Pre-Presentation
Lessons from the scrapyard: creative uses of found materials within a workshop setting
I value the importance placed on accessible learning and creating with the Scrapyard Challenge workshops. I'm an avid fan of open access learning and I find it great when people share their knowledge or create spaces to share knowledge instead of overcharging. A particular aspect that I find interesting in the pillars of the workshop is the limited time frame. Having experienced this first hand last week in the prototyping exercize it's surprising how short time and urgency can lead to heightened creativity. Reagarding the use of materials and the importance placed on sustainability, I realize that I may underestimate the power that "trash" holds, and I would like to explore this more in future projects. Also projects outside of my studies I would like to incorporate more found materials than bought ones. However I do find it "sad" that the projects mostly remained unfinished or in the early prototype stage.
Bodystorming as Embodied Designing
From this text I take with me the importance of thinking while experiencing. To know that being around where and what we create is important, to prototype in reality as much as possible compared to computer simulations and role-playing to gain immediate insights. From what I understand compared to bodystorming embodied storming is less product-driven and focuses more on growing as a collaboration and as people. I find this quote quite interesting “innovation in process trumps innovation in product” [Buxton, B. Sketching User Experiences. San Francisco: Elsevier, 2007.]
The authors studied quite different fields of design which is why I think the topic of embodied storming seems to be a more vague concept which "hovers" over design in general.
What do Prototypes Prototype?
I believe the prototype can be anything as long as it represents and presents one or more specific property/ies of a future product. I found the example with the brick interesting, that even something so simple could essentially be a prototype if it serves a purpose in envisioning/experiencing a design. The authors give 3 main pillars that help designers communicate which aspect of the protoype is currently being prototyped (role, look/feel, implementation). The authors say they can be developed simultaneously, although I'm not sure if not a linear approach would be more beneficial to create stronger dependancy constraints. What I did not entirely understand is if the integration prototype is the fourth step of the prototyping process or if it is an independant type of prototyping. Nonetheless, having those pillars in mind will improve future prototyping in my designs to create a solid core of what the prototype must convey.
Post-Presentation
It's important to have in mind that design is collaborative and everyone involved will see the project from a different angle. It's helpful to concretize the different aspects important in prototypes. The look/feel - implementation - role - integration divisions can set a priority of aspects that need to be communicated. The integration prototype is a part on its own - though I wonder why then not a square diagramm was used instead of the triangle.
Furthermore there is a heavy emphasis on the importance of not only the mind but also the body when prototyping - the bodystorming prototype. A variant of this is embodied storming, used in pre-ideation phases, which focuses around played out scenarios where the body is used as a tool. Acting first before thinking can help reduce assumptions and can give immediate understanding of the consequences of a design.
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