Power of Context and IED

So how does the Power of Context relate to IED? This mind map gives some examples.
This task really added to my understanding of the chapter, and it makes you think about how the two subjects are interlinked. The way different situations affect personality is important, as this is true in different projects, groups and spaces. Designers need to be adaptable to their projects and clients and adopt different responsobilities for these, just as the guards and prisoners had to do in the prison experiment in this chapter. The understanding of background and social class is also an important area, as designers must have a full understanding of their client, regardless of their class or background. For example the Peckham library in London, which was mentioned in the lecture with Mike Press. The designers of this would have had to study the backgrounds and social groups of the people who the library was for. After doing this they discovered that kids in the area needed somewhere to study, but also eat. So the decision was made to change the usual library rules and allow food and drinks. Change, and breaking the rules, may originally be thought of as a risk - but is it a risk that should be taken? Opportunity is opportunity, whatever the situation, and it is people making the most of opportunity and taking risks that creates the changes in ideas, fashion and trends that are needed.

Group Brainstorm

I found this task very useful. It was good to get talking to other people and see what there opinions were on this chapter. Also it was good to have a few minds putting in comments to the brainstorm, I felt it was a good thing to do before I started my own mind map. It is interesting to see how everyone relates the power of context back to different aspects of IED, and it really gets you thinking about the different ways in which they are linked.

The Tipping Point - Mind Maps

The Tipping Point

I have recently read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, for Design Studies. The book describes how situations - 'epidemics' - happen, how they have a point where they 'tip', going from something not particularly popular to something extremely popular, a trend which everyone follows. Examples given of this are Hush Puppies, how they went from being a shoe noone wore, an 'uncool' shoe, to a shoe that designers were using, haute couture. And all this because of a few kids, who wanted to be cool and wore hush puppies simply because noone else did, because it made them individual, unique. Another example is suicide rates. How can one person commiting suicide start a craze? Its very strange but true, the rates of suicides go up in an area after one person in that area commits suicide. If someone famous commits suicide, the rates also go up. If someone young commits suicide, the number of young people in fatal road traffic accidents increases steadily for a few days before dropping, and the same goes for older people. This is the Tipping Point.

I chose to focus on the chapter 'The Power of Context'. I found this chapter very interesting as it goes into peoples' personalities, how they change. The way peoples' personalities change depending on where they are, who they are with, what situation they are in. A normally quiet person can change into a dictator type person, just by being given a small slice of power. This was proved in Stanford University's experiment, led by Philip Zimbardo, of making a 'prison' and putting people as gaurds and people as prisoners. The guards found that power went to their heads, the prisoners broke down, could not cope. The experiment was stopped after 6 days, although it was supposed to run for 2 weeks.

Unfortunatley I can't get to a scanner right now as I am ill, and photos turn out too blurry, so my mind maps will be up soon!