Tarek Fahmy: Cultural Critic

My Facebook profile image has become a digital canvas of sorts. My profile pictures are almost always doctored in photoshop. At times it’s just a traditional self portrait. In some instances I created a digital montage instead of the traditional self portrait.

Cindy Sherman and Lucas Samaras come to mind while looking at these portraits. They both utilized their own visage in their work. Cindy’s work was more of a cultural critique concerning women’s role in society and Lucas was more of an introspective artist, looking inside himself to explain existence in a sense.

I have a history of drawing and painting portraiture so this comes naturally to me. Below is a selected few of my ‘Facebook Profile Portraits’.

I never understood why ‘ma and pa’ cafes had free Wi-Fi and Starbucks never did. They forced their customers to pay for this service. Starbucks is a huge, powerful, and ubiquitous corporation (especially in the U.S.) and making ‘us’ pay for Wi-Fi surely had no effect on their profit margin.

So why did Starbucks wait this long to change their policy regarding the Internet??

Prior to their July 1st, 2010 free Wi-Fi policy change they forced their customers to go through this complicated procces to get “FREE” Internet:

• Purchase a starbucks card
• Fill it up with at least $5.00
• Scratch off a card specific number on the back
• Sign up on the AT & T (Wi-Fi) website using that
  number and input personal information
• Select a Username & Password
• Sign up on Starbucks website with that Username & Password
• Fre Wi-Fi is attained

This complicated and time consuming process seemed to disourage some non-techie folks from even trying to figure out this convoluted roadmap. As a UX Designer I was always asking the question why? Why a multi-billion dollar corporation did not hire a UX designer to make this Internet signing up process simpler? Maybe they hired a UX Designer to make this process purposefully complicated?!?

The question always led me to the same answer: that Starbucks (previously) did not want to make this process easy. For whatever reason[s] (people camping in their stores solely for Internet use and not for buying their products) getting Internet at Starbucks was harder then rocket science.

As of today (07.01.10) the Internet at Starbucks is FREE. This time it’s really free with no * next to the word FREE leading to a fine print explanation. Off-course there is the ‘I agree to the Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy‘ which if checked obviously means that the customer is selling their soul to Starbucks; but that’s OK as long as the Internet is free.

I have noticed recently that I have been taking pictures of pictures (still or moving). Whether the pictures that I take are from a computer screen (Youtube + Websites), a street billboard, or moving images (theatre + TV), It seems like I have been reproducing reproductions. I am taking a picture of a picture and making a new image.

At times I don’t even use a camera, I use my Apple’s screen capture feature to take pictures from Youtube videos and other video websites. I then import these images into Photoshop and tweak them to my liking. I crop, color correct, and at times totally change their ‘genetic’ make-up and make them my own.

With the Internet, Youtube, and the blogosphere (there are countless of images that saturate the web) it’s easy to appropriate other people’s images and make them your own. It’s the age of digital and algorithmic recycling. At the same time, i don’t mind when my images are appropriated and are used by others; as long as a profit is not being made from this borrowing/appropriating/stealing.

I am just a small piece of the grand puzzle because my reproduced reproductions eventually will be reproduced by someone else and then these reproductions of reproductions of reproductions will be reproduced again and again, ad infinitum.

UX design means user experience design. These designers literally design the experience that the end-user (person using the web-site or application) will have online or on the desktop.

When websites and desktop applications are being designed, the end-user should always come first. This is called user centered design. Since different applications/websites have a different archetypal end-user(s), a user experience designer has to determine what type of design appeals and is more efficient to that particular archetype of an end-user(s).

The experience designer also delves into information architecture, user interface design, art direction (over-all aesthetic feel & vibe of site/application), branding, usability studies, story boarding and wire-framing, research, client interaction and client presentation,

As of late there are many different terms being used to describe these designers. Some of the terms being used are:
• Visual Designer
• UX Designer
• UI designer
• Information Architect

In my opinion, the best UI/UX designers are the post modern equivalent of renaissance artists; versed in many seemingly disparate but truly interrelated disciplines. These UI/UX designers combine logic, creativity, and communication on a day to day basis. They are versed in psychology, usability, graphic design, fine arts, as well as wireframe rendering and story boarding. These designers also have the ability to put themselves in the end-user’s shoes.

UX design is a growing field that is extremely integral in today’s business. The ceiling is high and the future is bright.

Facebook’s interface heavily utilizes icons. These icons are graphical shortcuts for navigational purposes. Instead of only using text links, Facebook depends on navigational pictographs to make the end-user’s experience easier and more user-friendly.

Facebook utilizes literal icons, the images literally describe the intended behavior. For example, the ‘Gifts’ icon is literally a gift and the ‘mobile phone’ icon is literally a mobile phone. The most important thing here is consistency across the board. All of these navigational icons have to be consistent site wide concerning their color, location, size, and font (where applicable). Aesthetically, the icons are a bit cartoony and the colors are pastel like. They are consistent, coherent, and well rendered.

Facebook also uses a family of similar icons. Since it’s a social networking site, the ‘Friends’ icon has many different variations and functions. There is ‘add a friend,’ ‘Suggest friends for him,’ and the regular ‘friend’ icon/link. They are all structurally similar with a little graphical spin off that suggest their differing function.

The end-user does not consciously think of these icons. They become second hand and in order for them to seep into the end-users psyche they must be consistent, communicative, and easy to understand.