Understanding Beauty: A Framework for Designers IDSA NEC 2004: - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

A Framework for Designers

Understanding Beauty:

BEA Systems, Inc. Uday Gajendar

IDSA NEC 2004: Pasadena

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

2

What’s the big idea?

• Shift beauty from style to experience
• A model to structure and focus the dialogue

with design peers about beauty

• Classroom and workplace guidance to think

about, debate, advocate for aesthetics

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

3

A little context...

Beauty? Design? Experience? Yves Behar exhibit

Beauty: It’s all the rage!

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

4 elegant pleasing sensual sexy cool hip evocative fashionable sharp desire poetic stylish

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

5

Let’s shift expectations...

Beauty

aesthetics emotion pleasure desirability fun satisfaction

total integrative aesthetic experience

visual + behavioral + reflective

UX

user experience

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

6

A model of beauty...

architectur philosophy psychology computer scienc

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

7

Optimal Flow

• Self-directed optimal experience
• Re-ordering the contents of consciousness
• Immersive engagement in a system/activity
• Challenge and fulfillment, results in renewal
• M. Cziksentmhalyi | Psychology

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

8

Optimal Flow

• M. Cziksentmhalyi | Psychology

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

9

Lifestyle Design

• Interaction between person and her environment:

tools, spaces, materials, etc.

• Structure/pattern: “doing and undergoing”
• Dynamic integration of thought, emotion, action

into consummate whole

• Result is “an experience” to be relived/shared

John Dewey | Philosophy Art as Experience

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

10

Lifestyle Design

John Dewey | Philosophy Art as Experience

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

11

Machine Beauty

• Marriage of “simplicity” and “power”
• Direct engagement of material to

accomplish task

• Functional elegance and utility
• Mechanical austerity

David Gelernter | CS Machine Beauty

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

12

Machine Beauty

David Gelernter | CS Machine Beauty

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

13

Spiritual/Cultural Appeal

• An “architectonic” approach to design
• Strive for balance, harmony, unity within one’s life

and aspirations

• Awaken cultural synthesis/communal membership
• Life-enhancing value, inspiring the spirit

Walter Gropius | Architecture (Bauhaus) Scope of Total Architecture

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

14

Spiritual/Cultural Appeal

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

15

What’s the value?

• In the classroom: prepare students to become

leaders, advocates, influencers

• In the office, try the following:
• Create high quality diagrams, demonstrate craft with deliverables
• Make aesthetic enrichment a UX goal
• Raise questions in UX reviews: is this a lifestyle, is it flow, is it

simple/power, etc.

• Change attitude: it's not just visual stuff, don't just dismiss it as UI

job, it's everyone's job

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

16

Final Thoughts

• Caution: will take time, gradual insinuation,

not overnite change

• Higher value: create positive, memorable,

rewarding experience

• Aesthetic imperative is how to get there

im·per·a·tiv

• 1. a. A command; an order.
• b. An obligation; a duty: social imperatives.
• 2. A rule, principle, or instinct that compels a certain behavior

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

17

Revisit the model...

architectur philosophy psychology computer scienc

understanding beauty : IDSA NEC 2004

18

A last word...

It’s when art comes down from the wall that things really get interesting...

• Michael Graves