Month: May 2024

On Design Report Structures and Different Kinds of Prototype Tests

When presenting the results of a design project, including a prototype test, I tend to recommend this chapter order:

  • Concepts and Selection
  • Final Design
  • Test / Validation

This order is based on typical peer reviewed papers presenting the ‘design and validation’ of ‘a novel device’ or something. It also assumes a substantial difference between the final design and the chosen concept that is not the direct outcome of exploratory testing with a prototype. This order works well when the test is aimed at validating a specific part of (the performance of) the design. The final design, in this set-up, functions as a type of hypothesis, that is then empirically tested.

In a course that I teach where students usually dive right into prototyping after concept selection, this order doesn’t always work. And it’s confusing for them. Especially for those students who end up effectively using (early versions of) their prototype as a sketch model to discover things about their concept and to iteratively develop their design. There is also little time available in this project (and too little technical knowledge amongst these particular students) to really develop the design as a whole very much after the concept selection.

In these cases, it would probably work better to change the order:

  • Concepts and Selection
  • Prototype test
  • Final design

You might even skip the ‘final design’ section entirely in favour of a discussion of future development. The prototype test, then, becomes not so much a focused validation of one key element within a larger complex design, but more an exploration and/or proof op principle of the chosen concept, more a validation of (the choice for) a certain solution principle than of a full design.

Dust and salvage

In the coda to her book Dust, Jay Owens writes that destroyed landscapes and ecosystems cannot be ‘saved’ or ‘restored’, that it makes more sense to think in terms of ‘salvage’ – to repurpose, rebuild, reform into something new. Improved, but never back to its previous state. Start with what’s still there and nurture it. Regrow, don’t repair.

This seems to be as giving up, but optimistically. Accepting that what is gone is gone, letting crumble and disappear what is beyond hope and salvage, but at the same time hopefully building back.

Perhaps that’s the approach to take with universities as well. Instead of trying to drag the dead wood of the current structure and leadership back to something resembling what it’s supposed to be, accepting that that’s never going to happen and look for ways to start regrowing something in the cracks.

I like it when I can close the door

This is my entry for Indie Web Carnival May 2024. It’s my first time participating.

I started making little zines like this (this is #4), and this seemed like a good topic for one. It’s fun making these. A cover and three spreads is just enough to make it challenging to come up with enough fun variations on a (graphic) theme. But it can also be done in 10 minutes. Low effort. Low stakes. But you make a thing!

Creativity needs boundaries. In time, physical space, and scope.

Ironically, I wanted to join the Indie Web Carnival last month when the topic was ‘good enough’. But for that round I had an idea to do something too polished. Which means I didn’t even start. Only this month did I commit to just doing it. Quickly and in one go. No polishing. Spent half an hour, including documentation. Good enough is good enough.