Recently I attended an all day workshop on color led by Brandon Mably, a knitwear designer and studio manager of the Kaffe Fassett Studio. The workshop was held at my own wonderful LYS* – Slip Knot. *For any of you not indoctrinated in knitting culture, “LYS” stands for local yarn store.
The process of the workshop was simple: each person made two balls of yarn from short lengths of yarn knotted together, one each of light and dark yarns, then knit them together in the same “Poppy” pattern using any version of fair isle technique that he or she could muster. There were no rules for selecting colors other than to seek harmony of hue and value between each adjacent length of yarn. In short, if you thought two colors looked good together, you’d tie them together and move on to the next selection. The intention of the exercise was to bypass personal habits or opinions – learned or otherwise – about what colors look good together. Twice during the day we pinned the swatches up on a board and stared dumbstruck at the transformation each color worked on its neighbor and at the variety of effects worked by each combination. Brandon was a tirelessly charming, firm, and inspirational coach throughout the day.
The workshop was covered by the press even – by a knitwear journalist (who knew there was such a specialty?!) who interviewed Brandon at the lunch break and collected comments from participants. (I am embarrassed to say that I forgot the journalist’s name and can’t credit her properly.)
When my turn came up, she asked me the for-the-record ID questions about name and profession. I stuck with “User Interface Designer” as I usually do in general society (mumbling on with “for software” and “I’m also trained as an architect” to avoid the blank looks that generally greet “UI designer”, “user experience designer,” “interaction designer,” or “information architect.” Really, we have to get some UX designer characters in TV or movies to socialize our profession so we can avoid these awkward party moments.)
Unfazed, the journalist followed on with a question about what the connection was between doing UI design and knitting. This stumped me completely for some time in the conversation (and surely struck my comments off the “include-in-article” shortlist.)
I’ve never had trouble with this connections question with regard to architecture, since I’ve found architecture to be a unparalleled professional education for user experience (UX) design. The building architect and UX designer sit in identical positions in the project process, responsible for the first visible, habitable, and buildable expression of the balance of requirements and technology for a particular product – be it a physical structure or a transactional website. Both work in models and diagrams of the final product for reasons of cost, time, and stripping away noise from key decision points. They think in similar ways, evaluate designs from multiple scales and points of views similarly, and must be able to communicate and negotiate empathetically the generally opposing needs and desires of the paying client, time-pressured development/construction team, and end-user.
But back to the question of connections between user experience design and knitting.
My first thought was purely reactionary, “Oh – There’s no connection at all!” I said. I learned to knit purely as a diversion from designing for transactional web applications and staring relentlessly day after day at glowing screens. I wanted something to do that was social (I guarantee you can find a knitting group in your area no matter where you live), involved making, and did NOT have a glowing screen or keyboard. Plus there is some shopping therapy involved – lots of little gadgets and tools and bags not to mention the tactile and visual pleasures of the hanks, skeins, cakes, and balls of yarns. Added bonus: while not completely dead to fashion, I hate shopping for clothes with a white hot passion – so at the end of all the hours and hours of little stitches it is awesome to have something new to wear without spending time in a store or mall or shopping website.
And in one short paragraph, my reactionary response is visibly weakened because of course there is a connection in the intention of making between any craft discipline including knitting and experience design. I will tip my hand that I side with Alan Cooper in describing experience design in this way in his Insurgency of Quality presentation. (Download the pdf from “www.cooper.com/journal/insurgency_of_quality/insurgency-of-quality.pdf”)
A shared drive for making is not the only connection, however, though the other is more subtle. For me the other connection is the draw of the social and the intimate.
As experience designers, we are creating the field of engagement between an end-user and a company or product or goal rather than the object of desire itself. This is why we are endlessly curious beyond most other disciplines to see what people do with our designs in a usability test and are willing to pour hours into details that, when successful, are ideally transparent to the end user.
The more that the field of engagement of experience design percolates from the desktop into mobile devices and smart objects, the stronger the emphasis on the social and intimate becomes.
I love my smartphone (I’ve had 3 – the T-Mobile Sidekick originally created by Danger – both the original black and white and color models – and my current iPhone) because it doesn’t need to be booted up and because I feel like I control the phone, not the other way around. It is physically smaller than me – my hands and field of view. It comes to me – I don’t have to sit down at it, and it is comparatively un-needy – I don’t have to laboriously unpack it and find it a clean table and an immediate power source (my laptop in full travel mode has as many accessories as a small child). It doesn’t create a barrier between me and other people as visibly as the laptop on the conference table in a meeting, and arguably it connects me with more intimacy and immediacy with people who are far away – by text or twitter or whatever social/local app is at hand.
I think that for me knitting, and the culture that surrounds it, satisfy much the same need as my mobile devices. Even alone, the craft is intimate in scale – handheld. The learning and appreciation of it is generally social – whether in person in a group (the tradition of learning from a relative has largely dwindled in the younger generation of knitters) or online – witness the spectacular growth of Ravelry in 2 years to 650,000 registered users (~275,000 active) and over a million dollars in patterns sales or the countless independent knitting blogs and forums.
And last but not least – the zen of the analytical..
While it is possible to happily crank out what I fondly think of as classic knitting kitsch, the design and production of a handsome fitted garment or combination of patterns is analytical, abstract, 3-dimensional, and math based at its core. If you don’t believe me on this one – take a quick look through the backgrounds of the subjects in Melanie Falick’s Knitting in America with it’s predominance of scientists and mathematicians or the design blogs of physicist Connie Chang Chinchio, structural engineer Robyn Chachula, and others.
So there you go… I start looking for a diversion from work and I find another compelling complement to it! Thanks to my unnamed journalist for asking the question. Perhaps you will find connections in your life as well.
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