The bus pants! | Reflections - Theme 5

This week Theme was about Design research and to better understand it we had a Lecture and a Seminar.

Lecture with Haibo Li
The Lecture focused on main points you need to have in mind when designing a prototype.

One of the first key issues is how to define a problem and how to solve it. For the same problem you can find n different solutions and sometimes it takes time to find out which one is the best one. To be able to filter ideas one of the best and simplest ways is to divide them into good and bad. 

To classify the ideas you should look for theories that support your choice, mainly technical theories. In media technology it is useful to look for mathematic calculations that could give you real results on what could be better.

Another important think to consider is how good your idea is. Ask yourself: Is this breakthrough? Is this a winning business idea? Also think of a business plan, considering: the product purpose; the market; its attributes; the customers; the revenue; the competitors.
While trying a prototype first you need to proof the concept, then to check possible consumer’s opinions about it and finally try to start raising money to develop it further.

Seminar
Stefan presented a basic model that is usually used to define the stages of a design research. 

During the Seminar we were divided into groups and had to draw the model of the design paper of our choice. In the wiki of the course it is possible to see how many different variations you can have from the same basic model.

One of the things I like the most about the model is that it allows lots of variations and not necessarily every paper needs to include all the stages. For one topic you could have different papers to explain different aspects and phases of the topic. 

Design research seems like the nicest method to choose to write a paper because seems freer of frames and rules. 

Doubt on previous post
In one previous post I was in doubt about the difference between this technique and mixed research that follows:

Triangulation is when you look for the same kind of information but with different methods. The aim is to get a more accurate data, like a confirmation of the result.

Mix research is when you look at different things using different methods. Usually you start with one method and to try to explain one result you do another research with another method.


To close this week theme two nice video from The Big Bang Theory (season 4 episode 12) in which they design a prototype of an mobile app. This is just part of the video but the whole episode is worth watching... is the one where Sheldon explains his bus pants!