reading texts - their abstracts

Abstracts of texts:

Graphic Design for the Real World?
Visual communication’s potential in design activism and design for social change

Thereafter it discusses persuasive tendencies in graphic design and ques-
tions if its current contribution to design activism is limited to its predominant narrow role of persuad-ing for “the good cause.”

Co-experience: user experience as interaction

This paper reviews various existing
approaches to understanding user experience and describes three main
approaches and their differences. It builds on an existing approach but borrows from symbolic interactionism to create a more inclusive interactionist framework for thinking about user experiences. Data from a study on mobile multimedia messaging are used to illustrate and
discuss the framework.

The future of print design relies on interaction

We compiled a list for both technologies with common media and their respective descriptions. Such
explanation helps to establish transitions of digital interaction and user involvement, for print media. In order to verify this effect, we developed a graphic design project. It was designed to allow a different use, based on experiences taken from digital artefacts. Though confined to communication needs, the result provides details on structure, organization and handling.

The Graphic Thing Ambiguity, Dysfunction, and Excess in Designed Objects

I approach what we call “things” as mental constructs that emerge in processes of meaning-
making rather than as entities that exist independently of human comprehension.
Objects can therefore be linked more readily to existing knowledge (apperception) and to familiar frames of reference and scenarios. In what ways do we experience “thingness” in graphic design objects, and how does this relate to issues of materiality and transparency in graphic communication? In this article, I mobilize concepts from cognitive linguistics to explain how our apperception of objects can be subverted through design strategies such as exaggerating the physical qualities of artifacts or contravening conventions. I will use examples of graphic design to illustrate how these strategies can, at some level, disrupt our understanding of graphic objects

Who’s in charge? End-users challenge graphic designers’ intuition through visual verbal co-
design

Three co-design activities are presented, as part of a larger project, revealing insights for the next generation of graphic designers. A visual verbal game dissolved participant status barriers, a persona scenario activity uncovered the real brief and a mix and match card game suspended participant politics. The findings suggest that co-designing with end-users, challenges graphic designers’ use of intuition, as new ways of categorizing asthma information material were revealed that previous
design-led processes had overlooked. This study confirms the rich contribution of end-users’ creativity, when designers relinquish creative control, ultimately revealing co-design as a valuable approach for graphic designers engaging in bottom-up design processes.