research

Aside from a number of large domestic multi-national companies founded in the Netherlands, Holland has lured many foreign businesses to set up their European headquarters in the country with its corporate tax incentives, stable government, high-tech infrastructure, well-educated population and expat-friendly environment. It has been so successful in attracting business ventures that it ranked fourth in the world for foreign investment in 2018 (behind only the United States, China/Hong Kong and Singapore).

For many of the same reasons listed above, the Netherlands has also become home to a significant number of international organizations and EU agencies, as well as 100+ embassies and trade missions.

Multi-national companies, international organizations, European agencies, universities and international schools are the largest expat employers in the Netherlands and should be the job search starting point for English-speakers who do not speak Dutch.

https://expatinfoholland.nl/help-guides/working/large-expat-employers-in-netherlands/#:~:text=Multi%2Dnational%20companies%2C%20international%20organizations
%2C%20European%20agencies%2C%20universities,who%20do%20not%20speak%20Dutch.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/525804/netherlands-largest-groups-of-immigrants-by-nationality/

Thursday 8th - Mark M.

In class:

- Stuart Halls Representation Theory Explained (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJr0gO_-w_Q&t=1s&ab_channel=TheMediaInsider)

-Intro to Saussure, the signifier and signified (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JtJu9HdQVM&ab_channel=TomNicholas)

-An introduction to Roland Barthes's Mythologies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GCzq8we-bI&t=1s&ab_channel=Macat)

Next class: Always be knolling

Karo

-the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture through the use of language, signs, and images which stand for or represent things (Hall, 1997)

Denise

-Signified and signifier is a concept, most commonly related to semiotics, that can be described as "the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.

-Ex.) The signifier is the sound associated with or image of something (e.g., a tree), the signified is the idea or concept of the thing (e.g., the idea of a tree), and the sign is the object that combines the signifier and the signified into a meaningful unit.

Luna

-Mythologies is a 1957 book by Roland Barthes. It is a collection of essays taken from Les Lettres Nouvelles, (translated to: The New Letters) examining the tendency of contemporary social value systems to create modern myths.

-Barthes' Semiotic Theory broke down the process of reading signs and focused on their interpretation by different cultures or societies. According to Barthes, signs had both a signifier, being the physical form of the sign as we perceive it through our senses and the signified, or meaning that is interpreted.

-What ideological messages are transmitted and reinforced by the media? Objects in popular culture are often taken out of context, and then given different meanings.

Friday 9th - Rogerio, S.
In class:
- Visual metaphors; advantage and disadvantage (consider shape & dimensions, borders & boundaries, categories & hierarchies))
-Creating Diagrams (see diagram page for more information)
-Discussing specific user (specifying them) --> families of Expats who work in developing countries, then come to the Netherlands (a developed country)
- Research on companies who demand Expats (Large incorporations, who wants them?)

Next class: Home exercise: refine, add detail to your group’s mappings, upload them to your Hotglue group page.

Monday 12th April; Gabrielle
In class:
-What is an interface?
-Introduction to assignment 105 interfaces.
-Exercise collecting 2 interfaces.

Next class: Start collecting your interfaces, DUE 28 April, Wednesday by noon.

Karo

- Interface is a point where two systems, subjects, organisations, etc. meet and interact

Denise

Another definition of the interface:
a surface (…) serving as a common boundary between two different bodies, spaces, and phases, a zone of physical contact where machines and users meet each other and engage in mutual interchanges over time and across space.

Tips and Tricks:
What are the material or immaterial properties of the ‘interface’?
Who is the ‘user’ (can be more than one) of the ‘interface’?
Which ‘systems’ and/or ‘users’, are connected by means of the ‘interface’?
What/who does the interface give access to?
What/who does the interface connect to or mediate between?
What kind of interaction does the interface facilitate?
In what way can the ‘user’ interact with the ‘interface’?
What does the user need to do to make the interface work?
Or what does the interface try to make the user do?
How does the ‘interface’ affect or influence the ‘user’?
For example: what does the user do, feel, learn, experience, change, think, sense etc. when using/experiencing this interface?
Consider how our senses our frame of reference and past experiences can play a part in how we relate to an interface.

Tuesday 13th Apri; Mark M.
In class:
- mapping through knolling
- ready to present the collection, we will analyse, organise and classify and we will give tips for next steps (±15 min per group).
-KNOLLING!

Next class:
- finishing mapping through knolling
- read: On Stereotyping: Hall, Stuart (ed), Representation. Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, Chapter 4.4: Stereotyping as a signifying practice: Hall-CH4-stereotyping.pdf & On Post-what.com: the fine line between typing and stereotyping and a subjective, incomplete and growing collection of stereotypes.
-Collect: Each member collects 5 visual examples of stereotypes about your user. You bring these to class.

Karo

-Definition: 'Knolling is the process of arranging related objects in parallel or 90-degree angles as a method of organization.

Denise

Analyse: Zoom in, look closer and dissect (trace, frame, cut out) the images. Look for ‘signifiers’ and select in accordance with your teammembers, the signifiers you think are characteristics.

Categorise: Zoom out and group them based on signifiers. Use the method of ‘similar to’ and ‘different from’ as a way to group, categorise and classify, taking into account the “questions of ‘difference’” as described in the provided text ‘Why does ‘Difference’ matter?’ by Stuart Hall.

Luna
-https://gizmodo.com/the-story-behind-the-universal-icons-that-came-long-bef-1592800916

-Isotype stands for International System of Typographic Picture Education, an accessible visual language created to share ideas across language and literacy barriers. These “pictorial statistics” ended up having an indelible impact on infographics, public space, and wayfinding, according to the book Isotype: Design and Contexts, 1925-1971. But there is an incredible backstory behind the way we use design to communicate without words.

-Otto Neurath; in the early 1920s, Viennese philosopher Otto Neurath (and later his wife Marie) founded the Isotype Institute, recruiting designers who worked to create this graphic language that could be universally understood.
- The resulting concepts were simple enough to be understood by schoolchildren, But the goal was not to help people find bathrooms in foreign countries—at least not yet. Neurath’s idealism was rooted in socialism, with the intentions of improving healthcare, working conditions, and daily life for his fellow Austrians.

Thursday 15th April; Rogerio, S.
In class:
-Collection mapping: update (groups present results).
-Seeing information through the eyes of the other.
-Superpowers and disabilities: examples (Temple Grandin, Oxo, Oliver Sacks, )
In-class:
- exercise (card sorting); Create stories of users using the collection.

Next class:
Home exercise: add detail to your user stories, upload to Hotglue pages

Karo

As an expat family,
we want to explore the country we moved to,
to feel more at home here.

As a businessman,
I want to go into nature in my lunchbreak,
to get some fresh air before I get back to work.

As a student at an international school,
I want to find a nice place to go with my friends,
to go for a walk together and see the countryside.

As a mom of two,
I need a moment of quiet in nature,
To get out of the house.

Denise

superpowers and disabilities:
Temple Grandin: American scientist and activist.
- supporter of the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter.
- author of more than 60 scientific papers on animal behavior.
-words are her second language and that she thinks "totally in pictures", using her vast visual memory to translate information into a mental slideshow of images that may be manipulated or correlated.

-Oliver Sack: neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and writer.
-Writing best-selling case histories about both his patients' and his own disorders and unusual experiences, with some of his books adapted for plays by major playwrights, feature films, animated short films, opera, dance, fine art, and musical works in the classical genre.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
-Sacks chose the title of the book from the case study of one of his patients who has visual agnosia, a neurological condition that leaves him unable to recognize faces and objects.

User stories:
-A kanban board is an agile project management tool designed to help visualize work, limit work-in-progress, and maximize efficiency (or flow).

Luna

User stories: how to create them

why?
-User stories give designers everything in order to create a realistic, concrete, and shared view of the user
-User stories are based on user goals; thus, they keep products user-focused.

The purpose of a user story is to articulate how a piece of work will deliver a particular value back to the customer.

side note: Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct from artistic style.

Friday 16th April; Maytal

In class:
-Introduce the UX process and what it can mean for you. The in-class exercise is to create a user flow.
-The subject of the user flow is a choice: either create a flowchart that maps your current concept or create a flowchart for an app that your audience uses a lot.

Luna

-User flow is the path taken by a prototypical user on a website or app to complete a task. The user flow takes them from their entry point through a set of steps towards a successful outcome and final action, such as purchasing a product.

Thursday 22 April, Mark M.
In class:
-Design a new version of your user mapping through knolling that distinguishes the type from the stereotype. Show not only the stereotype but also who creates this stereotype and with which intention. Show how the user group is addressing the stereotypes.

Next class:
-Design: Finish the mapping of your user that shows your user as part of a community. This mapping gives insight into behavior, ideology and lifestyle through visual language. It maps how you ‘type’ (visual markers that identify your user), as well as the stereotypes that you have found.

Denise

-https://amsterdamshallowman.com/2015/09/the-top-7-dutch-stereotypes.html

-https://www.iamexpat.nl/expat-info/dutch-expat-news/stereotypes-netherlands

-Stereotyping goes both ways, expats also have an idea of the Dutch culture and people, vice-versa.

Luna

-it knolls out for mapping purposes in your user group

-stereotypes are an over-generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group.
-power systems

https://www.expatica.com/nl/moving/about/dutch-stereotypes-733018/

https://archive.discoversociety.org/2019/10/02/expatriate-or-migrant-the-racialised-politics-of-migration-categories-and-the-space-in-between/

-The categories ‘expatriate’ and ‘migrant’ are central to the racialized politics of migration. Yet, while ‘expatriate’ retains a privileged association with white and Western migrants, it does not always map exactly onto ‘race’. One of the reasons why racist thinking works so well through migration is because migration and its categories are seemingly not about race at all. Indicatively, none of my interlocutors position themselves as racist. Theirs are not ‘racial slurs’, some accounts are critical of inequalities, some explicitly anti-racist.

Monday 19th &20 April; Wan & Brigit.

Station Week

References + notes

extra info: https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/

https://processing.org/reference/

Friday 22 April, Rogerio, S.
In class:
-User stories: update (groups present results)
-Switching perspectives: examples (Dunne & Raby, Kafka, Engelbrecht, Black Mirror)
Prepare for next class:
Cleanup and organise Hotglue pages.

Wednesday 21 April, Arjen
In class:
-Discussed the types of UX prototyping

Group notes:

Western language appropriate to Expats?
-so similar visual representations, nothing new when they come to the Netherlands?
-new products for Western users.
-Speculative design --> specific to the user
-Subtle beauty in Holland
-Contracts
-routes, what can they offer, and what they lack? (activities, nature, culture?) some things can be found in the Netherlands, and not other places in the world