Designs of Meaning: Tools for Digital Storytellers
Aimée Knight and Austin Starin
Both of us need to make in order to think. Admittedly a little obsessed with design that is both meaningful and functional, we created a toolkit in order to see the design process from multiple perspectives. This piece is a distillation of a five-year conversation (with developers, rhetoricians, craftspeople, storytellers, theorists, artists, interaction designers and each other) where we constantly worked and re-worked our human-centered, design-based approach to making digital stories. The four themes we developed help makers examine a constellation of possibilities for designing engaging experiences. (Also, we can tell you that this conversation is far from over; in fact, it is probably just beginning.)
Aimée Knight (@aesthetically) is assistant professor in the Communication Studies Department at Saint Joseph's University. She humbly eats her bowl of rice as she acknowledges that we are all part of a long line of individuals who are constantly shaping our world in ways big and not so big.
Austin Starin is a designer and front-end developer working in client services and is passionate about his everyday work. Other interests include big open spaces, guacamole, and Sunday mornings before the sun comes up.