Saturday, March 6, 2010

Elaine Wheery of Meebo

Wow, we really had an expert presentation for session 6! Our guest speaker was Elaine Wheery of Meebo fame, and she did an amazing job. I really wish I would have copied down her UI (user interface) and UE (user experience) design tips, but I was too focused on her crash course in music history:

  1. Medieval - Primarily choral
  2. Renaissance - An explosion of musical instrument invention 
  3. Baroque - Extreme ornamentation with the democratization of musical instruments
  4. Classical - Haydn begins to codify structure and strip out gratuitous ornamentation
  5. Romance - Increased ornamentation with classical structures in mind
Ms. Wheery compared the "internet revolution" to the evolution of classical music, and postulated the internet is currently in the "Baroque" period. I'd like to think we are rather in the late Baroque period. Consider the fall of MySpace (outrageous design mashups) and the rise of Facebook (a much "cleaner" interface). 

Obviously, the democratization of design is not necessarily a great thing. 

Additionally, I'd like to see this metaphor extended to other disciplines. Did anyone else in class consider the evolution of typographic design? Watch the movie Helvetica and try to map out a similar wave of evolution. Was Wim Crouwel the Haydn of the 20th century?

Anyway, those design tips I mentioned at the start of the post... can any of my classmates provide those for me?
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1 comment:

  1. The Mandel FamilyMarch 11, 2010 at 4:33 PM

    I wish I had the design tips but I took was so enthralled by her presentation and the content of comparing technology evolution to music evolution. Really interesting.... I guess it goes to show how the design tips could have been highlighted in a different manner if they were supposed to be the main "take away." Only so much can be retained and remembered from a presentation.

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