Lifecycle – Empathy and design for complex processes.

Folks -

It was really great to see the first round of prototypes shaping up, and
great to see some of the initial feedback from showing these prototypes to actual human beings. Looking forward to hearing how the next round goes.

Last Monday I rattled off a list of elements that need to be included in
your final presentation (which will be displayed at the Thoreau Center in the Presidio in mid-January). Here’s the list:

Background SUMMARY
- What was your area of focus?
- What opportunities were discovered during the research phase?
- Which opportunities did you choose to explore?

Designing and prototyping SUMMARY
- what did you choose to design (what was your “concept”)?
- what was the initial response to this design?
- analysis of prototyping
- key learnings: what worked; what didn’t; your recommendations

Your refined concept (MOST IMPORTANT)
- descriptions
- visualizations
- print
- video
- physical
- etc
- connection to the lifecycle of your original product

You should use the above list as a general guide in helping you determine what content to include and display. How you choose to include and display this content is largely up to you. I believe still need to determine availability and location of power sources, etc., you may consider using CRT or LCD screens to display some portion of your content. Several of you, uh, lamented the high cost of large-format plotting, but plotting has never been a requirement for the final deliverable. If you can’t afford or don’t want to plot, I’m sure we can collectively come up with some simple and less expensive alternatives (like finding an elegant and artful way of tiling smaller laserprints).

This Monday (Dec 4), we’ll want to hear how the latest prototyping
evaluations went. Also, be prepared to share your initial thoughts regarding your plan for the final presentation. As time permits we may also conduct some “final presentation brainstorms” with each group. You have all done a lot of work, so the key will be to figure out how to keep things as simple and straightforward as possible.

Thanks for all the inspiring work…

Alex