'Information curation is key to IoT-era design'

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Sat, September 23, 2023 | 13:07

Posted : 2016-03-22 17:09

Updated : 2016-03-22 21:07

Kim Mi-yun

By Park Jin-hai

Kim Mi-yun, digital design professor at Seoul Digital University, says design in the "smart city" should not remain in the domain of an art.

At a time when local telecommunication companies join hands with builders and security companies to launch smart home services, using Internet of Things technologies, design should give more focus on "Information Curation," she said.

"In the past, designers have focused on the exterior, thinking about how to make a product look beautiful. Now, designers should think about how to make the product smart," she said. "To do that, they should be aware of technologies and what related data it could tap into. In that sense, designers should become content curators who can orchestrate all the information."

Kim, after being in the field for 15 years as an interior designer, has turned to the smart home and smart city concept that emerged in the early 2000s. Now she teaches living environment design at the university.

She says computer technologies have blurred the traditional barriers that divided space, industrial and architectural design, while convergence also is another big issue that designers should focus on,

"The living environment needs future designs that aim to support all home products and services with a unified digital language as well as to resolve social issues," said Kim.

Since last year she has been engaged in advising the Seoul Metropolitan Government in a project to build a fire safety map platform. "Through the platform, fire firefighters can see the information about the geography and what responses they should do first at the site, earning life-saving time."

This year, Kim has been leading the 40-strong private consulting Seoul Digital Doctor Group under the city government.

"There are big data out there that is easy to get. My job is to find the unspotted relevance between data and make the city officials realize that they can use the vast amount of digital data to resolve many urban issues," she said. "The area of design no longer remains in the pure art category. Thus designers in the IoT-era should pay attention to all the information, and the context the user is in, and have the creativity to reflect these in design."

The Seoul Digital University will organize the first "Open Digital Forum" hosted by Seoul Metropolitan Government next month.

jinhai@ktimes.com