Ryan Singer talk. Modeling. Screens. Flows. Templates. Before we start to lay down the pen to the paper, we already have a model. Lack of sentences = UI Smell. Where is the “weak tag”? :)

Tom Wujec gives a TED talk on how meaning is created by the brain. The success behind sketching techniques are also touched upon. Tom’s ideas to some degree also overlap with Dan Roam’s book, Back of the Napkin, where the whats, hows, whys, and whens all collide together to form stronger meanings. Seeing is definitely an active process, which both authors share.

Here is an interesting talk by Paul Pangaro on Designing for Conversation. It’s filled with little insights suggesting to actively design conversations and choosing the participants wisely. Conversations after all are said to give rise to variety through its participants which in turn lead to design possibilities. Feels like the design loop closes in on itself through conversation.

A very good (PDF) read on prototyping – The Anatomy of Prototypes. The article explores manifestation dimensions of prototypes and extends the more popular dimension of fidelity to less talked about dimensions such as scope and material. Then the idea of prototypes as filters is proposed where through their incompleteness, only the qualities of interest are made visible.

Y.-K. Lim et al, write about two prototyping principles:

Fundamental prototyping principle:
Prototyping is an activity with the purpose of creating a manifestation that, in its simplest form, filters the qualities in which designers are interested, without distorting the understanding of the whole.

Economic principle of prototyping:
The best prototype is one that, in the simplest and the most efficient way, makes the possibilities and limitations of a design idea visible and measurable.

Over at MIX09, Dan Harrelson talked about design prototyping and touched upon many interesting points. The ideas he raises include prototypes as being: dynamic, disposable, responsive, focused, explorative and fast. Perhaps these are not completely novel thoughts, but they area a very nice summery and definitely refresh how prototyping differs from designing wireframes. Dan also states that the nature of prototypes is in line with agile development which values less documentation over richer conversations. Further, Dan also goes over two quite popular prototyping techniques: paper prototyping and digital prototyping (with Axure).

I’ve always been wondering what type of methods traditional architects rely on for achieving forms that fit more appropriately to their surrounding contexts of use. Although I’ve been mostly working with visual interfaces, it always seemed like the field of architecture lagged behind in the methods and tools which are available to other design fields. In interaction design we’ve seen the user-centered philosophy permeate the field and give rise to such powerful techniques as user testing and ethnography. Do architects have similar tools at their disposal? Last week, it came as a surprise as one of my all time favourite social scientists, anthropologists and deep design research thinkers, Elizabeth Sanders, reappeared in a talk at TU Delft about her recent work in the field of architecture. Elizabeth presents her struggles in figuring out how to make traditional architecture a more friendly place with the help of participatory design techniques. Two thumbs up.

>> See video. (requires Silverlight but is worth it)

As the end cut tagline says: “killing good ideas can harm your future”. Would focus groups be a thing of the past? According to what we have been exposed to at TU Delft, healthier research approaches are composed not only of what people say, but rather a combination of what people say, do and make.

This technique of demonstrating an interface using video comes up more and more often these days. It’s basically a combination between paper prototyping, video recording and then eventual sharing of it using online video web sites. Perhaps seeing the interface change with the help of real people and voice overs feels a lot more engaging then just looking at a wireframe document stack alone.