Design Thinking

Play dough prototyping

There is a wonderful new, short and stunning TED video about prototyping with play dough. If you'd ever thought about using electronic circuits for things to light up, move or do other things, then watch this. This could be particularly interesting when you want to demonstrate or explore how products might respond to user interaction.

 

Cities and food

This blog article and TEDglobal talk might integrate into our Block 4 topic quite well
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/jul/24/food
It debates about the relation of food production and architecture/cityscape. Can't wait for the new videos to be posted. It's in Oxford this year, and I wondered what all these strange people do here.

Designing Chairs

Habitat designer Tom Dixon appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Today Programme today (doh!) in advance of the Milan Furniture Fair, which starts tomorrow.  In a 4 minute clip he talked to Evan Davies about the design of chairs, and how chairs might be designed in the future.

Tom Dixon Talks About Designing Chairs

Design research tools

I stumbled upon a great list of mainly web 2.0 tools that can be used for design research, but it seems to me some of those tools can also be of use to our U101 students.
http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/

For example: Georgy could link to these resources in the element "How to work with others"
http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/Communication+Tools
http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/Share+information

We already have identified many of those links, but there are some new tools, such as:
"iSpring Converter:  free download converts Powerpoint to Flash so you can upload your presentations for easy viewing in e-learning sites or your Web site.  (Free)" Some students might be more comfortable using PPT for some tasks ... (I know people that draw in PPT!)
or
http://www.ecai.org/: which might be a helpful analysis tool for students in the Global Block.

Transfer of craftsmanship knowledge in e-learning

Chris Rust guided my attention to a research project in e-learning by Nicola Wood. She looks into designing "interactive learning resources to record and transmit the expert knowledge of skilled craft practitioners".

Her learning materials can be accessed at
http://foldingknives.designinquiry.wikispaces.net/

Her approach to teaching how to design a folding knife goes across all stages of the design process. She uses vodcasts, and design templates to support the transmission of such expert knowledge. Very interesting work.

Marketing 101

Tim Leberecht at Frogdesign wrote an article about the buzzword 'Design Thinking'. He somehow associates DT with the creation of a brand name through clever marketing. We seem to pick up on this trend, don't we, i.e., when we name our course U101 and giving it nickname. I wonder if we need to pick up on this in the Group and Society Block.
Can we even be more self-referential? We already consider the creation of the course a process of design thinking. Yesterday, when talking to Emma, we discovered the opportunity for a round table discussion to explain the TMA to our students in a v/podcast. Students could play this v/podcast over and over again, if they have doubts about the TMA's goals. By explaining a variety of approaches to solving the TMA, we preserve an openness to the task.

http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/design-thinking-and-marketing.html

Inclusive design

One of my students recently posted this link to a good inclusive design site which may be useful for U101 and beyond.

Inclusive Design Toolkit

Block 2 - group design activity

Learning outcome

From personal, focused design experience recognise the advantages and frustrations of developing a design proposal in co-operation with others.

Design context (presented here in words but would be much more appropriate as a video clip demonstrating the problem area)

Some medication pills prescribed for animals and children are the same as those prescribed for adults. Where non-adults are concerned the drug strength is too strong and so the pills need to be split / divided to obtain the correct dosage. This is awkward and inaccurate to do using normal domestic equipment (knives etc). Design a device which will perform the task of dividing pills so that required drug strengths can be administered.

Procedure

1. Design a possible device using paper and card modelling only. This model should represent your first thoughts in response to the problem.
2. Take a couple of digital photo’s of your model and share with two other members of your tutor group along with notes indicating thoughts about your satisfactions or otherwise with your possible solution. Ask your fellow students what they think of your proposal, how they would improve it and overcome your dissatisfactions.
3. From the ‘conversations’ that take place develop one solution from your group of three.
4. Once a final proposal is developed think about your experience and make notes about: what gave you satisfaction and why, what caused you irritation / frustration and why. Finally, compare the group proposal to your initial model and consider which is likely to be more effective and why.

Organisation of the activity

• The group tutor would need to be centrally involved in establishing the groups of three and monitoring (moderating?) the development of the activity. Hence the activity could take the guise of an on-line tutorial.
• Students need access to a digital camera and be capable of uploading images to their FirstClass tutor group forum. Is this reasonable?
• The learning outcomes of the activity would need to link with and be extended in the rest of Block 2 so that they are reinforced and exploited. Is this feasible?

Show and Tell

A T307 student has just posted me this link to a "show and tell' site where people are showing each other things they have made using stuff from around the house. I like it because it shows how you can use things you may never have thought of in ways that you you might not expect. I also think it is a good example of how students might possibly share things they have made with one another.

www.instructables.com

2nd Meeting GROUP summary

Here are my notes from yesterdays meeting about assignments, learning outcomes and use of media for the GROUP block in the Design Thinking course.

Download GroupDesignThinking.doc

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