So, I have managed to put everything up together on the big board from both reading sources to interview material (although not all, pretty much about 70% of all interview were published in the website.) as well as my workshop
What did I learn?
I should talk about this in three aspect which are reading, interview and workshop in those regards.
Reading sources - Many sources indicate different uses of prototyping from exploration to find and explore interest aspect problem, experimentation to help you create or explore your idea to make it better or as an evaluation tool. There is also a fact the a prototype, no matter what form or how crude or rough it is, can a greatly enhanced your design decision just because it make you idea become accessible. Prototypes of course come in many form and it used for different area from form-finding, function, color, material, size, medium etc.. The hardest thing that still is need improvement is how we prototype interaction and behaviors. From the survey that one of the paper conducted out of 257 designers, almost all of them stated that the current tools (Sketching, Storyvboarding, writing) are not effective enough to prototype experience. It is the fact that they are a representation of the experience. It doesn't allow you to experience it through your sensory experience (Body, feel, touch, movement etc..) but merely helping you to 'think' about it. It is also very hard to compared two experience together from medium like sketch or storyboard as you would not be talking from your direct experience with your idea but rather talking about the 'plausible' experience of what your idea might be. Prototype also act as a common ground between many entities. It allows precise communication as other can feel and experience what a creator came up with. This is very important as designer not just only have to them with themselves but also with other designer, developer, business associates and manufacture. Making everyone getting the same picture and on the same pace is very important and crucial for the development of the idea.
Interaction and behaviors is not something that you can think about purely in your head. That is why method such as role playing or wizard of the oz existed. To allow you to have that glimpse of experience as much as possible. Yet, there is no way to record these interaction and behavior effectively. The element of 'time' is very important. Interaction involve time from how long does the interaction or input from the user last, how long does the interaction or the response from the 'machine' last, how its feels like and how long would you feel it? The issue of time and the way we feel is something that static mediums like paper, screen or video simulation or video prototyping (with the exception of interactive simulation) are lacking. They are not compatible enough for us to feel it or to be part of it. How can you be part of a video prototyping? Users are merely a 'watcher' or a 'observer' of an experience but not the 'experiencer' of the experience themselves.
Interview - I have been interviewing a varieties or user but mainly focus on designers. Some with engineer, manufacture as well as design professional. The interview reveal many insights especially on the fact that all the interviewers think that prototype a way of getting feedback. However, most of them are reluctant to implement a form of 'work-like' prototype just because they felt that its involving too many factor that they are not familiar with such as learning how to program, electronic, debugging program and electronic as well as finding the right open source codes and trying to implement them for their own use. All the interviewer stated that prototype is important to the project especially making the work-like prototype. However, they stated that it is not in their interest to 'learn' how to making working prototype as it is not what they wanted to do. They felt that getting it working is more important than learning how to make it. Two designers stated that they are not interested in learning anything about electronic or programming. They felt that if they can stated clear enough (i.e. if this happens then do it) then that's it. That is enough for them. They do not care about making or learning, they just want to get it working.
Interview with developer and programmer also reveal the insight that there is a different in the way of thinking in computer science's process and a design process. In computer science, it is called logical process which focuses more on making logical statement and logical operator to create a set of working prototypes to test out the idea. The develop stated that "there is a different in the way we think and the way designer think and it is really hard to bring them down and get them to programming".
The question here is then .... Do I need to teach them how to program? or is it more important to teach how to approach the problem from a 'designer - computer science' base?
The workshop that I did reveal the fact that designer, no matter what background they have, is able to think in a way that would be useful for a developer/programmer. The basic structure of programming is based on conditional causes such as if and else statement or switch case. I focuses on if that then this (if & else). the workshop shown very promising result. It not only breaking people idea down into small interaction that made of the product, it is also helping them to define clearly what they wanted. This workshop was introduced almost at the end of their project. By doing this workshop, some participant managed to develop their idea one step further as they felt the experience of their current idea and thus able to understand the experience as well as making proper adjustment to it,
The last part made me curious. Since making something to be functional can be very hard, especially at the end, because your idea is very complicated. Why I do not see the used of work-like prototypes during sketch. Should we change the way we sketch from medium like paper to illustrate experience to making interactive sketches that allows you to feel the experience? it could even be combined with drawing in order to illustrated how would each part of the idea works. This could be a huge benefit. I felt that the faster the user can experience a 'glimpse' of their idea, they can start to understand them, change them, adjust them and compared them in a much more meaningful way.
Thus, my studio topic will be : How can I create a tool that allows designer to construct work-like prototype through to use of embedded computing that eliminates the needs of knowing programming and electronics. So that, It can be used as a tool to sketch behavior early on in the design process.
