Assignment 3: Develop a prototype for your mass customizations product design tool - Report
Design aim
Because I have neglected the Ning blog for a long time, here’s a reminder of what my mass customization tool is: to improve on an existing mass customization for shoes, by redesigning the design process of the customization, to allow a person to be more engaged and involved in the design process.
Keds and Zazzle
Out of all the mass customization tools for shoes I have researched the Ked’s Studio is one of the best shoe customization tools out there. What made Ked’s Studio stand out from the rest was its collaboration with Zazzle, which allowed Ked’s to revolutionize shoe customization by adding the option of putting your own graphics onto a desired shoe for printing, meaning the designs generated could be endless. What made it also appealing was its easy to use interface, where the shoe you were designing was clearly labeled, there were multiple viewing channels and it was clean and simple to navigate.
So, for my mass customization I have used the Ked’s Studio website as a basis for my customization tool, as my design aim is to improve on an existing mass customization tool for shoes. But I will be changing the design process itself and tweaking parts of the interface to create, what I think, would be an improved customization tool for users that will fulfill my design aim.
Mass Customization process
Introduction: Inspiration
The wall I kept encountering when designing my mass customization tool was how can I create a design process that can generate interesting designs, fun to use, but is more than just a Photoshop/Paint experience or changing numerical numbers in code?
The solution: the design process that I have come up with will not necessarily create a sophisticated design that can be achieved through using an image, but it involves a very different design process that allows a user to be more involved in the design process, and to just have fun. The American artist Jackson Pollock is the main influence in my design creation. What made he’s artworks so outstanding was he’s ground breaking artistic technique of ‘action painting’, where he used hardened brushes, sticks and basting syringes as paint applicators; dripping liquid paint onto a spread out canvas, adding a new dimension to creating art, being able to view and apply paint to his canvas from all directions, resulting in very abstract expressionistic art form.
I have taken this concept of ‘action painting’ – dripping, pouring, splattering, flinging, as well as the new dimensions of being able to create ‘art’ from all directions and incorporated it into my design process, which will give a user a very ‘hands on’ experience in the design process, therefore generating unique personalized and interesting design outcomes.
Design process:
As I have decided to use Ked’s Studio as the basis of my mass customization design tool, I will be adopting parts of their design process and interface, but adding my improved customizable section to their website.
The design process can be best described in steps:
Step 1: Choose your canvas style. I will be using the three canvas shoes available from the Ked’s Studio.
Step 2: Choose shoe size. Ked’s Studio provides a very extensive shoe size measurement guide, which includes an international shoe size chart, as well as providing measurements in cm/inches. The shoe size is very important as it will influence the design i.e. a larger shoe canvas will have a different effect as opposed to a smaller shoe canvas.
Step 3: Design Process. The design process composes of two sections: the first section is the designing aspect of the customization tool, and the second section includes the trims and details that can be added
Section 1: Design process
1. Select area. Select the shoe region in which you want to customize your design on. The shoe area will affect the design outcome. Alternatively you can choose from the ‘Colours and prints’ section that will allow you to block in solid colours to your shoe. However if you want to experience the design process then move on to the next step.
2. Add in text. Text is the basis in which the designs will be generated from. If you have a look at text, it is merely created from geometric shapes and shapes are a design element used to create interesting images or patterning – hence designs. The amount of text is determined by the selected area.
3. Select colours. More than one colour can be chosen for the design, colours selected can also be removed if not desired. One colour will be assigned to each letter that has been typed in the Add in text section. If more than one colour is chosen then the colours will be randomly assigned to each letter. This will add spontaneity into the design process.
4. Select the liquefy ratio. This determines how ‘wet’ the colours selected will be; this will inevitably affect the design outcome. The more ‘wet’ the colour is, the more random the design outcome will be.
5. Mix It. This is where the design outcome is created and where user participation is required in order to create an interesting design outcome. Once a user clicks on ‘Mix It’, a clear sphere will encase the canvas shoe. What the user has to do is click; hold and drag the sphere then shake and rotate it as they please. By shaking/rotating the sphere, the user is actually modifying the text on the canvas. The more vigorously you shake/rotate the sphere the more ‘spread out’ and mixed together the text and colours will be, similar to the concept of ‘action painting’. This is also where the liquefy ratio will affect the design. Obviously the higher the liquefy ratio, the wetter the ‘paint’ is the more ‘fluid’ the design, and the more the text itself becomes like random patterning.
6. Done. Once a user is done shaking/rotating, clicking ‘Done’ will make the sphere disappear and the ‘finished’ canvas will be presented. ‘Re-mix’ will allow the user to go through the ‘Mix It’ process. The ‘Edit’ option will appear when ‘Done’ is clicked.
7. Edit. Edit allows a person to edit their design by repositioning, resizing, rotating, cropping and bending the design onto the shoe as desired.
Section 2: Trims and details
Adding the finite details, such as choosing stitching colour and colours of the binding. The shoe can be viewed through the multiple viewing channels, for a close up look click on the magnifying class icon, or click on ‘View pair’ to view your designed shoe as a pair.
Step 4: Buy your shoe! Or if $60.00 is too much post for sale, email or save your design instead. While you’re at it, why not ‘Start Over’ again.
Here's a visual step-by-step guide of how the design process will look in the Ked's Studio website: cyeu3215.zip
Generative Design Systems in the Customization process
My enhanced customization tool uses a rule-based system and shape grammars in the design process. The rule-based system is used to determine the design in relation to the canvas size. In other words, the bigger the canvas size (shoe size), the larger the design can be created in, this also applies to the choice of shoe area in relation to the text. Similarly, a rule based system is also used to control the liquefy ratio in accordance to the design. Since the liquefy ratio is used to determine how ‘wet’ a colour is, the higher the value chosen will dramatically affect the design outcome, as it will be more ‘fluid’ and ‘abstract’ after the process of being rotated/shaken, a lower value will have the opposite effect. Another rule evident is that the more vigorously physical the user is during the design process, the more the design will evolve.
Shape grammars are also evident in my generative design system. The shape grammars are used to determine the designs that are generated through the physical process of a user rotating/shaking the sphere during the design process. Shape grammars were chosen as they have the particular ability to support emergence, where different patterns/shapes can be generated from the same set of rules. Shape grammars are also advantageous because of its non-deterministic nature, where even if there is a single rule for each shape, the application of rules is different, therefore having the capability of producing vast amounts of different outcomes. This can be seen in my customization process where the rules that control the design is that the colours will mix and flow in the direction that a user chooses to interact with the sphere. However how the colours flow will be slightly different each time the sphere is physically moved.
Reflection
The hardest thing that I found in this assignment was trying to think up of a good customization process that would be more than just clicking different design options (which was the main flaw of the shoe customization tools that I had researched on the web). I think the process that I have come up with is certainly very different. As I had written above, the inspiration was taken from Jackson Pollock’s technique of ‘action painting’, where I have taken the literal meaning of ‘action painting’ and used it to create the design process of my customization tool. I also had to keep in mind the design interface of Ked’s Studio, since I was using their website as a basis of my customization tool, I had to adopt and appropriate their look and feel of their interface, which I think I have done fairly well.
If I had to do this assignment again, I would have definitely would have liked to see how this customization tool would have turned out if it were actually interact-able, just to see how easy it is to navigate around my design interface in relation to the Ked’s Studio website, and also the actual design process itself, to see if my proposed plan is actually possible. I did actually physically try wet paint on paper, and turned the paper upside down and rotated it to see how well
Reference:
All images used in my prototype comes from the Ked’s Studio website, retrieved 3 November, 2008 from http://www.keds.com/text/kedsstudio/ and http://www.zazzle.com/cr/design/pt-kedsshoe/style-womens_mini_slipo...
Because I have neglected the Ning blog for a long time, here’s a reminder of what my mass customization tool is: to improve on an existing mass customization for shoes, by redesigning the design process of the customization, to allow a person to be more engaged and involved in the design process.
Keds and Zazzle
Out of all the mass customization tools for shoes I have researched the Ked’s Studio is one of the best shoe customization tools out there. What made Ked’s Studio stand out from the rest was its collaboration with Zazzle, which allowed Ked’s to revolutionize shoe customization by adding the option of putting your own graphics onto a desired shoe for printing, meaning the designs generated could be endless. What made it also appealing was its easy to use interface, where the shoe you were designing was clearly labeled, there were multiple viewing channels and it was clean and simple to navigate.
So, for my mass customization I have used the Ked’s Studio website as a basis for my customization tool, as my design aim is to improve on an existing mass customization tool for shoes. But I will be changing the design process itself and tweaking parts of the interface to create, what I think, would be an improved customization tool for users that will fulfill my design aim.
Mass Customization process
Introduction: Inspiration
The wall I kept encountering when designing my mass customization tool was how can I create a design process that can generate interesting designs, fun to use, but is more than just a Photoshop/Paint experience or changing numerical numbers in code?
The solution: the design process that I have come up with will not necessarily create a sophisticated design that can be achieved through using an image, but it involves a very different design process that allows a user to be more involved in the design process, and to just have fun. The American artist Jackson Pollock is the main influence in my design creation. What made he’s artworks so outstanding was he’s ground breaking artistic technique of ‘action painting’, where he used hardened brushes, sticks and basting syringes as paint applicators; dripping liquid paint onto a spread out canvas, adding a new dimension to creating art, being able to view and apply paint to his canvas from all directions, resulting in very abstract expressionistic art form.
I have taken this concept of ‘action painting’ – dripping, pouring, splattering, flinging, as well as the new dimensions of being able to create ‘art’ from all directions and incorporated it into my design process, which will give a user a very ‘hands on’ experience in the design process, therefore generating unique personalized and interesting design outcomes.
Design process:
As I have decided to use Ked’s Studio as the basis of my mass customization design tool, I will be adopting parts of their design process and interface, but adding my improved customizable section to their website.
The design process can be best described in steps:
Step 1: Choose your canvas style. I will be using the three canvas shoes available from the Ked’s Studio.
Step 2: Choose shoe size. Ked’s Studio provides a very extensive shoe size measurement guide, which includes an international shoe size chart, as well as providing measurements in cm/inches. The shoe size is very important as it will influence the design i.e. a larger shoe canvas will have a different effect as opposed to a smaller shoe canvas.
Step 3: Design Process. The design process composes of two sections: the first section is the designing aspect of the customization tool, and the second section includes the trims and details that can be added
Section 1: Design process
1. Select area. Select the shoe region in which you want to customize your design on. The shoe area will affect the design outcome. Alternatively you can choose from the ‘Colours and prints’ section that will allow you to block in solid colours to your shoe. However if you want to experience the design process then move on to the next step.
2. Add in text. Text is the basis in which the designs will be generated from. If you have a look at text, it is merely created from geometric shapes and shapes are a design element used to create interesting images or patterning – hence designs. The amount of text is determined by the selected area.
3. Select colours. More than one colour can be chosen for the design, colours selected can also be removed if not desired. One colour will be assigned to each letter that has been typed in the Add in text section. If more than one colour is chosen then the colours will be randomly assigned to each letter. This will add spontaneity into the design process.
4. Select the liquefy ratio. This determines how ‘wet’ the colours selected will be; this will inevitably affect the design outcome. The more ‘wet’ the colour is, the more random the design outcome will be.
5. Mix It. This is where the design outcome is created and where user participation is required in order to create an interesting design outcome. Once a user clicks on ‘Mix It’, a clear sphere will encase the canvas shoe. What the user has to do is click; hold and drag the sphere then shake and rotate it as they please. By shaking/rotating the sphere, the user is actually modifying the text on the canvas. The more vigorously you shake/rotate the sphere the more ‘spread out’ and mixed together the text and colours will be, similar to the concept of ‘action painting’. This is also where the liquefy ratio will affect the design. Obviously the higher the liquefy ratio, the wetter the ‘paint’ is the more ‘fluid’ the design, and the more the text itself becomes like random patterning.
6. Done. Once a user is done shaking/rotating, clicking ‘Done’ will make the sphere disappear and the ‘finished’ canvas will be presented. ‘Re-mix’ will allow the user to go through the ‘Mix It’ process. The ‘Edit’ option will appear when ‘Done’ is clicked.
7. Edit. Edit allows a person to edit their design by repositioning, resizing, rotating, cropping and bending the design onto the shoe as desired.
Section 2: Trims and details
Adding the finite details, such as choosing stitching colour and colours of the binding. The shoe can be viewed through the multiple viewing channels, for a close up look click on the magnifying class icon, or click on ‘View pair’ to view your designed shoe as a pair.
Step 4: Buy your shoe! Or if $60.00 is too much post for sale, email or save your design instead. While you’re at it, why not ‘Start Over’ again.
Here's a visual step-by-step guide of how the design process will look in the Ked's Studio website: cyeu3215.zip
Generative Design Systems in the Customization process
My enhanced customization tool uses a rule-based system and shape grammars in the design process. The rule-based system is used to determine the design in relation to the canvas size. In other words, the bigger the canvas size (shoe size), the larger the design can be created in, this also applies to the choice of shoe area in relation to the text. Similarly, a rule based system is also used to control the liquefy ratio in accordance to the design. Since the liquefy ratio is used to determine how ‘wet’ a colour is, the higher the value chosen will dramatically affect the design outcome, as it will be more ‘fluid’ and ‘abstract’ after the process of being rotated/shaken, a lower value will have the opposite effect. Another rule evident is that the more vigorously physical the user is during the design process, the more the design will evolve.
Shape grammars are also evident in my generative design system. The shape grammars are used to determine the designs that are generated through the physical process of a user rotating/shaking the sphere during the design process. Shape grammars were chosen as they have the particular ability to support emergence, where different patterns/shapes can be generated from the same set of rules. Shape grammars are also advantageous because of its non-deterministic nature, where even if there is a single rule for each shape, the application of rules is different, therefore having the capability of producing vast amounts of different outcomes. This can be seen in my customization process where the rules that control the design is that the colours will mix and flow in the direction that a user chooses to interact with the sphere. However how the colours flow will be slightly different each time the sphere is physically moved.
Reflection
The hardest thing that I found in this assignment was trying to think up of a good customization process that would be more than just clicking different design options (which was the main flaw of the shoe customization tools that I had researched on the web). I think the process that I have come up with is certainly very different. As I had written above, the inspiration was taken from Jackson Pollock’s technique of ‘action painting’, where I have taken the literal meaning of ‘action painting’ and used it to create the design process of my customization tool. I also had to keep in mind the design interface of Ked’s Studio, since I was using their website as a basis of my customization tool, I had to adopt and appropriate their look and feel of their interface, which I think I have done fairly well.
If I had to do this assignment again, I would have definitely would have liked to see how this customization tool would have turned out if it were actually interact-able, just to see how easy it is to navigate around my design interface in relation to the Ked’s Studio website, and also the actual design process itself, to see if my proposed plan is actually possible. I did actually physically try wet paint on paper, and turned the paper upside down and rotated it to see how well
Reference:
All images used in my prototype comes from the Ked’s Studio website, retrieved 3 November, 2008 from http://www.keds.com/text/kedsstudio/ and http://www.zazzle.com/cr/design/pt-kedsshoe/style-womens_mini_slipo...
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