infused with sensitively curated exhibitions and a form of museumisation, across two tangible sites of engagement, which imparts a unique visual languag

Frameworks of representation: A design history of the District Six Museum in Cape Town

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDSince 1994, the District Six Museum, in constructing histories of forced removals from District Six, Cape Town, commenced as a post-apartheid memory project which evolved into a memorial museum. Design has been a central strategy claimed by the museum in its process of making memory work visible to its attendant publics evolving into a South African cultural brand. Co-design within the museum is aesthetically infused with sensitively curated exhibitions and a form of museumisation, across two tangible sites of engagement, which imparts a unique visual language. The term design became extraordinarily popular in contemporary Cape Town, where the city was - in 2014 -the World Design Capital. Yet at the same time as design was being inscribed into the public imaginary, it was simultaneously curiously undefined although influential in shifting representational aesthetics in the city. This research seeks to ask questions about this proliferation of interest in design and to examine this through a close reading of the work of the District Six Museum situated near District Six. In particular, micro and macro design elements are explored as socio-cultural practice in re-imagining community in the city that grew out of resistance and cultural networks. Various design strategies or frameworks of representation sought to stabilize and clarify individual and collective pasts enabling and supporting ex-residents to reinterpret space after loss, displacement and separation and re-enter their histories and the city. Post-apartheid museum design modes and methodologies applied by the District Six Museum as museumisation disrupts conventional historiographies in the fields of art, architectural and exhibition design, where the focus is placed on temporal chronologies, in a biographic mode profiling examples of works and designers/artists. Instead, the research contextualises the work of design as making in a more open sense, of exploring the very constructedness of the museum as a space of method, selection, process and representation thereby asking questions about this reified term design as method and practice. The designing ways of the District Six Museum contribute to understanding idioms mediated through design frameworks allowing for a departure from the limited ways design history has been written. Through an unlayering of projects, practices and an examination of archival case studies, exhibition curation, the adaptive reuse of buildings and through institutional rebranding my argument is that the particularities of the claims to design work at the District Six Museum provide a rich case for relating to other contemporaneous processes of making apartheid’s spatial practices visible as projects such as this claim community. Therefore seeking to demystify how this community museum ‘making’ has been fashioned through an investment in various design disciplines, forms and practices revealing the inherent complexity in doing so