This year I believe that I have learned much more about how aesthetics can be used to improve the elements of design that I care about. I used to think this expertise area was superficial and unnecessary and that practicality and aesthetics were somewhat mutually exclusive. Through the Aesthetics of Interaction course and further development of my vision, I can now see that this is not the case.

Aesthetics of Interaction taught me how the way something looks can improve user experience exponentially. Within the course, we created a ‘sensory awakening kit’. We considered the order, shapes, visual texture, scent and used all of these elements to influence how people use our product. Although this product was more conceptual than what I look to create in the future, this idea of using aesthetics to show affordances and help users understand and use your product is something that I definitely look to implement in the future. In fact, I am already implementing these concepts in my Multidisciplinary Project, in which we are using portable plasma technology, and therefore the aesthetics will be crucial to help reassure users of the safety of our prototype.

Video of our Sensory Awakening Kit

In addition, when looking at my vision, I can understand that aesthetics is an important part of this as well. During a visit to the Jacob Jensen headquarters in Copenhagen, I learned about some of their design principles, one of them being ‘timeless design’. They made sure to use colours, shapes and aesthetic language that would never become outdated, despite requests from clients to design based on current, fleeting trends. This is why I now look in my vision to try and reflect this by referring to the creation of timeless designs built to last visually and physically.

Photograph from Jacob Jensen HQ Copenhagen