Design class notes

[labelleizzy]

Been taking notes and coming up with ideas on a casual basis all week.
Am taking this class with bellacrow and she and I have discussed it a bit on FB.
I should look into the forums tonight.

There's a phrasing in the fourthsecond assignment that doesn't make sense to me: "the four course project criteria."

It's just that the language is confusing to me, because it could be parsed as
A) there are four projects in the course, the criteria for those four projects
or
B) There are four criteria, criteria which shall be applied for all the projects to be done during the course.

C) Jeff points out that the four criteria are described in the second project's description: D'OH!

• You personally experience the gap (i.e., you want to solve the design problem).
  
• You have access to at least five people who also experience the gap, or a closely related gap. This access is ideally face-to-face, not solely via the internet.
  
• You can imagine creating some kind of design and prototype of an artifact that would address this gap within the next 8 weeks. In other words, the challenge is not so complex that you cannot imagine addressing it in this course. (For instance, the gap “I really wish I could travel in outer space” would be a poor choice for a course project.)
  
• You can imagine the gap being addressed by an artifact in a domain that interests you personally (e.g., physical product, architecture, apparel, graphics, web design, furniture).

I'm hoping I'm correct in believing B) is the correct parsing.

From the homepage: "The emphasis of the course is the basic design process: define, explore, select, and refine." So I hope that's what's meant.

And I'm doing that, and from the syllabus, it CERTAINLY looks like I'll be making many more than four things, so I hope I've got it right, or I'll lose points on the fourthsecond assignment.

ugh.

Okay.

• I have a sketch AND a prototype to do for HW 4,
  
• (and I have to scan & submit the sketch, & photograph the prototype & submit that photo)
  
• have to clean up (erase pencil lines), scan, and submit my sketch for HW 3, (closest to done)
  
• have to type up and submit my list (of "gaps in the user experience") for HW 2,
  
• (with a note about which one I'm taking for this week's project,)
  
• (and under 100 words of how this gap meets the "four course project criteria above")
  
• and take a photo of my Doc Martens for the Good Design (HW 1) and submit it,
  
• and write fewer than 100 words explaining why I love "the artifact" (meaning my Doc Martens).
  

I think I'm glad Jeff was ambivalent about going out tonight. I really needed to sort out how much work I had to do for this course before end of day tomorrow. And Jeff is a handy engineer-about-town to consult in the understanding-of-design.

More than a bit sad to miss some social time with joedecker and wuukiee among other fine people who will be at Joe's party tonight, but I'm actually feeling more like assembling prototypes in my underwear than going out and being social.

Gonna go eat some food, and then get going on the prototype for 4. scissors, cardboard, and tape! Woot!