Theme 5 (pre)

This week I’ve read the paper: “Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration” by Réhman et al.

11.     How can media technologies be evaluated?

You can evaluate media technologies with the help of different texts with certain aspects in mind, efficiency, satisfaction and effectiveness. The paper mentioned above focused on satisfaction which means the acceptance and the comfort of the system in question to, but not limited to, its users. To test this participants answered a questionnaire focused on Interests, Willingness, Comfort, GUI, Trainability and Acceptance.

22.     What role will prototypes play in research?

Since prototypes and prototyping helps you improve the functionality and design of whatever product it is you are working on, it can play an important role in research. With prototypes you have the “trial and error” way of moving forward and can evaluate what you are working to see if you are moving in the direction you want. With the use of prototypes you can show your work to people who have no previous connection or experience with your product and gain a new perspective on your own work. This can show you problems that you might’ve missed, new solutions and/or whether the prototype is easy to use for the target group you are making the product for.

33.     Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?

If you develop a proof of concept prototype you can test your concept and see if it is possible to develop it to meet certain criteria and/or have enough potential within the area to continue the research. So it can be necessary to develop to see if your concept or idea is feasible or not.

44.     What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?

Prototypes are used to test your idea or concept with a more “hands on” technique. It is an easy and cheap technique that allows you to find design flaws and make changes before the release of the final product. The characteristics of prototypes are that they are not the finished product and therefore they might not be completely accurate to the final product in terms of functionality or design.

55.     How can design research be communicated/presented?

I think that design research can be communicated/presented in several different ways but what way you choose depends on what you want to highlight about your product/service and on the product/service itself. You could either do it with the help of models (real or virtual), prototypes, images, sketches and animations. Each of these have their own strengths and weaknesses and have different time consumption to take into consideration when choosing how you want to present your design.

1.     What is the 'empirical data' in these two papers?

Both of the papers (“Finding design qualities in a tangible programming space” by Fernaeus & Tholander and “Differentiated Driving Range” by Anders Lundström) have empirical data in the form of observations and data collected while testing prototypes. In Lundström’s paper there are also empirical data gathered with the help of interviews.

2.     Can practical design work in itself be considered a 'knowledge contribution'?

Absolutely. With the help of practical design work you can end up with conclusions about different design choices that later can be used when developing other products/services. Examples of this would be that some practical design work ends up with showing the limitations of a design and that in the future another design choice would be better to achieve certain results.

3.     Are there any differences in design intentions within a research project, compared to design in general?

I think that there isn’t any difference between design within a research project and design in general because I feel like they are the same when it comes to procedures. Designing is about creating something that fits within the area you are creating it for. You want it to work as well as it possibly can within the area when it comes to functionality. However I do think there is a more “artistic” design when it comes to design outside research that can make the designer less open to change. A game designer might want something within the game that he/she thinks is awesome even though he/she knows that it makes some part of the game harder to understand or whatever. I feel like something like that wouldn’t happen within research because there you want to optimize everything in every way possible. At least that is my impression.

4.     Is research in tech domains such as these ever replicable? How may we account for aspects such as time/historical setting, skills of the designers, available tools, etc? 

When it comes to the aspects time/historical setting, skills of designer, what tools that are avaible, etc, it is very hard to replicate research in the tech domain because technology is developing so fast today so it is hard when it comes to time/historical setting. The tools available develop together with the technology so this aspect is influencing the previous aspect. So I would say that it is replicable to a certain degree at most but in most cases not at all.

5.     Are there any important differences with design driven research compared to other research practices?

Yes, because design driven research wants to create something new (a product, service, tool etc) while other research is about creating/obtaining new knowledge. Design driven research is usually to fill a need that exists with users.