Design in dialogue with research is simply a technique, but when used to pose and frame questions about knowledge, design becomes an intellectual method.
Burdick et al. “One: Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 1-26.
While reading through One: Humanities to Digital Humanities, I’m struck by the idea of the transformative power of design. When it comes to my prior interactions with the digital arts and data visualization techniques, I never entirely made the connection of design’s ability to be a medium of intellect beyond the knowledge it displayed, but after this reading, I have begun to see how the use of digital arts can provide an additional means of expressing that knowledge. The author asserts that digital humanists should learn from communication and media design, specifically about using the power of design to “juxtapose and integrate words and images, create hierarchies of reading, forge pathways of understanding, deploy grids and templates to best effect, and develop navigational schemata that guide and produce meaningful interactions.” The power of creating a more profound meaning through design is connected to why I wanted to take this course.
I hope to use this skill of design in whatever field or career I enter because something that I have always found interesting is being able to create something multifaceted in its meaning. Specifically, when it comes to which areas of inquiry, methods, or techniques I am most eager to pursue, I want to be able to implement this design that the author speaks of to the best of my ability. I want to convey strong messages in what I make beyond just what the initial message or data says. One day, I want to use the skills I have learned throughout this class so that someone can take a step back and think about all the different reasons for specific details and what those details convey about the nature of the information presented.
Overall, the section of the reading from which the quote comes has inspired me to think about why I make decisions when designing something and possibly to interrogate the other designs I see to find out why they made that choice.
