Indiv. Project Proposal: Hunter

Human(Designer’s) Affordances

I plan to develop an understanding and form my own stance on the idea of human affordance as it pertains to the role of a designer. As a part of our group work, this understanding will become a tool by which we can understand the psychology of the designer/tool interaction. This involves researching and reporting on current research surrounding the topic, re-factoring this research to fit our needs and developing an output for the group to use as we make prototypes.

1. Research & Report.
2. Create a conceptual tool as a guide for building prototypes.
3. Use the guide to build my own prototype.
4. Document the process.

Collaboration

Investigate the topic of collaboration through reading, writing, making and testing. The ultimate outcome of this project would be a tool that assists in more productive collaboration between designers. I find specific interest in tools that assist in ideation and brainstorming and would like to investigate how the affordances of these tools change according the the scale of the collaboration. In my experience, the first step in successfully contributing to a collaboration is too clearly understand what unique affordances you as an individual offer to the project. With this you know what you can confidently offer and also what to allow others to contribute. I would like to design a conceptual tool that assist designers in this process of self-reflection.

1. Compile a selection of existing research on the topic of collaboration.
2. Re-factor this compilation through writing and designing diagrams.
3. Approach the topic of scale and experiment with it.
4. Address the idea of self-reflection and create an informative output.
5. Develop a tool prototype that assists in creating productive collaborations.
6. Document the process.

Tools for making tools

I am very interested in helping designers define their practice. It seems that one of the main points of differentiation between stylists and media designers is the whether or not the designer uses their own tools or develops a habit of making their own. To research this topic, I believe I face two obstacles. First, helping designers understand the concept of a practice and the need for tool-making. Second, developing a tool that allows them to make tools. In other words, this project involves both the task of explaining the cognitive concept and designing a tool to help them take advantange of this new understanding.