DESIGN NOTES FROM ARMENIA It is the start of my second year at ALBA, where I am studying a Masters in Global Design, and we just embarked on it with Design Abroad — a yearly critical and cultural immersion course in a foreign country. Our destination was Yerevan, Armenia! Design Abroad aims to emerge…

OBSESSIVE INTERACTIONS — BLIND SCROLLING How many times do you end up blindly scrolling through Facebook and Instagram before bed? The debate about social media and its effects and addiction is still ongoing. It made Apple realize the screentime feature and introduce time limits for apps. However, the time limit feature is not very effective as it directly allows you to ignore it. You can easily ignore the limit for the whole day or 15 minutes.

COMPLICATED INTERACTIONS — POWER SOCKETS I have been observing our interactions with power sockets recently and how complicated a simple interaction can get. While power sockets are usually everywhere on walls. Designers have tried to integrate them on floors and desks to make them more accessible. However, this added more constraints and made these interactions more complicated. How many times did you have to go below or inside a table to install your phone or laptop charger?

SATISFYING INTERACTIONS — KLM Last week I had to change my flight between Amsterdam and Copenhagen due to a change in my work schedule. I head to the KLM website and follow all the steps needed but end up getting an error message. I directly head to their facebook page and contact them through messenger. I honestly expected a robot to reply to me. However, within 3 minutes I receive a reply asking me for more details. Within one hour, the whole issue was solved and I received my new ticket.

SILENT INTERACTIONS — UBER I don’t own a car in Beirut which makes my commuting experience very interesting on a daily business. I use all types of transportation services available to move around the city. This includes Service (the Lebanese shared-taxi), Vans (mini-buses), and Uber. Selecting which service I am using depends on my…

GAMIFIED INTERACTIONS — LEADERBOARDS AND TROPHIES Recently, I was checking my facebook memories and I came across an old post where I was using the Foursquare app (later known as Swarm). I wondered why I was using the app and what motivated me to share my movements with friends (or more) online. The thing about Swarm…

ACCOUNTABLE INTERACTIONS — OV. CHIPKAART I have been in the Netherlands for the lasts two weeks and the public transportation system fascinates me. I bought the OV. Chipkaart, which is a rechargeable card that I can use all over the Netherlands and for any type of transportation (trams, trains, metros, buses). The most important tip…

THEORY OF CHANGE When we receive the brief of a project, the research goal or the challenge at hand is very complex and not easily solvable by a singular action. After conducting our researh, we start to ideate potential solutions to prototype and test them. These solutions should be directly helping us reach…

PLANNING DESIGN RESEARCH Design briefs can be very ambiguous due to the design process. Designers are asked to “Embrace ambiguity” as part of the process. It is considered one of the main design mindsets at ideo.com This ambiguous process made it harder to plan our studio projects effectively. Especially as beginners, we weren't…