Shell Translations

2019
Teaching Seminar

For the purpose of our class, different seashells were provided for students to choose from and experiment with. The class concluded with critique and reflection

Shell Translations

Background

There are five telecommunication network providers in Ghana. Four out of the five telecommunication network provides does not only provide an enabling environment for friends, family, and business partners to communicate through their mobile phones but also serve the Ghanaian Community with a cashless money transfer.

Problem Statement

These telecommunication network providers have equipped their clients with a customized digital wallet which allows business transaction within a chosen telecommunication network.

From this perspective, a customer on a network A is not allowed to transfer money to a customer on network B by the local telecommunication network providers. Mobile money transfer is run on USSD code method.

Research and Analysis

In order to gain insights from participants of study, field work was conducted to further understand Ghanaians pressing need of a digital wallet that supports across network money transfer.

Further studies on the existing systems provided by the various telecommunication network providers also served as a source of knowledge and inspiration for further ideation.

Generative  Ideation

The objective of this section was to clearly examine the research work pertaining to the functionalities of the existing mode of money transfer, its challenges, and how to effectively align it to the core objective of the application.

Visual Design

Team collaboration, design thinking and creative judgment was adopted to interview, sketch, research and refine the idea into a perfect business need while staying inspired. User centered and Iterative design process was used as a guide to know the users, minimize memorizations, optimize operations and make the user interface consistent from kickoff through development to lunch.

Team Members

Bright Antwi-Boasiako - Lead Researcher
‍Daniel Felbah - Developer
‍Daniel A. Opoku - Designer

My Role: Lead product researcher, UI Designer

Designer Advisor: Dr. Eddie Appiah
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Technical Advisor: Emmanuel Mfum
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My Team : 4 field researchers, 2 Developers
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My Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD, Microsoft Visio
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Duration: 12 Weeks
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As a left-handed person, I had to overcome the difficulty of writing with a straight pen from left to right. In the process of writing from left to right, Lefties do not adequately see their writing progress as all right-handed people do. And yet few left-handed kids are given the opportunity to double practice with a tool that was designed with them not in mind.
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In this ethnographic typographical research, I explore the predominantly "backward slant" in most lefties handwriting and further reimagine what a comma could have been like if it was designed by a leftie.

Graduate Class: Typography

Project Advisor: Prof. Don Adleta

My Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Fontographer

Duration: 8 weeks

As a left-handed person, I had to overcome the difficulty of writing with a straight pen from left to right. In the process of writing from left to right, Lefties do not adequately see their writing progress as all right-handed people do. And yet, few left-handed kids are given the opportunity to double practice with a tool that was designed with them not in mind.
In this ethnographic typographical research, I explore the predominantly "backward slant" in most lefties handwriting and further propose what a comma could have been like if it was designed by a leftie.

I was surprised by the generated outcomes. Complex visual essays that were erupting from Adinkra, African dance, and abstract masks.If I had not worked in isolation, I would not have produced these visual essays that have no external influence whatsoever. This project taught me the power of intuition, self-listening, and self-questioning. I believe professor Don is aware of the delicacy of this assignment. Probably, that is why he gave it out on Thursday and expected it done before class on Monday.

Artists and Designers are required to pay attention to details. For example, a typographic error could alter meaning and create a negative response. The initial task of this lesson was to encourage students to examine details. Their drawings were challenged by their own assumptions, and improve critical thinking regarding their own process. Students examined how light sources affect the perceived shape and form of natural objects.

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Experimental drawing using ballpoint pen as the primary tool, natural object that the student finds it interesting was drawn separately on 18” x 11” bond sheet in the following imagined states:
1.    Stretched
2.    Compressed
3.    ExplodedFor the purpose of our class, different seashells were provided for students to choose from and experiment with.
The class  concluded with critique and reflection

The ideographic representation of wise sayings, philosophies, beliefs, values, and historical events of the Akan people in Ghana was suppressed during the colonial era because of what it is not; phonetic.The construction of this device from its flat state to a complete structure reveals a six-page book of Adinkra symbols, telling a story of a survived culture.



The ongoing research to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics makes it relevant to study ideographic writing systems!

My Role: Lead Graphic Designer

My Team: 4 Researchers / Writers

My Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign

Duration: 4 Weeks

In collaboration with the leadership of Cincinnati Art Museum, Cohear led a multi-pronged research and engagement effort to bring the wisdom and ideas of the “everyday experts”--people with lived experience--into the strategic planning process.
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Through both a robust representative survey of the community, as well as a series of qualitative focus groups with key demographics, we worked to uncover the insights of a diverse group of community members

Role:
Lead Graphic Designer

Team:
6  Researchers
2 Art Directors
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Tools:
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Indesign
Adobe Photoshop

Timeline:
5 Weeks

Hypothesis

In the past few months, we have witnessed riots and demonstrations against police brutality in most United States. It is of our opinion that protesting against the police will not be as beneficial as engaging the police in difficult conversations to understand their codes of conduct. If such dialogues have been ongoing and profitable for some time, it has not crossed our attention (the research team) at this point.  Persons of color become too anxious whenever they encounter the police. Their anxiety sparks from the broader data out there that the police see them as a public enemy. On the other hand, numerous White people continue to drag the police to court because of “unnecessary harassment”

My Role:

Product and Research lead
UI Designer

My Team:

4 Field Researchers
3 Engineers

My Tools:

Adobe Ilustrator
Adobe XD
Adobe Photoshop
HTML + CSS

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Research Objectives

1.

Analyze the structural support of police behavior

2.

Analyze the existing structures/programs that monitors police and public behavior

3.

Develop a database application that monitors the police interaction with the public for training purposes

Research timeline

Persona Profile

Ohio University Student Ajiyah Brooks shared a roughly 30-second video on Twitter Sunday, September 29, 2019, saying that “three police officers ran up on a group of boys beside a car on Court Street, and took down an African American boy. Slammed him, punched him, and holding all parts of his body down when he wasn’t fighting back and was unarmed!”
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During the press conference on Monday, September 30, Athens City Police Chief Officer Tom Pyle said his officers were “confident” that they were arresting the right person and the use of force was “justified” and restrained”. Although Pyle claims that his officers were not wearing body cameras but the police will have enough video footages to support his officers’ action when asked by the court.

OU Student NAACP chapter called the use of force displayed in the video “extremely unnecessary”.

Bealer 21, who was accused of resisting arrest and obscuring official business was later charged with minor misdemeanor disorderly conduct, equivalent to a speeding ticket.

9%

of Athenians are Black, Asian, Native American, and Unknown race

16.65%

of Athens Police citations or arrests were Black, Asian, Native American or Unknown race

59%

of Athens Police arrests for open container were of Black people or Unknown race

93.2%

of Athens Police citations or arrests were for non violence or crime (assault, murder, rape, and domestic violence

Athens Police funding

The approximate expenses on Athens police and Ohio University police is $10 M

Spending on Athens police is almost 20X more than the amount the city spent on housing safety regulations
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The police spending per capita for APD and OUPD is higher than Ohio spends per capita on all campus, village, city, county and state police forces combined.

Athens population is 25,000 (school year) and 15,000 summer.

A narrative,
November 9, 2020


"...he handed me his business card, this time with a smile on his face. Call this number. He circled the number and said, ask for Lieutenant Hoskinson. The time spent was about 20 minutes." -D, person of color

Just one Ethan?

•  Ethan Doer deploys force more than any other APD officer, at more than 7 times/year (Department average is 2.12 per year) and has been sued at least twice for excessive use of force
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•  Deploys force against Black folks at 6x the rate of white folks

•  Has the highest arrest rate in APD at an average of 121/year

•  Arrests Black folks at 1.6x  the rate of white folks (department average is 1.46)

•  Deploys his teaser more than any other APD officer (2.49x/year ; department average is 0.2)

•  He has the second highest rate of take downs in the department at 3.3/year (department average is 0.94/year)

Bigger Picture

According to guardian.org, 91% of Americans now agree that racism is a problem in the US and 72% deem it is a serious one. Similarly, 89% think police violence is a problem, and 65% consider it serious.

More than 1,000 unarmed people died as a result of police harm between 2013 and 2019, according to data from Mapping Police Violence. Black people constitute 13% of the American population, yet 28% of people killed by police were Black in 2020.

More Data

KEY QUESTIONED ASKED BY FIELD PARTICIPANTS

1. How do you measure the accuracy of the Health report?

2. How secure is the registration, and Identity theft?

3. How does my profile contributes to the large data without theft?

4. How do I know whether my shared data is in the right hand?

Using freedom of information act request, and Athens county as a case study area, the goal of this research is to develop a central hub to collect and analyze police interaction with the public: For training and educational purpose. By providing viable data with minute details will enhance the police implicit bias training curriculum, and further educate the public on what is expected of them when pulled over by the police.

Background and Challenges

Flipping through a log book of over 600 photographs to verify student’s identity when the need arise. 

Data integrity and security is threatened in the manual system since records are kept on loose sheets in files.

Changing of rooms which students have already booked for leads to cancellation of student’s detail which does not present neat work in the registration book.

Difficulty in preserving archives of students records as a result of cancellation of particulars of students in situations like completion, withdrawal and in the case of death.

Time consumed in preparing alphabetical lists that are prone to mistakes.

Difficulty in knowing all vacancies in the hall.

Difficulty in updating the records of students because reliable information on students on exchange programs and deferments do not get to the hall authorities in time.

Problem Statement

Hall porters find it tedious and time consuming going through the log book of over 600 photographs to verify the identity of students before issuing keys out. In the current manual system, finding students record and other information is very challenging since the data is kept on paper and easy to loose. Besides that, the manual application results in hassle data management for faster student allocation as well as managing students’ data in order to fast track their activities; outing record and managing visitors.

Project Goals

The main aim of this study is to develop an application to be used by porters to: 
‍Verify the identity of students before keys are issued out Manage students’ data in the halls of residence.

Design Process

With careful interview with hall administrators and close analysis of the gathered data, mind mapping was used in the brainstorming process to identify and synthesize ideas. New patterns were discovered and grouped to further ideate on. This process served as a rough draft of the system architecture which was built upon in developing the software.

System Structure

To clearly visualize and comprehend to the database architecture of the application, an in-depth system flow diagram wascreated to illustrate the process, relationship and interdependent of the various entities that forms the database architecture.This process was develop from the initial mind map that was further iterated upon.

User Flows
(Rapid Prototyping)

User flows (Rapid prototyping) were developed to further iterate upon to clearly understand how the system is to work with regards to the key functionalities of the application. Yes challenging but through collaborative ideas sharing, rapid iteration and failing fast, a comprehensive systematic draft was develop to spell out the step by step processes of activities within the application.

Semester Registration flow

Start
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Allocate room/Issue
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key Checked-in date is recorded
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Has Semester ended? - If NO, repeat process
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If YES, was student given a key?
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If YES, has student returned key?
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If NO, Trace student and collect the key
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Key returned is indicated
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Check out date is recorded
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EndStart

Student daily key drop flow

Start
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Student drops key at porters lodge
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Porter picks key and checks the room number
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Porter indicates that the key has been returned
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Date/Time for returning key is recorded
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End

Student daily key request flow

Start
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Student mentions room number.
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Porter keys in room number
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Porter checks if person belongs to that room - if person does not belongs to the room (go to 8)

Porter checks if key is available - if key is not available (go to 8)

Porter gives the key the occupant of the room

Porter ticks against the person’s name that key has been given to him

End

The most important skill to develop as a designer is file management. Design is functional, and it gives arrangement to disorder. To design is to compose elements and principles into visual aesthetics. However, designers tend to focus on the immediate results than the proper documentation of their design elements and processes.

This research aimed to acquire curatorial skills and improve my file management skills to complement the Visual Arts Management certificate program in the MFA program at Ohio University.
I assigned identification numbers to 3500 drawings of Don Adleta, photographed, and made the drawings accessible through an online purchase.

Drawing the Feminine Form:
Studies interpreting the human form.

"Learning how to draw has taken me a lifetime to refine. This book documents several years of that process. The specific technique incorporated in these drawings has been evolving since 1991 while on a yearlong, professional sabbatical in New Zealand. "
- Don Adleta

Drawing the Masculine Form:
Studies interpreting the human form.

"Visually interpreting or translating the models, their warmth, their thoughts, their center, their space, and even the blood flowing through their bodies is all being channeled through this medium. The medium inspires and even motivates the mark being made. "
- Don Adleta