Reading response
Reading the line “all design influences behaviour” did not make me think about the power of design first. I thought about the small actions in my daily life. I usually believe I am making my own choices, but the environment is often guiding me without saying anything. The position of a door handle, the path inside a subway station, the order on a phone screen, these small details slowly push people to act in certain ways. When I noticed this, I realized how many parts of my life are shaped by “quiet training.”
Another line stayed with me: “the systems we inhabit affect how we think.” It made me think about city spaces. A crowded street can make people walk fast. A wide sidewalk can make people slow down. Some public spaces feel welcoming, while others make you want to leave. Thinking does not only grow from inside the mind. It also grows from the spaces around us.
The idea of “visual prostheses” made me think about how much we rely on external things when we try to understand complicated ideas. Often I do not understand something first and then find a metaphor. Instead, I find an image or shape that feels right, and use it to organize my thoughts. This made me notice something simple but easy to forget: when we try to understand something abstract, we almost always need something outside our minds to help us.
While reading Design Justice, one sentence felt very direct to me: lived experience is nontransferable. People can describe an experience, but the feeling itself cannot be passed to someone else. After thinking about this, the idea of “trying to stand in someone’s shoes” suddenly felt more limited than I expected. The text also says “pretending to be another kind of person is not a good solution,” and this short sentence breaks the usual method many designers depend on.
Another point that stood out to me is how users often change or modify products on their own, because waiting for companies to respond is slow or useless. I can see this everywhere. People add small parts, tape things together, rearrange items, and make their own fixes. These actions look informal, but they show a very real and practical kind of knowledge.
Putting these ideas together, I notice a tension. People need external forms to think, but people’s experiences cannot be transferred through those forms. One is support, the other is limitation. Because of this, design can help understanding, but it can also block understanding. It depends on who gets to participate and who is not included.
If every person’s experience cannot be transferred, in what way can a designer move closer to another person’s world without speaking for them?
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Dan Lockton et al, Metaphors & Imaginaries
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Nothing About Us Without Us, Design Justice Chapter 2, by Sasha Costanza-Chock
Redesigning With Affordances
Game Gacha
Gacha systems, like those in “Genshin Impact” are based on chance. Players spend in-game currency to “draw” random characters or items, hoping for rare rewards.
The excitement doesn’t just come from the reward itself, but from the process — the moment of waiting, the bright lights, the sound effects, and the feeling of “maybe this time.”
research
These systems work because people naturally enjoy surprise and uncertainty.
Psychologists call this a variable-ratio reinforcement — rewards come at unpredictable times, so players keep trying “just once more.”
The mix of randomness and hope activates the brain’s dopamine system, creating excitement and anticipation even before the result is revealed.
In reality, this “randomness” is carefully designed.
Companies adjust the probability of winning to keep players engaged — not too hard, not too easy.
By doing this, businesses turn emotion into profit, every gacha becomes part of a loop of hope, frustration, and spending
design
Based on this research, I explored how to translate the digital gacha experience into a physical interface.
I sketched three different plans:
gacha machine
slot machine
turntable
back
front
process
After testing ideas, I chose the Gacha Machine because it best captures the feeling of anticipation, chance, and surprise found in digital gacha systems.
The act of turning the handle in a gacha machine feels very similar to watching the animation in game gacha — both create a short period of uncertainty and tension before the result appears.
This rotation builds emotional rhythm: the effort of the hand matches the visual motion of chance, turning a simple action into a ritual of hope and reveal.
final
