Beer tastings are awesome. We will definitely be doing another one soon. Here are Will’s notes from our menu planning session. And for a great book on beer, check out this one. Oh, and there are also great pairing guidelines from Wegman’s.
One of the things I really love about cooking is the design of culinary tools. In my honest opinion, the Kitchen Aid stand mixer deserves a place at MoMA. It’s a design classic, an icon of American design and mechanical engineering. Consequently, I find excuses to spend money at Williams-Sonoma or Sur La Table any chance I get.
Speaking of Williams-Sonoma, there’s one just a few miles from our house. I stopped there today because I’ve been eyeing this lemon juicer in their catalog. It’s designed by Chef’n, a product design company based in Seattle whose philosophy toward kitchen gadgets is a lot like OXO’s; i.e., ergonomically and user friendly. How apropos, given that Seattle is a design-centered city obsessed with food. Seattle, as the French would say, est une vrai gourmande!
Anyway, I have this brussels sprouts recipe that I make on a regular basis, maybe a few times a month. It calls for half a squeezed lemon. For the longest time, I’ve been using the top half of a metal citrus squeezer that I bought at IKEA long ago. It’s the kind where you twist the lemon around the metal cone. But I’ve long since lost the bottom part of this juicer, so squeezing lemons can be a pain. I use a small plate to catch the juice, but the metal cone part slips around and … yeah, it’s lame.
But buying this juicer and using it tonight made me so appreciative of good design and especially, the engineering that great design can’t exist without. And I thought about how good design and great cooking are similar in oh…let me count the ways:
Rhythm + balance.
In food, rhythm and balance exist not only in the preparation of food, but in the delicate and nuanced balance of flavors and chemical reactions that can mean the difference between a great meal and a failed attempt.
Texture.
Wow. Texture, of course! Think of all the wonderful, amazing textures that different foods embody, and consider a meal without it. As in a designed object, texture in food adds richness and complexity. And pleasure. Masticulation is an interaction between humans and food that provides an intense satisifaction. Imagine if, for the rest of your life, you were resigned to eating every meal pureed or liquefied. Go on, picture it. Sad, no?
Color.
Color is such an amazing thing in food. It’s basically food’s way of talking to us. An indicator of the nutritional value of food. As in design, color gives meaning. Lots of meaning. It also provides an emotional aspect to food that would be otherwise missing if everything we ate were black and white or shades of gray. I can handle Mies and Le Corbusier in small doses when it comes to architecture and urban planning, but when I’m eating, I want Jane Jacobs, all the way!
Unity + variety.
Consider tomatoes, for example. Or cheese or wine or breads or chocolate. These are all unified in their base chemical/genetic structure, but infinitely varied in the expression of these chemicals and/or genes.
Scale + contrast.
Scale in food could range from size: watermelons compared to cherries, for example. Or taste, perhaps. The mildness of milk compared to the spiciness of a jalapeño pepper. With contrast leveraged in preparing and serving food. Pairing crunchy with soft. Sweet with salt. Fresh with aged. Contrast in cooking and design, like texture, enriches the user experience.
Iteration.
This has to be where design and cooking are the most alike. In cooking like design, fail and fail fast, right? I’ve made many a recipe more than once and iterated as I went along. I also do lots and lots of user testing. Seriously, isn’t licking the batter the quintessential usability study?
Which brings me to the last design element I’ll use in this analogy: interaction. Cooking and good food are things that bring people together. Like good product design, they inspire relationships; people interacting and emoting and conversing and laughing and arguing and crying and smiling and nourishing and … living. That’s probably the best part about it.
On that note, good night. I’m off to have some of that salted caramel ice cream I made last week before I go to bed….
Disclaimer: This is my blog and I’ll bitch and whine if I want to.
I watched the new iPhone video last for the first time last week and paused for a moment after it ended, wondering if there were any women on the team that built it. “Where are the girls?,” I wondered. Based on the proliferation of white males in that video, the girls were one step up from barefoot and pregnant; i.e., at home, watching babies.
While in grad school, I took several seminars from design critic Natalia Ilyin. For one entire semester, we looked at the semiotics of stock photography and how stock photo houses like Getty and Corbis shape societal perceptions by controlling the images we see. We talked about imagery – of course – and about power and politics and stereotypes. About the signifier and the signified.
I learned many things from Natalia’s guided inquiries. One was to never take anything at face value. Another was that in imagery, what you don’t show can have as much effect on meaning as what you do. I wondered what she would say if this video were something brought to her class for discussion.
Through this filter, I critique the iPhone video. As a female who has spent the last 10 years in the design + technology industry, the omission of my gender in this video hits a nerve. Why this video, I’m not sure. It’s not like white male domination in Apple’s upper management is new. Or any other tech company, for that matter. Every tech company I worked for in Seattle was the same; guys who dominated the tech conversation every chance they got. Nice guys who weren’t guilty of sexism via commission, but via oblivious, status quo omission instead. When I worked in the product design studio at Teague, I was the only female designer. The rest were short Asian guys or Brits. Needless to say, I felt out of place and grossly underrepresented.
When I worked at another Seattle firm, one of the first questions they asked me during the interview was, “Can you make things look wet and shiny?” Excuse me? Wet and shiny?? Like what? Like a 20-something pin-up’s baby-oiled ass in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue? Like Angelina Jolie’s juicy, gloss-dripping, fallatio-prepped lips? Or maybe a Playboy centerfold’s lubricated vagina in a porn spread? Don’t even get me started on this whole “wet and shiny” UI style that’s been every male designer’s wet dream since who-knows-when. It warrants a feisty discussion all by itself.
Anyway, just look at this video. And notice what isn’t there. No women, except for the beautiful brunette who, based on my western stereotypes and assumptions, is a housewife. Just note the lighting. She’s portrayed in mid-daylight playing with a baby and then filming a toddler; i.e., a stay-at-home mom. And look at the guy we’re led to assume is her husband. Most likely in a hotel on a business trip. While she’s a kept woman, taking care of the beautiful white babies –his perfect little contributions to the gene pool– he’s off somewhere else, taking care of more important things. Like wet and shiny interfaces. And all of this is narrated to us by…white guys. Reverse discrimination, you say? Stop picking on white guys.
Whatever. I’m sick of it.
I write this post out of frustration, knowing there must be other female designers in the tech industry who share my feelings. Don’t get me wrong, I like guys. Really, I do. The two other product designers on my team at NPR are both male and they’re awesome. I value their expertise, critique, and collaboration. They’re both younger, too, and aren’t as guilty of some of this bullshit as older guys are. And my husband is an amazing man whom I’m very lucky to love and be loved by in return.
But really, I’m just tired. I’m tired of being ignored in meetings, tired of not being tapped for my technical knowledge or perspective because I don’t have a penis, tired of being talked over and looked through. Tired of wishing my breasts weren’t so close to my face because then maybe some of the guys at work wouldn’t have such a hard time looking me in the eye.
And I would love to know the make-up of the Apple design teams. What percentage are women? What role do women play in the design of these life-changing products we use? Why were there none featured in this video?
Hopefully, women at Apple mean more than beautiful kept things and making things “wet and shiny”.
While reading The Rise and Fall of the G.D.P. in a recent Sunday New York Times Magazine. I called Will right after reading this paragraph because it reminded me so much of him, especially the part about the wrinkled khakis:
But criticisms of G.D.P. go deeper than just its use, or misuse, by politicians. For years, economists critical of the measure have enjoyed spinning narratives to illustrate its logical flaws and limitations. Consider, for example, the lives of two people — let’s call them High-G.D.P. Man and Low-G.D.P. Man. High-G.D.P. Man has a long commute to work and drives an automobile that gets poor gas mileage, forcing him to spend a lot on fuel. The morning traffic and its stresses aren’t too good for his car (which he replaces every few years) or his cardiovascular health (which he treats with expensive pharmaceuticals and medical procedures). High-G.D.P. Man works hard, spends hard. He loves going to bars and restaurants, likes his flat-screen televisions and adores his big house, which he keeps at 71 degrees year round and protects with a state-of-the-art security system. High-G.D.P. Man and his wife pay for a sitter (for their kids) and a nursing home (for their aging parents). They don’t have time for housework, so they employ a full-time housekeeper. They don’t have time to cook much, so they usually order in. They’re too busy to take long vacations.
As it happens, all those things — cooking, cleaning, home care, three-week vacations and so forth — are the kind of activity that keep Low-G.D.P. Man and his wife busy. High-G.D.P. Man likes his washer and dryer; Low-G.D.P. Man doesn’t mind hanging his laundry on the clothesline. High-G.D.P. Man buys bags of prewashed salad at the grocery store; Low-G.D.P. Man grows vegetables in his garden. When High-G.D.P. Man wants a book, he buys it; Low-G.D.P. Man checks it out of the library. When High-G.D.P. Man wants to get in shape, he joins a gym; Low-G.D.P. Man digs out an old pair of Nikes and runs through the neighborhood. On his morning commute, High-G.D.P. Man drives past Low-G.D.P. Man, who is walking to work in wrinkled khakis.
How about you? Are you Low-G.D.P. Man or High-G.D.P. Man?
In case you’re wondering, I took a little haitus to migrate my blog from Typepad to Wordpress. You’ll note the new design, which I’ll be tinkering with for a while until I get it how I like it: Typekit. Hellooooo! I’m using Khoi Vinh’s Basic Maths template. I also downloaded the template from iA, which is a little cleaner and more open, but I decided to go with Basic Maths because it feels a little more robust and functional to me.
Anyway….
I’m thinking about design labs, lately. I’ll tell you why later. But here’s a list I’ve started:
I’m really interested in the effects of design labs on the communities in which they’re functioning and how they tie in to the writings of my favorite urbanist, Richard Florida. To be explored….
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I finished Sam Shepard's latest book this weekend and started Consequential Strangers
this morning before getting out of bed. I came downstairs into the
kitchen, where I've had these comments about snow and beer posted for a
couple of months on my freshly-painted blackboard wall. And what do I
notice but a new comment ("Think Spring!") posted by Matt, our dog
walker. A consequential stranger whom I have met in person, but mostly
who I know via notes and checks made out in his name left on the
counter, mostly correspondence between him and my husband, Will. And
sometimes, via short text messages between him and me now and then.
Anyway, this whole urban informatics/Urban User Interface™/consequential stranger thing is getting more and more interesting. For me, this is how urban informatics will enrich our lives: i.e., it will increase our consequential stranger quotient.
That's part of what makes Twitter so compelling. I've "met" people on Twitter initially, then actually met them in person. I now have several consequential strangers in New York, even though I'm only there every few months. Without urban informatics (isn't that basically what Twitter really is?) and other social technological platforms, I wouldn't have these contacts in a city that far away. One would have to live there to make those kinds of connections. Well, actually, you may not even make them even if you did live there. Because online taxonomies and frameworks for meeting people are less intimidating than face-to-face ones. I'm gregarious and don't generally have qualms about walking up to someone I don't know to say hi, but I still find it easier to do this via an electronic platform.
So now I'm thinking about interaction design and its role in facilitating these types of relationships. I'm also thinking about the aesthetics of interaction design; i.e., what makes interaction design beautiful since it's not strictly a visual design discipline? If you could define and condense interaction design elements in the same way design elements have been defined for graphic design or architecture, quality of interactions would be among them. Interaction design that leads to consequential relationships is beautiful indeed.
Next door is ATM. Dmitri's. You get cash. I give you two-dollar discount.
Thick, Russian accent. Twinkle in his eye. He fixes shoes on Falls Road. A real Baltimore fixture for sure. Dark blue overalls half sticky with dried glue, half slippery with wax and oil. White beard like a tired Christmas decoration.
I dropped this bag of shoes off three months ago in the warm autumn sun. The day I almost got backed over while waiting to cross the street, remember?
Hey. HEY! Banging
on the window pounding
on the window but the car kept moving.
Angry mad tall fiery
redhead, cursing.
Kicking epithets into silver metal.
What the fuck are you doing? Didn't you see me standing there? I was standing there. You didn't see me standing there.
I'm sorry, so sorry, Sparks. I feel terrible.
I walk next door to Dmitri's, thinking the ATM is just inside the door. Instead, I walk smack into a dive bar right in the middle of a video game and a few dejected conversations. There are more than half a dozen riff-raff and two sorry looking women.
White trash. Mullets.
Fifty-year old pot bellies and
crinkled, sagging
breasts
watching a Ravens game.
Cheap beer everywhere and it's not even noon.
Who the hell drinks before noon, anyway?
Some young, some old. Some white, some brown. But all looking like they'd seen better days. Days when they weren't compelled to drink before noon.
The potbellies light up when I walk in. It's not like that. Sorry. No, you can't buy me a drink. I just need some cash for the cobbler.
Is there an ATM in here?
Around the corner in the back.
Thanksomuch. I get my cash and leave.
Let me tell you a little story about a Blackberry, bad design, a deaf man, and an airplane.
I was flying back from Savannah, Georgia (from, ironically, an interaction design conference) on a rescheduled flight after my original flight had been canceled due to the monster storms that hit the mid-Atlantic last month. I was on the second leg of my trip, sitting on the plane, waiting for departure out of Atlanta. I was in the middle of the plane, sandwiched between a young woman on my left and a deaf man on my right. It was a full flight and we were all a little weary and anxious due to the travel delays, but were relieved to be on the plane to Baltimore before another blizzard grounded flights again.
The obligatory safety video came on and, as usual, nobody paid much attention. Except for the guy sitting across the aisle from the deaf man. When it was over, he leaned across the aisle and pointed out to the deaf man that his Blackberry was still on. "You need to turn it off." he said.
But the deaf man couldn't understand this guy, mainly because the guy made no attempts to modify his communication techniques for someone who couldn't hear. So when the stewardess walked by a few minutes later, in perfect third-grade tattle tale form, he said, "Miss, his phone isn't off. He was texting just a few minutes ago. He won't turn his phone off."
For the next five minutes, as the plane left the gate and moved onto the tarmac, the stewardess and I tried to help the deaf man turn off his phone. Meanwhile, the tattle tale across the aisle nagging us the entire time, reaching and pointing, "No, it's that button." " Hold that one down." "You need to hold it for several seconds." "You have to hold it down.", until finally, the deaf man reached over and hit him, saying "Be quiet! Leave me alone!", speaking with unprounounced consonants and warbled vowels, as deaf people often do.
At this point, I proceded to help the deaf man take the battery out of his phone, making sure I was enunciating very clearly so he could read my lips, explaining that the phone had to be completely off and that this appeared to be the only way to shut it down.
The stewardess left to get help from another stewardess in turning the phone off. Or so I thought. The next thing I know, there's an announcement over the intercom: "Sorry, folks. We're going to have to turn back to the terminal. There's a problem with some passengers in the back of the plane." I turn around in my seat, looking toward the back, thinking maybe someone was sick. Like, choking-to-death or dying-of-a-heart-attack sick. Then the second stewardess comes to our row and says that they've called the police. "What?", I asked. "Why??" "Because this was an assault. He hit this man and that's assault."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" was all I could say. And a little too loudly, at that, as I am sometimes wont to do.
The Deaf Man could sense that something was wrong, asking me to explain. Given the complexity of the situation, I took out my Moleskin and laid it out in writing.
Meanwhile, the pilot turns the plane back to the terminal after which each man is called off the plane to speak with the police, one at a time. First Tattletale, then the Deaf Man. As the Deaf Man comes back to his seat, he's signing "I'm sorry" all the way down the aisle. Most of the passengers were in a surprisingly jovial mood (except for a woman in the seat behind me who'd given me the evil eye after I blurted out the "f" word) and cheered and clapped as he took his seat. I have no idea what happened to Tatttletale. He must've switched seats because his original seat was empty the entire way home.
Deaf Man sat down next to me, apologizing profusely with his hands. Then he reached for my notebook, where we had this exchange (of note are his comment blaming himself for the whole commotion "The burden was on me!" and my response, "No, the burden was on bad phone design.":
And this, my friends, is why I will never buy a Blackberry.
I recently had a blog post published on NPR's The Picture Show. Does this mean I'm officially published now? I'm not sure….
Anyway, you can read it here.