Big Bang (Rosa, Ian)
Virtual Civic Notifier
The Virtual Civic Notifier acts as a tool for connecting positive interaction between state and local government body’s. VCN promotes communication in attempts to build better relations with the public, and for the public to actively engage in their civic duties.
also be most up to date with any new information.

The reason for having this website is so that there will one central system where everyone can find the most up to date information and also more involved with the government. As we all know, there seem to be so much of miss communication between departments within the government and some don’t even communicate with each other. For a person trying to find out information regarding themselves is like trying to find a needle in the hay stack. An example of the miss communication would be the Social Security Office. They have a website that is supposed to be making everyone’s life easier by going online to see how much in benefit they will receive at retirement age. The website is always down and when it is up you can’t ever log in. When you actually go to the social security office to find out what is going on, they send you to their main office to check with their online desk. This whole running around just wastes people time and not to mention the people in the office don’t seem like they want to work even though they get paid for it.
Another reason for our notifier would be initial contact from the government to fulfill your civic duties, they will get a letter informing them to log on to the website and fill out the questionnaire. A new requirement in the questionnaire will be the addition personal email address. This is important because now it alleviate previous problems with tracking a person’s current address with their name. With the new system, your identity by your email address instead of your address. With the old system, often times, when a person moves they don’t report the move. So the census application was sent to their previous address instead of the current. With the new system, your email address will always stay the same unless you change it, or if you don’t response to the email and/or submit your online application, you will be mailed a paper copy of the questionnaire and failure notice of compliance. Once census is complete, you would get email confirmation and access to whatever is allowed for public view in regards to that year’s census. Another advantage to the email questionnaire will be, not only the ability to update your information but to also apply for selected service, employee to census, where you are able to submit your temporary employment application. The site can also be used as a sewage to view other links to where public information is accessible. The site is another way to be notified for jury selection. You can register to vote.
There is so much more that Virtual Civic Notifier can do once it becomes a central system. We can have access to all public records, pay tickets, etc. With a special log in we can find answers to questions we have regarding our own personal information. This will benefit both sides. It can help save time and money.
To make this Virtual Civic Notifier, we will need a big enough web space to hold everyone information and a team of programmers to be back just in case if there are any technical problems.

In order to improve on the notifier, we will first start off with something simple information from each department and each person’s personal file and put it together. Then we will ask each user opinion to see what they would like to be improved and move forward from there. We expect to have a very good outcome with this because it will improve the speed of communication for everyone.

Big Bang – (Ian, Rosa)

1. Virtual Civic notifier
2. Online census registration or renewal
3. Instead of the government ‘s antiquated system of registration and renewal for mandatory census audits. The new virtual system would
alleviate the burden of cost by individuals (costs of stamps) as well embody the going green current social accepted mentality by saving
paper and tree.

Summation

Upon initial contact from the government to fulfill your civic duties, they will get a letter informing them to log on to the website and fill out the questionnaire. A new requirement in the questionnaire will be the addition personal email address. This is important because now it alleviate previous problems with tracking a person’s current address with their name. With the new system, your identity by your email address instead of your address. With the old system, often times, when a person moves they don’t report the move. So the census application was sent to their previous address instead of the current. With the new system, your email address will always stay the same unless you  change it, or if you don’t response to the email and/or submit your online application, you will be mailed a paper copy of the questionnaire and failure notice of compliance. Once census is complete, you would get email confirmation and access to whatever is allowed for public view in regards to that year’s census. Another advantage to the email questionnaire will be, not only the ability to update your information but to also applied for selected service, employee to census, where you are able to submit your temporary employment application. The site can also be used as a segway to view other links to where public information is accessible. The site is another way to be notified for jury selection. You can register to vote.

Influences

The social contribution to this site would be to encourage and repair civilians participation in civic duties. It also embraces communication between government bodies and society as to alleviate disconnection and for the public  to engage in the democratic process, by providing easy access and accountability. The process aids the government by increasing the accuracy of the flow and retention of information gathered. For example with the census, increasing the accuracy will a lot for government spending to be disbursed in areas that need it the most. With the accessibility of new technologies we are not only able to cut cost, but also speed up the response time involved in gathering information accurately. The internet is proving itself to be an invaluable tool in increasing communication between government bodies and the public.

Materials

1. Photoshop

2. Dreamweaver

3. Illustrator

4. Web hosting/ secure domain

5. Paper/Pencil for prototype

6. Internet

Budget

$20.00

Final cost-$0 to create

WIRE FRAME

Group members: Ian, Yoonshik, Rosa

The game we came up with is called Connectic. The game is a combination of connect four and tic tac toe. The person playing the game will need to figure out each move to connect the required amount of consecutive X’s or O’s on each board. As you advance to higher levels, there will be mystery bombs appearing to destroy your moves.

John Maeda “TIME”

After reading the article by John Maeda, I must agree with him, that we spend a lot of time waiting. I think a way of saving time would applied to school. As we all know many students go to school to get a degree in what they hope to have a career in the future. Yet the school system seems to be wasting our time and our money with certain classes that have nothing to do with it. For example, if a student is majoring in graphic design, why would he or she need to take astronomy class as a requirement before they can graduate? I think it would save students a lot of time in school if they can just take classes majoring in their field and actually have them work on projects that are current in the real world. I think hands on experience is better than just having student read from a book and take test.

Edward R. Tufte, “Graphical Excellence,”

In Edward R. Trufte, “Graphical Excellence” he talks about written information goes with pictorial information. An example of that would be his maps. There are written statistic information but that doesn’t catch our attention more than the pictorial design (maps).

The image that caught my interest would be his maps of cancer states. It showed that a lot of people from north east are diagnosed with cancer. The missing information would be that he only based it on adult white male and females. There are different races beside white that might have been diagnosed with cancer during that time period. He also didn’t include any children or teens. I think the map would have worked must better if all these information was incorporated inside too.

A design that would catch my eye more than the it’s information would be the cover of manga books. There are so many manga books out there, it is almost impossible to know the story line of everything. When I’m at the book store, I would look at the cover of the book and if it interest me, then I would read what the story line is about before purchasing.

John Maeda “Emotion”

After reading John Maeda Emotion, I found it to be quite interesting. He describes how design can affect a person. His mother thinks simplicity is ugly but to me, I find modern simplicity to be very attractive. He goes on and say how his mother like “bling” stuff and find simplicity stuff to be cheap. An example he used was the iPod, which I agree with him. Apple’s gadgets design are almost all based on simplicity yet they are in no way cheap. In my opinion every has their own perspective on design, it can be  extravagant or very simple. Willing to look at other design with an open is the best bet to improving yourself.

A design that will trigger a person’s emotion instantly would be a ring. As we all know, a ring means a person’s commitment to their significant other. It could be a couple’s ring, engagement, or marriage, what ever the case may be, the person giving it is showing their emotion of happiness and well as the person receiving it. A little design can bring out a lot of happiness for two people.

A design that I’m very attached to is my first pair of ice skates and till this day I still have them. Even though they don’t fit anymore but it brings back a lot of memories. I still remember when I first tried to ice skate, I kept on falling and wanted to give up. My grandfather said I can’t give up just because I hit a bumpy road. In life I will run into many bumpy road, will I just give up because of that and become a loser? After hearing that I continued on trying to ice skate and when I finally skated without falling for the first round, it was one of the best accomplishment feeling a little kid could have. I still take out the skates and look at it every time I feel like I’m stuck on something in life.

Location

300 Jay Street, Namm Building CUNY City Tech, Ground Floor, by the elevators, Brooklyn, NY, 11021

Summary of Observation

We arrived on location and immediately saw a group starting to gather around the elevators. Nobody was talking to one another, even as other students arrived. Everyone appeared to be preoccupied with their phones or music devices. Nobody had a smile on their face, and it seems a permanent, dissatisfied frown was plastered onto their mugs. When the elevator arrived, it was a mad-dash. There was a sense of urgency, and the elevator quickly filled. Nobody wanted to wait for the next one, as it could be as many as 15 minutes away.

Ian, in our group, talked to two women who had gotten off the elevator and talking to each other. While they had no suggestions for fixing the elevator, they were more than content complaining about the elevator and its issues, including but not limited to: making them late, making other students and classmates late, and making professors late.

Personas

Age: 17
Location: Brooklyn
Interest: Getting class on time/ passing the class
Space: Transport to class

Age: 26
Location: Queens
Interest: Getting class on time/ passing the class
Space: Transport to class

Age: 35
Location: Long Island
Interest: Getting class on time/ passing the class
Space: Transport to class

Age: 54
Location: Manhattan
Interest: Getting class on time/ passing the class
Space: Transport to class
Project: Arrive on time by elevator

Photos

TBA

Bill Moggridge use four techniques in his “People” article. These four techniques are learn, look, ask, and try. All of them have their good points and can really help out within a project. The one that I personally like the most is learn(observation). With learn we can observe people and see what are their real needs. Depending on what project you are doing, some of these observation might  involve close observation of the  subject and the other might need to be from a distance.

The project that I will like to use this technique for is helping third world country people improve their future. As we all know many people in third world country have lack of food causing themselves and their children to have lack of nutrition. There are a lot of charity groups that donate money to help out the poor but does everyone really understand what they really need. Yes, money can solve their lack of food resource by providing them with certain amount but what happens when it runs out? What happens when no one can afford to donate anymore, then what? I think we can  see what type of nutrition they are lacking the most and what is needed for survival.  After we figure that out, we can see what crops are best suitable to grow in their environment that come closes to the nutrition value that they need. Once that is decide we can go and teach the less fortunate how to grow the crops. This way, we can make sure they can survive and have a better life. This also cause a positive effect to their children. Most children don’t get a chance to go to school because they have to do whatever work they can to help put food on the table. Even if that means giving up their education and working long hours for pennies a day. If their family members learn how to grow their own crops, they would have a chance to go to school.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

After reading the psychopathology of everyday things, I found it to be very humorous, yet very true. Each year we see more and more advance appliances, applications, motor vehicles, technology, etc come out. One trying to out do the other. The power of marketing makes these technology so appealing to consumers (business or individual), that they would want to own one themselves. Who doesn’t want to be the first to own a new technology, that suppose to make their life easier but if we can’t get it to work, then what’s the use?

An example of that for me, would be the telephone button in my car. It’s  an universal bluetooth hands free system. Supposedly I can have a conversation without having an ear piece or actually holding the phone. I have read through the manual several time and tried to program it but it still doesn’t work. After so numerous attempts I gave up . Apparently I’m not the only one with this problem. There has been numerous inquiries on how to get that button to work on the internet and the bmw forums. Now what’s the point of designing something that suppose to make a person life easier but have a difficult procedure to get to it?