There are a couple of things I want to reflect on this week. The first is some of the Makey Makey projects we saw in class (including the reception of our own Makey Makey). The second is the process of writing up the design document with Kelly.

I thought the concept behind Nathaniel and Joe’s Makey Makey was outstanding. I’m especially impressed by their attention to materiality – their concept could only be demonstrated by using the Makey Makey, rather than an actual keyboard (as Joe similarly notes, a Makey Makey brings us back to the idea of “hardware”). While the functionality wasn’t perfect (the animal sounds, for instance, didn’t stop when we stopped cutting the food), it’s easy for me to speculate on ways to get around this issue. I’m still considering how this idea would work in a “real life” context. The thought of implementing something like this in all grocery stores doesn’t seem realistic, but I can maybe imagine places like Whole Foods (or other “hip,” ethically conscious food stores) offering this as a sort of didactic tool.

I was also extremely happy with the way our own Makey Makey was received in class. We mention this in the design doc, but Kelly and I were especially intrigued by how our project was used in ways that we did not anticipate. We did not, for example, think that users would “crowd source” their decisions to the rest of the audience. Nathaniel, who was in the position of initiating the screen shot, decided to monitor the rest of the class’s reaction before he chose a particular search query. We noticed Nathaniel was more inclined to choose a phrase when the rest of the class laughed. While certain search queries seemed to collectively resonate more than others, I’m still thinking about what makes certain phrases “poetic.” In other words, how do we get beyond what’s merely humorous to a lot of different people? Why do we as a group relate to some search queries over others? Can we collectively decide on what can be considered “aesthetic”?

These are just some of the things Kelly and I were thinking about in composing the rationale section of our design document. We tried to take Scott’s advice to heart and collaboratively write as much of the document as we could. This meant both of us sitting in front of the same computer, trying to transcribe, modify, and clarify each other’s thoughts. There are some interesting intersections between the collaborative authorship our Makey Makey explores and the collaborative authorship actually exercised in creating the project/design document. Writing things together can be a slog, the process can feel slow. However, I do really think that our collective effort resulted in a more impactful and thoughtful product. As evidence for this, Kelly and I are also going to be extending what we did with the Makey into a final project, which we’re both (I think) genuinely excited about.