This entry will focus on summing up the result of the project and try to reflect about the feedback we got from Johannes and also the other students in class. Last time I wrote about the project we had roughly one day left to work on it (Thursday). As it was the last day we had no time dwell deeper into the design opportunities although following the schedule provided there was time set for reanalyzing the result from Wednesday or previous iteration. We as a group was simply a bit behind and felt the need to stop with the generation of information and start with the presentation work.
On Friday we had our presentation, although we had pinpointed important findings and insights during the week, we had issues in conveying them in a structured and linear way. Feedback we got was that it was slightly confusing and it was hard to follow on how we got to the presented insights. Also the little to no mention was put on to describe how our prototypes evolved and how we worked to provoke situations in order to gain insights.
A certain discrepancy is present between the work that was produced and the work that was presented. I guess an effective way to solve that issue is to work on presentation slides every production day and not on the last day. Although this project has felt very forced and stressed, it’s not impossible to produce great end result but I feel overall that an extra day would make a difference.
One of the most valuable skills I learned in this short time was how to “provoke” a set of rules or situation. I always thought that best result was achieved by provoking in the direction of positivity, e.g strengthening the arguments of a setting. But I learned that we can confirm a negative aspect by trying it out, in order to strengthen (or weaken) the counter statement.
To take a real example we had during our work was: How can we add more of the value intimacy in a therapy session. So we would brainstorm around arguments that would increase the value of intimacy. Not really taking into account to try out argument that would drift away from positive value. For example: What would happen with the value intimacy if the parts communicated through text messaging? We learned that by trying out this we actually added more value and insights to the established way of doing a therapy session, face to face.
As to conclude, the core of prototyping is to try out different stances in order to confirm said statement or thoughts. By doing that uncertainties gets clarified and valuable insights are created and subsequently it will back up the work and build up a strong case for a prototype design.
Another technique I have to keep on trying and evaluate more if it fits me and my way of working is the short and rapid iterations. I guess that’s why this project was so short? In order to focus and intensify energy put into a project in a short period of time. Someway now that I’m thinking of it, it goes hand in hand with prototyping cycles. Since the knowledge is not permanent but constantly keeps evolving with insights being added or removed.
I can understand why the process can or should be done in a short time but at the same there might be a risk of not grasping the subject wholeheartedly. As a designer I would guess a strange and unfamiliar topic that is complex, will require longer iterations and therefore more time in order to complete? More time for the project will yield more time for exploration and dwelling deeper into the complex qualities of the subject. The sacrifice is that it takes longer production time to complete, not really in sync with how things are expected to be done in today’s society?
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