MiniProject_02 DIGITAL DESIGN THINKING & DIGITAL INTIMACY Atoms to Bits, Empathy to Prototype

Digital Intimacy: Intimacy is a theme that has already recurred in our early investigations of digital media, but intimacy in the digital realm is by nature a paradox. On the one hand, people so use media to explore and gain intimacy (chat-rooms, second-life, facebook, we feel fine, skype) but on the other, media, by definition, is an indirect relationship between people. How are people bridging this gap? In what ways are people using media to gain intimacy with others?

Digital Design Thinking: Design thinking is about largely about gaining empathy and quick and dirty ways to shepherd ideas into reality. How do these methods change when applied to the digital realm? How do we gain empathy through digital media? What is the digital equivalent of a quick and dirty prototype?

THE GOAL(s)

This assignment has several goals: 1) Continue to explore the issues of intimacy in a digital media. 2) Gain deeper understanding & empathy of the habits and motivations surrounding media use. 3) Leverage our digital network to gain empathy both broadly (crowd-sourcing) and deeply (mediated interviews) 4) Develop personal strategies for transitioning from physical to digital media throughout the design process 5) Learn how to use digital tools opportunistically to express ideas quickly but impressively and get quick feedback 6) Map the digital expertise of the class so we can help each other realize projects throughout the quarter.

The Assignment

For Thursday April 9th: Digital Empathy

1) Saturate & Synthesize: a. Saturate: Post your digital empathy inquiry to your site of choice

as quickly as possible after class on Tuesday April 7th. Gather responses as they come in and continue to intervene if you need to stoke for responses.

b. Synthesize: Cull your responses for insights (anomalies, surprises, intrigued, and / or patterns). Choose a single insight & bring it into class on Thursday.

2) Read the following: a. Hacking, Mashing, and Gluing, Understanding Opportunistic Design, By

Bjoern Hartmann, Scott Doorley, and Scott R. Klemmer http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/2008/hackingmashinggluing.pdf 

b. Interaction Design Sketchbook, by Bill Verplank http://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/250a/lectures/IDSketchbok.pdf

from Interaction Design Sketchbook,  by Bill Verplank  

 For Tuesday April 14th: Digital Prototypes

1) Digital Prototyping: Building on the ideas and paper prototypes you explored in Thursday’s class, bring your idea to “fruition” in the digital realm through a rapid interactive digital prototype using existing online tools.

2) Post a link to your digital prototype on the contribute section (http://dmediacontributions.tumblr.com/) of the dmedia homebase. Include the following 3 tags: project2, the word digital, & your name in the first name last initial format (scott doorley = scottd)

3) Be prepared to share your working prototype with the calss. 4) Bring your design log reflections if desired.

Advice for Success

• Be Mindful of Process. We are running through a full design cycle in a short period of time; be cognizant about when to be generative and when to focus, and know when to move on despite imperfections.

• Try something new. These mini-projects are designed to give you a chance to work out the kinks and explore new territory before we embark on a larger, more intensive process. Take advantage of this – we’d rather you aimed big and failed than you played it safe. You’ll do better in the long run!

• Get help. Collaborate: work in pairs or groups. Send a help message to the designingmedia twitter feed and see if you get any responses. Build on the ideas of others. The teaching team loves to help. Just ask!

• Extend your current talents. As a designer, it is also up to you to make the most of the tools you have, and leverage them in new creative ways to realize your ideas. Great with Excel – use it as a prototyping platform to parse data. Good with Illustrator, create a visual pdf with hyperlinks.

• Go deep OR go broad. Because of the compressed timeframe, you’ll likely employ an empathy gathering strategy that will either give you a broad slice (lot’s of people responding to a few questions), or one that will give you a deep exploration (a mediated interview with a couple of subjects). Choose one or the other and exploit it’s potential to the fullest.

• Oh yeah, HAVE FUN! This is an opportunity to explore the things you are passionate about!

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO UPLOAD TO THE CONTRIBUTE AREA AND ADD THE 3 TAGS (project2, digital, & your name (johnd)

Excerpt from, I Want You to Want Me, Sep Kevmar & Jonathan Harris