Let's talk about Context.
One thing that I've found is unbelievably important for any creator is to understand contexts. Contexts in design. In news. In conversation.
You see, context can be a huge base for idea creation. Using aspects such as context pairing, Nostalgia, Popularity, Design trends, Cultural Trends, you can combine the right contexts to form a smart idea.
Let's use Bistro as example of a few concepts tiered together-
Bistro is built upon the philosophy of Minimalism, a trait of contexts you see in design- specifically modern design in an urban setting. But anything can be minimal . So there needs to be more to this idea than just being minimal. I mean if Bistro was just another minimal website, it really could just be some random ad page for some bakery in LA.
See, the idea of Bistro is the upscale, adaptive internet. Let's detect the contexts of that:
- The internet: A context of urban society, incremental startup tool, and now an essential utility of connection as a tool to explore creations, information, and those 20 viruses you saw on that random site that supposedly streams free movies in the best way possible.
-Google: Massive database collection used by both the young and old through a text based interface that millions use. This is a trait of the cultural trend context of a search reliant society.
-The GUI: A trait of design that started the computer boom being a form of interaction through pictography and simplistic point and click navigation. Previously, there used to be text based navigation of the computer.
Now, if I am to inspect these contexts with a Con list, here's what I'd find.
- Massive internet database means fake news can be preventable. Luring of people through scams, massive spam, ugly websites, viruses, and a high probability of an inconsistent experience every time means that as great as the internet is, filtering out scams is quite a challenge to do.
- Google is heavily text based. That means you've got to search, shift through millions of results, and find a website that has what you need that's at least halfway trustworthy. Unless you want to take the time to savagingly filter the internet
-The GUI can get super complex if you put everything in one place and people have to choose from over 70 options on one page.
Thus, I can try to come up with a solution of all these cons.
Searching through massive internet database.
- Cons
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Database + filtration + GUI (In favor of text- an analog nav system ) + Minimalism.
And through that equation comes out Bistro. So from these contexts alone, you can detect how the idea is made in this situation- A major utility- cons used from a contextual history. Try it. What are some contextual dissections behind:
Twitter?
AirBnB?
Of course, context is also used in conversation. We need it to converse. Take an example form a snippet from an example conversation right after the 2016 election:
Person 1: Did you see the election results? I did...
Person II: Yea, I can't believe he won!
Let's dissect that conversation: Person 1 asks if Person II watched the election- here are the contexts we see in that statement.
Person I saw the results, and knows who the winner is.
Person II also saw the results. Therefore Person II can react casually, using "He" as a current identifier of Donald Trump.
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Now, let's assume that you were just walking down the hall. You were that one person feeling left out, cold dark, and alone... even punished for not knowing that election result(That's a joke right there. Did you like it? I hope you did.). But you knew who the contenders were. A man and a woman.
Here's another context you know that is used in several occasions:
He=man
She=woman
Therefore, He had to mean that it was the male contender. Therefore if you ran in hearing Person II speak, you know Trump won. You react depending on whatever your political affiliance is.
Therefore, your reaction is dependent on context as well. And that's how reaction works- it's a response to different contexts. The fact there was an election drove the response to Person I to ask Person II. If there wasn't an election, there would be no point in asking about results of it. It didn't exist.
If you read through all of this (Congrats!), you hopefully see how context is a driver factor of idea generation, conversation, and ultimately, response.
This TED Talk from Randy Mullen (some skateboarder, but damn nice speaker) is a good example of how context is shaped: