CAN WE MEASURE DESIGN?
I once heard that we can control what we can measure. Nowadays we can measure all kind of things like atmospheric contamination, temperature, light, weight, and even things like dizziness, stress, and our interest in a conversation by the tone of our voice. But there are certain intangible and very abstract things that we are still unable to measure.
I got really interested when Tufte gave an example of statistical visualizations where a diagram of the sunspots was generated based on data collected in 380 years. This diagram was very useful for astronomers and scientists because it showed a well defined pattern. This is an example where the visualization of data can really make a difference. Sometimes large amounts of statistical data can only make sense when patterns are detected, and the use of visualizations could be a key factor in discovering these patterns. This example made me wonder if statistical data could be used to uncover patterns of abstract and intangible entities like art or design, and use these patterns to measure if a design or an art piece is pleasant to our eyes. Certainly the beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, but there are some designs that are more appealing and eye-catching than others for the majority of people. Can we determine good design or bad design? Maybe good design is based in millions of variables like symmetries, patterns, clarity, and colors, and maybe some of these variables differ from person to person, but I believe that there are some key variables which can determine the difference between good design and bad design. Maybe, with today’s advanced technology, an application could be developed to analyze millions of images based on statistical data of what people consider esthetical and appealing, and uncover a series of patterns that make art and design something more objective and measurable.
I got really interested when Tufte gave an example of statistical visualizations where a diagram of the sunspots was generated based on data collected in 380 years. This diagram was very useful for astronomers and scientists because it showed a well defined pattern. This is an example where the visualization of data can really make a difference. Sometimes large amounts of statistical data can only make sense when patterns are detected, and the use of visualizations could be a key factor in discovering these patterns. This example made me wonder if statistical data could be used to uncover patterns of abstract and intangible entities like art or design, and use these patterns to measure if a design or an art piece is pleasant to our eyes. Certainly the beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, but there are some designs that are more appealing and eye-catching than others for the majority of people. Can we determine good design or bad design? Maybe good design is based in millions of variables like symmetries, patterns, clarity, and colors, and maybe some of these variables differ from person to person, but I believe that there are some key variables which can determine the difference between good design and bad design. Maybe, with today’s advanced technology, an application could be developed to analyze millions of images based on statistical data of what people consider esthetical and appealing, and uncover a series of patterns that make art and design something more objective and measurable.
posted by Jaime C. at 2:26 PM
1 Comments:
"This example made me wonder if statistical data could be used to uncover patterns of abstract and intangible entities like art or design, and use these patterns to measure if a design or an art piece is pleasant to our eyes."
Probably not, since so much of what "pleasant" means is subjective. What is pleasant to you in 2006 would not be pleasant to someone ten or twenty years ago. Just look at fashion from 1986; what looks like a joke to us now was really really cool back then.
But there are some interesting investigations along the lines you suggest. One way to "measure" what's appealing is to track the art market, which lets us associate real dollar amounts with art pieces, and to track prices over time. It's still tricky to track a "style" over time, since even something like "Impressionsism" is pretty hard to pin down in a quantifiable way. But it's interesting to track even single artists: for example, the work of Dutch artist Vermeer is incredibly rare, shockingly valuable (possibly priceless), and overwhelmingly loved by art professionals and museum tourists alike. But it wasn't always the case: Vermeer was not a successful painter during his lifetime, and it took really about 200 years before he was really appreciated.
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