Web Project: Design for Culture

As tech designers, we want to be sure what we build actually creates the kinds of cultures that support our values and out happiness.  Doing this requires not just technical skills but also conceptual skills, and critical thinking skills, as well as creative problem solving. It also requires the courage to act and live according to our values.

In part two of Designing Humane Tech:  DESIGN FOR CULTURE, we explored some of the benefits and dangers of digital and internet tech on the cultural fabric on order to become better designers of more healthy cultures.

Project 2, an individual project, builds on the research and resources you gathered in part two of this course.  You may re-use data, sources, reading form any assignments in this (or other) parts of the course to make sense of how digital tech has shaped our social and cultural experience: relationships, families, politics, conversations, news etc.  You may also work in a group or team to come up with research, sources, materials, data etc, but your final web project is your own. You may for example have a group of three members that each tackles a different way to improve AI.

Try to pick one specific narrow topic that interests you rather than just a superficial broad survey.  For example topics might be similar to the following (notice a conceptual issue tied to a really specific group that you would know about, so blending research with experience):

1. How surveillance tech spies on my family via the devices we use in ways I was not aware of
2. How and why my best friend went down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, and what might prevent or help cure this
3. Is Facebook the problem in surveillance capitalism, or does tech just amplify the predatory and destructive nature of capitalism–using family and/or friend examples
4. How tech could be designed to reinforce family bonds in my extended family instead of breaking them
5. In my current job and/or family how do the benefits of AI compare to its dangers?
6. What are the main digital activism issues college students should be working on to secure our own digital safety and prosperity?

Your resources can be text, images, charts, video, audio etc in this multimedia portal.  More visuals can make an easier and more compelling case.

Create a Web Portal using Adobe Express/Spark Web Page (or Presentation) using any media that will help your audience learn what they need to answer two basic questions mentioned above: :

1. What specific technical issue will you be researching, analyzing and exploring? Being specific here will make your work easier, allow more depth,  and give more focus.
2. What specific (small) group of people will you focus on as target of this tech?  Try to use a small sample 1-10 people to also give you more focus and more room to deeply explore the issue.

Cite ALL your sources, class, professor, music etc in your final credits.  For your post, use category: Project 2, a relevant featured image (a screen shot of your project would be ideal), a brief 1-2 sentence summary in text  and your Adobe Spark Page URL.

Adobe Spark Page has a share feature that allows you to publish and copy your URL, using the share–>embed option. Put the embed code in the “text” (NOT “Visual”) tab of the post. Then click on the Visual tab and an image should pop up for your URL. You may have to publish and view post to see  the Image link to your Adobe web  project.