Week 5: Unemployment

Labels : Unemployment, office, California, line, Long line, building, side of employment building, many unhappy faces, 30-50 people, standing, jobs, work force, money, undetermined, bad economy, unknown future. Laziness.

As unemployment rates surged during the recession following the economic crisis of the past few years. Many unemployment lines, sometime wrapping around buildings are getting longer by the day. Take for instance these people waiting in line out side a California State Employment office. People anxiously wait in line to know what their future holds for them. Unemployment rates have soared sky high. These persons represent what is lacking in America, where has hard work gone? Where has the ability to survive gone? Do we truly believe that our country is still on the top? Only the future can tell. Don't even let me get started about the outsourcing of jobs.....

WK 4: Visual Thinking Research - Dotted Cats

For these puzzle exercises, I sat down with my mom and had her attack both. She really enjoyed the "How Many Squares" puzzle over the cat/triangle puzzle. I suppose the difference between the two puzzles is how a person is to think outside the box and visually and perceptively capture what they are looking for.

"How Many Squares" requires rotation of lines across the dots, although the dots are places upon a fixed image, turning the sheet of paper at angle helps with seeing different invisible/drawn lines.Although "How many Squares" is a simple puzzle, pattern seeking plays a huge part in this puzzle. Along with pattern seeking, pattern completion is also used, seeking the different lines in order to re-create squares else where on the puzzle. A method my mom used, was using different colors to define the different square sizes, which got really messy. I just used  a red marker and was able to count in my head.

"The Cat" - of the two puzzles we used in this exercise, The Cat was less visually attentive. 

The puzzle is straight forward.Count the number of triangles used to created the cat. BUT! and exception, my mom some how counted 21 triangles when there were only 20 to be found. I think she was using pattern completion and counted an extra triangle in the tail. Systematically this puzzle is easy to solve, the smallest triangles to the largest. Using "Finding" defined my McKim, a solver will be able to use pattern perception to complete this puzzle.

Week 3 Blog Exercise - Feature Hierarchy and Visual Search

Week 3 Blog Exercise - Feature Hierarchy and Visual Search
From gizmos to gadgets, the future holds a great deal for those that love them and look forward to the latest technology. These things are getting smaller, faster and more powerful by the day, cell phones. Rather, gadets and gizmos, help our everyday lives. Since their introduction, we have done away with a lot of useless things in the past 10 years... the yellow book?... pagers? having more time to spend with a loved one with out even going to your desktop any more. I can go on and on about these little hand held devices....
But really, to the basics of their design. Designers have managed to fit a WHOLE key board in the palm of your hand. Take for instance, the BlackBerry Torch above, RIM's latest to release development. It has everything you need! It's slide-able sleek design with the end user in mind, buttons arranged in a position comfortable for the human hand. Keys are coded GREEN! for go (make the call) and RED! to end an action or stop a call. The keypad design is especially neat, raised numbs on the keypad indicate which letter you're pressing, because..... you know these lil gadgets aren't able to read our minds yet.....but whats the future hold for us?

www.RIM.com
www.Blackberry.com
Thanks to www.Crackberry.com for the image.

From near to afar and the distant buildings, architecture has served as the one of mankind's greatest achievements. From apartment building to skyscrapers, one profession which links all this together is Interior Design. The use of space and its acceptable fixtures to accompany the empty. From this view point, goal directed eye movements instantly catch on to the breath taking view from this loft. Next we are drawn to the coffee table, its odd shape and bold design. Then we notice the cement bench, which covers the entire wall. In its whole, the image has us constantly looping back and forth from the visual fixations.