Theme 5: Reflections after the Lectures

This week we had to attend to two lectures instead of one lecture and one seminar. The theme of the week was the design research and the prototype and the empirical data. We read  the papers “Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration” , “Finding design qualities in a tangible programming space” and “Differentiated Driving Range”.

At the first lecture with Haibo Li, we talked about the five steps from having an idea to realize that idea.

1. How to come up with an idea: the definition of the problem is more important than the solution of the problem. We have to define a problem several times in order to find out which the real problem is. Then the solution of that problem it will be easier to be found, the solution of the initial problem. Haibo gave the example of the bear that hunting two people and how the solution to that could be found by define again the problem.
2. How to filter an idea: technical evaluation of our ideas helps us pick the strongest one. As human we see the world we want to see. We see the world from our point of view. By using math we can understand things better in a different dimension.
3. How to validate an idea: in this step we are trying to proof the concept of our idea.
4. How can evaluate: the main part of evaluation is the usability. Usability consists of three parts; effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. Some ways to evaluate an experiment are the ANOVA technique and the prototypes.
5. How to communicate your idea: this is the most important part in which we have to present our idea to the world. Make clear what our idea is about and present it with the most effective and efficient way.

The second lecture was more informative than the first one. However, the structure of it was a bit confusing, since the subject of the discussion was continuously changing. We talked about research, prototypes, empirical data and design. The main purpose of the research is to gain knowledge. Prototypes doesn’t have to be the solution of the problem, it’s a way that helps giving answers to the research question. We use design to create the right prototype. 

Empirical data is part of the process of research. In other words, we have to present our project to people and talk to them, get feedback, analyze the issues and make developments to our project, and then go back again to people. This is a back and forth procedure with which we gather empirical data. That is to say empirical data are the reality. A method to gather empirical data are the interviews. It’s important that after the interviews the data are analyzed otherwise we do not make new knowledge through them. Interviews are not qualitative method if the data are not analyzed.

We spent most of the time trying to explain what design is. As the lecturer said, this is a hard question that he could not answer simple. It’s a question that even him it not sure if he knows the answer. We said that design is a different point of view. It’s a way to reconfigure what is out there in the world, to reconfigure research question and reality into something else. Design is all the steps between the idea and the realization of prototype. It’s a different way from the traditional ones to explore a concept or a scenario. Also, during design a lot of professions are working together in order to help each other understand all the constructors of the problem.

In my opinion it would been better to have a seminar this week, since the seminar always helped me understand even more the subject of each week. In the seminar we could have discussed more about design, since this part is still not so clear to me.