Reading Thoughts – 2/15

Bodystorming
by Gamestorming

Bodystorming is yet another iteration of the same idea that weaves all of this week’s readings together: immersing yourself in a new environment and getting your hands dirty in research can help you to come up with new ideas. It is like doing a brainstorm with your brain and your hands, in order to understand a design scenario not only as a designer, but as a user. I like that this reading included a video example of a group doing a bodystorming session. While I am happy all of the readings this week gave solid examples and instructions for process, I think each activity runs organically in practice. All of these techniques can be employed when doing research for a project, but they all must be adjusted for a particular setting, project, user group, design team, etc.

Experience Prototyping
by Fulton and Buchenau

Experience prototyping is yet another technique to prototype new products. I guess the most important lesson learned from this article is that low fidelity prototypes are most useful in understanding how users will interact with your product. Insights that you never knew you would discover are quickly revealed by people with no previous connection to your design, so it is important to step away and let someone else try out your idea. I employed this technique for our first Module project (the designed object) and got really great feedback. Now I know what to do as far as next steps for future prototyping.

Understanding contexts by being there: case studies in bodystorming
by Oulasvirta, A., Kurvinen, E., & Kankainen, T. (2003)

I am finding it difficult to pull any new information out of this reading because it basically says the same thing as the other three readings. Moral of the story: get up and out to get your mind in the right mood for designing!

Place storming: performing new technologies in context
by Ken Anderson and Jane McGonigal (2004)

Place storming is all about getting out into the world and creating new (unfamiliar) experiences out of familiar objects in familiar places. The technique described in this reading is sort of a hybrid between interaction relabeling and urban probes. I imagine designers running around doing ridiculous things with normal objects like telephone receivers and ice cream scoops and it must be exciting. I think this will be a really interesting technique to employ for our second module.

Tags: reading thoughts