Reading response
Reading these three articles changed how I see tools, interaction, and experience. In “A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design,” Bret Victor’s line “A tool addresses human needs by amplifying human capabilities” really stayed with me. It made me rethink what a “tool” actually is. A tool isn’t only something that completes tasks — it can expand our senses, our movements, and our thinking, allowing us to interact with the world in new ways. Victor’s critique of “Pictures Under Glass” also made me realize how much our everyday interfaces — the endless “screens plus taps” — compress human capabilities. If, as he suggests, lights, curtains, and climate control could be adjusted by swiping a hand through the air or by squeezing and rotating a tangible control ball, our bodies could speak directly to the space around us and the interaction would feel richer and more natural.
“Sketching Experiences” pushed me to look at my own habits. I used to think “rough” meant “unprofessional,” so I would polish the interface or layout before even considering the flow or the feel. Buxton’s view helped me see that roughness is part of the method — it invites others to add, critique, and generate ideas. He also stresses time and context: the same design feels completely different in noisy, rushed, or tense settings than in quiet, relaxed ones. I rarely put these variables into my sketches before; now I see they can decide whether an experience works at all.
“Technology Affordances” showed me that affordances are a design language embedded in daily life, not just a theory term. “Hidden affordances” and “false affordances” resonated most. I immediately thought of interfaces where an icon looks tappable but is just decoration, or an important function is buried three menus deep. Physical door handles and digital buttons face the same problem: they either hint at the wrong action or don’t signal the right one clearly enough. This gave me a new lens: don’t just ask “what do users need,” ask “what will users think or do the moment they see or touch this?”
All three articles emphasize creating experiences that feel “natural” and “intuitive.” But “natural” and “intuitive” can mean very different things for people from different cultures, physical conditions, and ages. How can we design so that people from different backgrounds all feel comfortable?
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Bill Gaver, Technology Affordances
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Bill Buxton, Sketching User Experiences
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Bret Victor, A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design
Endangered Animal
recycled materials
plastic bottle
The shape of the bottle reminds me of the circular body shape of the snake
Plastic bottles rely on petroleum, consume high energy, and are hard to degrade, breaking into microplastics that pollute soil and water. Wildlife often mistake plastics for food, leading to poisoning, starvation, internal injuries, and death. Large amounts also clog waterways, destroy habitats, disrupt food chains, and ultimately affect human health.
Teakout Packaging (Plastic Bag / Kraft Paper)
Takeout waste is one of the main sources of increased urban household garbage, intensifying the pressure on waste management. Most takeout packaging cannot be effectively recycled and is instead incinerated or landfilled with other trash. In addition, the production and disposal of plastic takeout packaging generate large amounts of greenhouse gases, further exacerbating climate change.
process
Endangered Animal
Meadow Viper
sketche
I hope to make a snake that can stand upright, with plastic bottles for the belly, kraft paper for the back, and plastic bags for patterns
The meadow viper is a rare, venomous viper that is vulnerable to extinction. Found in France, Italy, Greece and much of Eastern Europe—with poorly known populations reaching as far as Kazakhstan and northwestern China—it has several recognized subspecies
Habitat & Behavior
This small viper lives mainly in grasslands but can swim and climb shrubs. It is active from April to October—by day in spring, and in the cooler hours of summer—and hibernates in winter Meadow vipers are generally solitary predators and ovoviviparous (giving birth to live young)
Diet
They feed on insects such as locusts, grasshoppers, crickets, and spiders, as well as small mammals, ground-nesting birds, and lizards
Conservation Status
Population trend: Decreasing
IUCN status: Vulnerable (VU)
Endangered reasons
The meadow viper is endangered primarily due to habitat loss and fragmentation, changes in grassland management, climate warming, persecution or capture by humans, and genetic vulnerability caused by small population sizes. These factors combine to drive a sharp decline in its numbers across Europe.
Blueprint
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