In chapter 6 we learn how to actually designing something based on your research. By brainstorming you can come up with a lot of concepts, which we did during one of the exercises. You will most likely not come up with your final design straight away but maybe the spark that in the end ignites the fire that is your final design. It is quantity and not quality that is the main objective with brainstorming. The brainstorming sessions should generate dozens of ideas and they should be done “analog”. Meaning with pen, paper, post-its and so on. According to the author, messing around with technology steals time. You need to get your idea down as quickly as possible. I’m skeptical to many of the brainstorming methods in the book. I would like to use reason and careful thinking, but I can only speak for myself.
Once you have your concepts, one must organize them to make them easier to distinguish. This can be done with labels and names. By taking requirements of the design into consideration, or so called design principles, you can determine which one to pursuit. We have, more or less, been doing this when deciding what ideas to pursuit.
Chapter 7 is about how to execute your concept and work with the details. The execution and details depend on the constraints of the project. These constraints could be time, money or technology. When designing, there aren't any fixed rules, but there are principles and guidelines that should be followed. One example of a principle is feedback. Feedback in this case means an indication that something has happened. Without feedback, the user would repeat the action they just did over and over again. We are given a great amount of principles as well as do’s and don’ts in chapter 7. I found most of them interesting and hopefully we can apply some on our design.
In chapter 8 the author talks about the final steps in the design process; prototyping, testing and development. The prototype is an incomplete version of the final product that shows the intended interaction. Without a prototype, the developers of the design can have another vision of how things should work. There are different kinds of prototypes that serve different purposes. A paper prototype is a fast way to demonstrate a product, but maybe not the type of prototype to test on users. A high-fidelity prototype would be a better choice in that case. We currently only have simple paper prototypes, but until next exercise we’re supposed to make an online interactive prototype. Now we have some great tips in how to make a good prototype.
Question: How does one chose how much effort and time to spend on a prototype?
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