Due to problems with
the schedule, I could unfortunately only attend Haibo's lecture this week, and
not Ylva's
I must admit that I was
disappointed with Haibo's lecture. It felt more like a lecture on engineer
entrepreneurship than a lecture on design research. He spoke about how to
define problems and how important it is to be able to go back to a problems
definition and look at it with fresh eyes; still, it felt like the definition
of the concept <problem> he was using during the lecture was a very fuzzy
one. This comes back to what I was talking about in the pre-reflection. I'm
lacking a wider perspective in the material and the lecture, not one solely
interested in the development of consumer products. I think that's limiting the
discussion and promoting narrow ideas about problems and design, because the
artefacts that are being design serve a need that itself needs to be created or
is highly artificial. I'm not saying that's inherently bad, I'm just saying
it's only one side of the coin.
I'd like to discuss
this more, but I feel I need to think it over more before I do, so I'll answer
some questions instead.
How can media technologies be
evaluated?/What role will prototypes play in research?
Media technologies can of course be
evaluated in a lot of different ways, but when faced with evaluating a not yet
fully implemented technology, constructing a prototype to carry out tests with
is a good option. There are a lot of factors that are very hard to conceive of
on a theoretical level, which is a good argument for putting things into
practise as quickly as possible to spot issues as early in the design process
as possible.
Design research is a balance act between
quantifiable and non-quantifiable goals, which is why feedback on a prototype
that represents as many of the features of the finished artefact as possible is
invaluable.
Why could it be necessary to develop a proof
of concept prototype?
It could be necessary if you have to prove
that your concept works, either to yourself, your collaborators, friends or an
employer. It is a good way to communicate the essence of your idea.
What are characteristics and limitations of
prototypes?
That's almost impossible to say. A prototype
can be everything from a sheet of paper to an almost finished physical artefact
or piece of software. I guess the most unifying characteristic of prototypes is
that they are developed with the purpose of testing and for use in a
laboratory-environment, whatever that might be.
Just as you, i could only attend Haibos lecture and not Ylvas. It seems that they were very different and it would have been good to get both views of design research. I agree with your disappointment on Haibos lecture, or i don't know if disappointment is the right word for me, but i think i had expected something completely different. As you say, the lecture was very entrepreneurial and business oriented. I would have liked to look at it more from a pure research point of view and trying to define what design research is, what it consist of and what differentiates it from other types of research. I think that would have helped more in my understanding of design research and how i could have used it in future work, for example the master thesis.
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