“Delivering a difficult message is like throwing a hand grenade. Coated with sugar, thrown hard or soft, a hand grenade is still going to do damage. Try as you might there’s no way to throw a hand grenade with tact or to outrun the consequences.” - Douglas Stone
In The Art of Interactive Design, Chris Crawford makes an analogy between creating interactive media and holding a conversation. A standard design process often looks to set up all “conversations” as comfortable and pleasurable, with a low barrier to entry for users. Devices should give us what we want. "Seamless" and "frictionless" should be hallmarks of good user experience. But does this map onto our lives? What about "Difficult Conversations", explored by Douglas Stone in the book of the same name? Shouldn't we be designing those? Can we?
Meaningful growth involves discomfort. For individuals, in relationships, for communities it can be a key aspect in the process of reaching a desired outcome, in what Ida Benedetto calls "patterns of transformation". Discomfort with good reason. Our unique insights as designers, artists, and creative technologists can lead to innovative uses of this unorthodox tool. This is the starting point for this course.
Class schedule with readings, assignments, and due dates.
The design of this course is indebted to Gabe Barcia-Colombo and Marina Zurkow, the rest of the ITP Faculty, and the work of the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham in the UK.
This is a speculative experience design course centered on discomfort. We will spend the next seven weeks delving into how discomfort functions, why it’s of interest to us, and what we might be able to do with it. We’ll look at four broad categories through assigned readings, in-class lectures, and design challenges. These challenges ask you to create safe risks for yourself and others, putting your ideas to the test as you critically explore the course content.
This is a non-technical course. I expect you to explore how you can apply your favored skills, technical approaches and design tools to the questions and opportunities presented to you. I'm impartial about form as long as it supports your content. At the end of the seven weeks, you should be empowered to incorporate the course learnings into your work as designers, artists, and creative technologists.
Physical and emotional safety will be priorities and necessities to make the work in this course possible. This includes our own safety within the classroom, as well as the safety of any user-testers or participants in projects and assignments that emerge from the course. Boundaries and agreements will be established at the start of the session, and reinforced throughout. If you feel uncomfortable posting the documentation of your work online, please let me know and we can find another method of sharing.
Prepare for each session by reading or watching the assigned supporting materials. These will give you better understanding of what we’ll cover in class, and be a major reference-point for design ideas and methods that can support your work in the course.
Before class each week, please make a public blog post responding to one or more of the readings (500 words max).
See the course bibliography for even more materials.
Four, week-long assignments that explore the form of discomfort to be examined in the next class. These challenges, which expand on the ideas and examples we’ll discuss, span a range of approaches which may be more of less familiar to you (i.e. are outside your comfort zone), but you can always bring your technical, artistic, or other know-how to bear.
Descriptions of the challenges can be found in the course schedule. Each assignment will have an outside-of-class and an in-class component. You will need to create a public blog post that includes photo or video documentation, as well as a short (500 words max) description of what you were trying to achieve with your answer to the challenge, and your assessment of how it went. Posts should be made within a week of completing the challenge.
A final project will demonstrate your engagement with and mastery of the conceptual content in the course, using standard design artifacts. There are three options for the project, that involve expanding on your response to one of the challenges, doing a case study of an example work, or going in a new direction. The project will start with a proposal, include a working version or illustrative documentation that you share as part of a mini showcase on the last day of class, and finish with a closing public blog post. A full description of the project elements can be found on the schedule.
There are many ways that people participate, and I don’t expect that every student will show their engagement with the material in the same way. You can use responses on your personal ITP blog, shared before class sessions, or join directly into class discussions. These are both valid forms of participation, and you can choose one or the other based on your best learning. One of these forms of engagement with the material, in addition to class projects, will factor into your ability to pass this course.
During classmate presentations and in-class activities, please keep laptops down. I strongly encourage you to bring a pen and notebook for note-taking, in addition to notes you may take on your laptop. Listen to Clay.
Attending and arriving on time to all class sessions is required and expected. If you will be missing a class due to illness, or unavoidable personal circumstances, you must notify me in advance via email for the absence to be excused.
Given the ITP grading system, and the short duration of this course, you will be unable to pass with two unexcused absences. For non-ITP students, one unexcused or three absences total will lower your final grade by a letter. Being late twice will count as one unexcused absence. Three more times will count as another.
I am dedicated to making my classroom accessible for all individuals; if you need accommodations due to a different ability, please see NYU's procedures so we can achieve the best outcome for you. You are not required to disclose your disability.
The following language comes from the Moses Center:
If you are a student with a disability and feel youneed accommodations, you must register with the MosesCenter for Students with Disabilities. They are locatedat 726 Broadway, 2nd fl. and can be reached at212-998-4980 or mosescsd@nyu.edu.You can find more information about NYU’s disability policies here.
Here’s the breakdown of how grades correspond with percentages. Note that the completion of all components of the class is necessary to earn a passing grade.
For students taking the class as pass/fail (i.e., all ITP students), anything below a B (79% and below) will be graded as a fail. More information on ITP’s grading policy here.
Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work as though it were your own. More specifically, plagiarism is to present as your own: A sequence of words quoted without quotation marks from another writer or a paraphrased passage from another writer’s work or facts, ideas or images composed by someone else.
The core of the educational experience at the Tisch School of the Arts is the creation of original academic and artistic work by students for the critical review of faculty members. It is therefore of the utmost importance that students at all times provide their instructors with an accurate sense of their current abilities and knowledge in order to receive appropriate constructive criticism and advice. Any attempt to evade that essential, transparent transaction between instructor and student through plagiarism or cheating is educationally self-defeating and a grave violation of Tisch School of the Arts community standards. For all the details on plagiarism, please refer to page 10 of the Tisch School of the Arts, Policies and Procedures Handbook, which can be found online at: http://students.tisch.nyu.edu/page/home.html
Please feel free to make suggestions to your instructor about ways in which this class could become more accessible to you. Academic accommodations are available for students with documented disabilities. Please contact the Moses Center for Students with Disabilities at 212 998-4980 for further information.
Your health and safety are a priority at NYU. If you experience any health or mental health issues during this course, we encourage you to utilize the support services of the 24/7 NYU Wellness Exchange 212-443-9999. Also, all students who may require an academic accommodation due to a qualified disability, physical or mental, please register with the Moses Center 212-998-4980. Please let your instructor know if you need help connecting to these resources.
Laptops will be an essential part of the course and may be used in class during workshops and for taking notes in lecture. Laptops must be closed during class discussions and student presentations. Phone use in class is strictly prohibited unless directly related to a presentation of your own work or if you are asked to do so as part of the curriculum.
Tisch School of the Arts to dedicated to providing its students with a learning environment that is rigorous, respectful, supportive and nurturing so that they can engage in the free exchange of ideas and commit themselves fully to the study of their discipline. To that end Tisch is committed to enforcing University policies prohibiting all forms of sexual misconduct as well as discrimination on the basis of sex and gender. Detailed information regarding these policies and the resources that are available to students through the Title IX office can be found by using the following link: Title IX at NYU.