Design 21: Social Design Network

Thomas, Your boards complement each other visually. I still worry about the disconnect between the mission and the concept. I would use the board as an opportunity to call out how the design decisions have been made up until this point (what is happening during the use of this object as it relates to your mission -- what formal and functional decisions have gone into this in order to achieve your goal?) If you call out those details, critics will be oriented to your point of view and design intent. I think that is your biggest challenge at this point, and a good way to use the board as presentation aid.

See you Monday!

Sam, You MUST edit down the text on this board. Consider that you will be there to discuss the details of your intent and your strategy. You must only include on the board the elements of your project that are absolutely necessary to understanding your general argument. The images and your conversations will fill out the rest. Pick the sentences/phrases out of the existing text that make up your main idea. Anything anecdotal or peripheral should be left as a sidenote to discuss with critics.

The board should serve to bring someone up to speed while you speak. If there is too much information on the board there might as well be none, because critics won't waste their time, they will just look at the images, assume what the project is and then ask you for the rest. You want there to be enough information to get them on board, but not any more.

As for the images, I think they are a little flat right now. I would use the board as an opportunity to call out what design decisions you have made so far, and how they become manifested in the form. Why is the rack the shape/size/material/structure that it is. Use a highlight color to bring attention to these decisions. THAT is what you want feedback on.

Eliminating text will give you more room to show these things.

See you Monday!

Michael, I think the boards are looking quite good - the right amount of text and a cohesive look to the images.

In terms of content, I would like to see more of the user in the scenario. Do not just think about this in terms of what pages in a website someone encounters, but illustrate for us what motivates someone to use this product system, and what the outcome on a personal and economic/cultural level are.

This is a big idea, but in order for it to be a successful one you need to think about it from many different levels - aesthetic, functional, historical, economic, aspirational, etc.

Shinwoo, The boards are looking good, but I have a couple of suggestions:

Board 1: There is a lot of text here, bordering on too much. Since you will be there to speak about your process and intent, it is probably best to boil the text down to some bullet points that will orient people to your project. The details can be filled in through further conversation. It is a good exercise to think about what needs to be said in order for someone to understand your intent and your strategy? Pull the sentences and phrases out of what you have written that best capture the project. People are not going to read all of this if you are there to fill them in. But some people will come into the conversation while you are already speaking to someone, so you want to be able to get them up to speed using your board.

Board 2: You could use a stricter grid to put the drawings in. I am not a fan of boxes around drawings, so in my opinion you can leave them out (esp. if you have adhered to a grid system of organization, then our brain will understand the boundaries)... but if you are going to use boxes, use them for all the drawings. Otherwise it looks like the unboxed drawings are free-floating and it makes it harder to understand the relationship between the images.

See you Monday!

This is a great drawing -- I think the viewer would be more oriented to the story if you used some captions to explain the scenario.

As for testing... how is that going? What do you feel are the most important attributes or assumptions that need to be tested? What are your plans going forward and what do you hope to accomplish through the testing?

Without testing, your project is more of a concept in thin air. You want it to be rooted in a sound understanding of some of the conditions that the project exist under.

Oz, I appreciate your exploration of form and manufacture, but I worry that your project needs some validation through testing in the public realm. I see that you have posted your testing scenario, but no evidence of how this testing has been/will be put into action.

Consider what your assumptions are up until this point - what do you need to prove? How might testing allow you to strengthen your argument?

Jesse, I think it is really great that you have reached out to the online community of families supporting children with autism. Perhaps you should be more extroverted in your solicitation of feedback and participation -- say "SEEKING PARTICIPANTS" or "FEEDBACK WELCOME" - make sure your post is asking for what you want. I think the title of your post doesn't necessarily communicate your objectives. Titling the post in an effort to encourage participation by your product's stakeholders may help.

I would love to hear a further update on your testing.

Shintaro, I worry that your concepts remain untested by potential users (patients AND pharmacists). I think the icons and the packaging strategies make sense, but it is hard to evaluate the design without feedback generated from testing.

Perhaps starting by showing your strategies as applied to different scenarios (typical and "worst case") and showing not only the physical manifestation but the user experiences that are attributed to each scenario.

The testing will bring this project to the next level and allow you to challenge and prove your assumptions.

I am having trouble seeing the image that you link to, so forgive me if this is addressed by your other images...

I would like to see you make the connection between your research up to this point, your revised mission, and the criteria that have brought you to this particular form. You will need to communicate the analysis that has brought you to this solution/strategy in order to make the most of the critic's feedback (they will be better informed as to your process and thus can critique your direction better if they know how you connected the dots- and what the dots are!) Do not allow your solution or strategy to float there without annotation. That will invite criticism about the form, which is in its infancy in terms of development. What you want now is criticism based on your logic and your process.

I would like to hear more about what possibilities you are considering going forward, based on the feedback listed in the accompanying post. What has been challenged? How do you respond to these challenges? Do you hold true to your original intention or do you consider a shift in the user scenario? There is not necessarily a right answer, but I would take this opportunity to be transparent about how you are evaluating the opportunities presented by your project at this point.