Firstly, I would like to thank Richard Taylor for a very rich
introduction and description of the amazing feat of curriculum design
that you and your team have achieved at UCI. I'm impressed by the way
that so many from such varied fields of design and education have
collaborated to achieve the synthesis that is UCI's design program. My
limited experience in this area tells me that this must have been a
diplomatic effort of no small measure.
Otherwise:-
Dear Richard and Rob and others who have contributed to the sketch
theme.
I would like to just add my thoughts on sketching with a focus on
collaborative design and idea generation.
One can't just replace sketching with technology. When considering the
role of sketching in a design curriculum, it is imperative to get to
the essence of why one needs to do such an activity and thus have a
reason for teaching or learning it. It is not just about drawing!
For me there are several important points regarding sketching and the
approach one can take to it.
What does one actually need sketching for? This has nothing to do with
hands or eyes versus technology.
We sketch because we want to communicate and share, both to ourselves
and to those others involved in a collaborative design process. One
doesn't just sketch to "show how a potential design artifact or
something could look", but to represent an understanding, that one can
then engage others in. Sketching can be so much more than pencil on
paper. A blank square of foam with a post-it can engender a lot of
discussion and articulation. A sketch is just one artifact of many that
one can use to reach a common understanding with others. So it doesn't
really matter what you use or how you do it, as long as it appropriate.
I'm sure software designers have their very special way of sketching. I
have design students and research colleagues who are sketching with
electronic components.
Pencil on paper has an air of expertise or magic to it that can
actually inhibit players in a project team or users for that matter,
from contributing. My experience is if you give people steel wire,
found materials, paper and scissors, carboard, plasticine or bits of
foam when asking them to explain or share what they know or ideas they
have, this can circumvent the loaded "designerly expectations" of
traditional design tools and allow non-designers (users, plumbers,
installers, electricians, etc), those with no official design school
training, or even those who are very competent and experienced
designers, yet who are not necessarily fluent in pencil on paper
sketching to take part in a collaborative design process. I've worked
with many hardware and software designers, production managers and
marketing personnel where this is the case.
Another point worth noting is the level of articulation at any point in
the design process. This should reflect the maturity of the common
understanding of the task in hand. Highgrade cad or 3d modelled screen
presentations or milled prototypes, if introduced at the wrong stage of
the design process can have a detrimental effect, by articulating a
level of maturity that is not the case.
Apropos the larger discussion in hand - design education in the
university - sketching should be a significant part of any design
curriculum, because in combination with a range of other disciplines,
it will help equip design students, regardless of which field they are
specialising in, with the thinking, communicative and representational
skills necessary to tackle the holistic, exploratory, iterative and
integrative nature of any design process, .
Best regards,
Chris.
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from:
Chris Heape
Senior Researcher - Design Didactics / Design Practice
Mads Clausen Institute
University of Southern Denmark
Sønderborg
Denmark
http://www.mci.sdu.dk
Work @ MCI:
tel: +45 6550 1671
e.mail: chris @mci.sdu.dk
Work @ Home:
tel +45 2620 0385
e.mail: [log in to unmask]
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