Intros & Syllabus

Announcements

  • Welcome back!

Intros

Let take a few minutes to go around the room and introduce ourselves. When it’s your turn, share the following:

  • your name
  • your year
  • your particular area of interest(s) in Interactive Multimedia
  • outside hobbies, interests
  • what you hope to get out of this class
  • where you’re from (originally) – more on this later

Class Overview

  • What is design?
  • How do you go about “designing” something?
  • What about user-centered design?
  • Trenton
  • Food

Review Syllabus

Let’s take a little time to review the syllabus.

Food, Identity & Place

Assignment

Food Empathy

Throughout the coming week(1 point for each of 5 days), keep a journal of your interactions with food, meaning what you eat, but also what groceries you buy to eat in the future, what food-related places you visit, etc.

Here’s a food diary spreadsheet you can use as a template.

You can do this directly into the spreadsheet, or on a note pad, as a voice memo, whatever is most convenient, then transfer it all to the spreadsheet before next class. Be mindful of every available aspect of your food interactions. It might be helpful to think in terms of what, where, when, who, how and why. For example:

What

  • What did you eat or get to eat later?
  • What type of food is it? (Food groups like vegetables, meat, etc. but also ethnic or regional categories.)

Where

  • Is the food typically associated with a particular place? (A geographical region or perhaps a particular establishment)
  • Where was it packaged?
  • Where did it or its component ingredients come from?
  • What path did it take to arrive on your plate or in your panty/refrigerator?
  • Where did you go to eat/get this food?
  • How far away was it and how did you get there?
  • Why that place and not another place?

When

  • When did you eat or/get the food? (Time of day, day of the week.)
  • When was the last time you ate/got this food?
  • How often do you eat/get this food?
  • Can you remember the first time you had this food?
  • Do other occasions stand out when you had/got this food?

Who

  • Who were you with when you ate/got this food?
  • How did the presence of those particular people impact your experience of eating/getting the food? Did they impact your choice of food, location, timing, etc?

How

  • Did you prepare the food yourself or go out? Maybe takeout or delivery? Eat in or drive through?
  • Any special utensils or rituals?
  • What else were you doing while you were eating, or preparing to eat?

Why

  • Why this food and not something else?

Food Identity

In preparation for next week’s discussion, review the following videos & articles:

Design Notebook

  • In Google Drive, create a new Google Slides document and label it “Design Notebook”
  • Share your Design Notebook Document so anyone with the link can view your document
  • Create a new slide in your Design Notebook and title it “Food Empathy”
  • Make a link to your Food Journal and write a brief paragraph reflecting on your own observations about your journal records. Does anything stand out that surprises you?
  • Write another paragraph contrasting your eating with the food identity video/articles above. What does your food diary indicate about your food identity?

Submitting Your Work

This week’s homework assignment is due next week before class. When you’ve completed it, post a comment on this page, including a link to your Design Notebook.

4 thoughts on “Intros & Syllabus”

  1. Here is the link to my design notebook containing my food journal link, observations and food identity. I learned a great deal about my dietary habits from this assignment. Making note of my food choices is not something that I had ever considered doing, however I am glad that I did. I now know why I eat the foods that I do, and have a better understanding of my, “food identity.”

    Link to Design Notebook (Contains link to Food Journal): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oVH2sG0MQH6ARlCR1cFn4odVtdVmE_HcdOWLhdyxpYI/edit?usp=sharing

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *