The problem with design and computers

I just watched this entertaining TED presentation by John Maeda, president of the Rhode Island School of Design, reflecting on his career as a designer (more information about him in the linked TED post).

The most interesting bit comes mid-way in the presentation. John shows a video how he orchestrates an excercise where people need to get other people to draw things on white board using their “voice commands”. After some miscommunications the groups starts designing a coordinate or grid system (similar to a PowerPoint canvas). The maximum output of the excercise was a completely boring, 2-dimensional drawing of a house.

I often feel the same. How to make this 3D composition? How to add quality hand-drawing or artwork? How blend different images? Computer constraints determine the majority of my slide designs. Something is still missing in the human-computer interface.

2 comments

Jan Schultink2009-01-10 11:54:00

Mike, agreed. The problem with the creative white board how to get professional looking results and storing/distributing it. For now, you can't have it all (yet).

Mike2009-01-06 22:10:00

The constraint computers present to us is the feature set itself. It does what it can do and you can do what it does. With something as simple (and boundless) as a dry erase marker and a white board, you have no limits, with the exception of the edge of the whiteboard itself.

That's one of the most difficult concepts for me to get across in the IT shop I work in. People too often think that software is their savior and will help them do more, when in reality, it constrains us and limits our creative output.