Learning to See: Generative Methods for Disciplining Visual Perception

Sean Bolan | Doctoral Researcher, Educational Psychology | Lecturer, Division of Design | University of Washington | Education Director, AIGA Seattle

Learning to See is an insightful examination of a unique undergraduate course created to build critical perceptual skills in developing designers. The course attempts to bridge design with cultural anthropology, communication theory and perceptual psychology to foster a multidisciplinary look at visual language.

The presentation will explain the 3 phases of the course and show examples that illustrate the students’ development. The first phase is focused on examining the visual environment and constructing active strategies for organizing visual information. This helps students begin to notice relationships within the complex barrage of visual information they consume on a daily basis. The second phase is a critical examination of how meaning is generated through the juxtaposition of visual elements. This helps students begin to ask questions about the way visual language functions. The third phase is focused on generating or manipulating meaning through the construction of visual language. Students apply their new ways of seeing to experiment with visualizing complex ideas.

Three graduate researchers followed this course for 10 weeks. They collected 121 hours of video watching students work and engage in dialogue, 420 questionnaires probing the students’ thinking during assignments, 2648 photographs meticulously documenting work in progress, 116 books of research, and 58 posters exploring the construction of visual language. Portions of this data will be used to illustrate key developments within the course.