When using the method to test a screen-based project, the ‘wizard’ and participant are often kept in separate locations so as not to break the ‘illusion’ of a fully functional prototype. During testing, the wizard will simulate interactions in response to participant actions, which are usually relayed to the wizard via screen sharing or other video software. The wizard may assume a variety of roles, such as simulating an ‘intelligent’ system, course-correcting and potentially overriding user decisions as well as simulating sensory data to ensure the user experience feels complete. While separation of wizard and participant makes sense for screen-based projects, when using the WOz method to test tangible or physical media projects it is often necessary for the wizard to be physically present to ‘pull the strings’ of their project. In these situations, ‘sleight of hand’ can be used when demonstrating the interactions of a tangible media project, for example, manually triggering an LED to blink when a user performs a particular interaction, implying that their action has resulted in the LED blinking.

Whether you use the WOz method for screen-based or tangible media interaction projects, consistent responses from the wizard are fundamental to ensuring the ‘illusion’ you’ve created isn’t broken by your participant. Ensure timing, patterns of response and the underlying system logic are all consistent and consider rehearsing a few use-case scenarios before putting on your wizard hat!

Activity

Before you start

With your project team, agree on your aims and goals and develop a list of questions you want to test out with your participants. Organise these questions in order of importance and use this list to inform how you produce your prototype. You may be testing a specific part of the project or an early version of the entire project – either way it’s important to be realistic about what you can achieve in the time you have available. Produce a prototype or series of prototypes that make the most of readily available materials, such as cardboard, paper and other lo-fidelity prototyping formats. Consider how you can augment these prototypes using smartphones and laptops. Identify and recruit your participants – ideally these would be prospective users. If you don’t have access to these people, friends and peers are a good substitute as this gives you an opportunity to gain informal feedback on your project while also testing out how to run a WOz testing session. Prepare your prototypes, assign roles and rehearse your testing scenarios, making changes to actions, responses and roles until your intended experience has been created. Finally, prepare your testing space and ensure that it meets your team’s requirements.

Activity steps

1. Begin your scenario by introducing participants to the project and ensure they’re sufficiently briefed on the project with enough context to understand what’s expected of them. Enact the scenario – the wizard/s will simulate functionality in the prototype to varying degrees and remain hidden from the user.
2. While the wizard/s operate the prototype, observers will record a list of findings such as errors, ideas, issues and anything relevant to the aims of the testing session.
3. If possible, make some adjustments in real time, where the observers share brief insights with the wizards, make changes to the scenario as relevant and then integrate these changes into a new scenario and begin the test again.
4. Once all of your scenarios have been enacted, reveal the wizard/s to the users and have a brief discussion with them about what did and didn’t work. Record any of these findings and add these to the points taken by the observers.
5. In your team discuss the findings from observers, users and anything else uncovered throughout the testing process. Reflect on and integrate relevant findings into future iterations of the project.

References

1. Kelley, J. 1984. ‘An Iterative Design Methodology for User-Friendly Natural Language Office Information Applications’. ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS) 2 (1): 26–41. https://doi.org/10.1145/357417.357420.

The cultural shift in design towards more UCD approaches means that rather than an expert team of designers conducting video analysis, we now see a strong emphasis placed on the value of involving end users in addressing usability issues before a design is finalised. This change in attitudes and more active role users play in UCD approaches means that the methods, such as the video card game, must enable experts and lay persons (users) to ‘speak the same language’, which is why the video card game was created!

The video card game is centred around framing video as a ‘design material’, much like we think of colour, line and form as design materials. As interaction designers, we develop experience and receive training throughout our education resulting in a level of skill when analysing interactions, meaning we are trained to analyse video. The video card game makes video-recorded interactions tangible, enabling design teams to quickly analyse a large amount of video material in a relatively short space of time.

Simultaneously, the method allows those without any experience in interaction design or video analysis to contribute their own insights and experiences when addressing a specific usability issue you may be facing.

While there are a variety of uses for the video card game, such as the activity outlined here, we do recommend further reading the paper where the method was first published. Our example activity looks at using the video card game to create themes for tangible interaction but there are many other ways you might think about using this method, such as:

• Familiarising yourself with new interactions;
• Addressing a specific usability issue in a new or revised design;
• Generating themes and new ideas for a project;
• Augmenting the video cards with AR technologies, or perhaps adding an element of tangible interaction to the cards using NFC or RFID technology.

Activity

Before you start

The video card game is often used by design teams to address specific usability issues and in these instances the video cards are populated with stills taken from video that focuses on the issue to be addressed. The method can also be used to generate new ideas in the form of ‘themes’, and we’ve chosen to follow this approach in the following activity.

Rather than you, the designer, facilitating the activity with prospective users or a group of research participants, you’ll be working with material that focuses on movements and gesture articulated with the hands. This approach to focusing the card game results in the generation of themes around tangible interaction.

As you become more experienced with the method, we encourage you to think about replacing the provided printable cards and associated video clips with your own materials. These could be taken from video of users interacting with a prototype, related clips focused on specific actions or interactions – the method is very versatile and can be used in a variety of ways. So long as the material you’re working with is video, then the method can be used to help make sense of it!

The following activity requires at least 2 people, but we’ve found this generative approach to using the method is best suited to collaborative projects as you’ll be generating themes and input from others helps to expand on these themes, making them richer. If you don’t have access to more than 2 people, think about discussing your themes with peers, colleagues or perhaps using an organisational method such as Octopus Clustering when you have access to more people.

Activity steps

1. Dealing the cards: Choose a set of 10 video clips with your partner that you both find interesting – see here for the clips. Print out 2 sets of cards for each person participating in the card game as well as at least 3 of the theme templates – we’ve found that this activity usually produces 3 strong themes but may lead to more, so print more theme templates at step 4 if you need them. Cut out the cards.
2. Reading the cards: In your pair, without talking, watch each of the clips together and write down your ideas, observations and notes directly on to each of the cards. This step forms your initial ‘reading’ of the cards and it’s important that your notes are recorded directly onto the cards as they provide context to your thinking as the activity unfolds.
3. Arranging your hand: compare notes with your partner and begin to discuss your observations on each of the video clips. Don’t be afraid to make further notes on your cards if something useful or important arises in discussion. Once you’re both satisfied with your notes, begin to organise your cards into themes. These themes should be focused on commonalities in the way you’ve both interpreted the video clips. Some themes might be more concrete or obvious, focusing on what is easily observable in the video, while other themes might be more abstract and subject to your pair’s own unique interpretation of the video. Not all of the cards will easily fit into themes and you may have a card that fits into multiple themes – this is where your duplicate cards come in handy!
4. Collecting and discussing card families: this step will vary depending on how you’ve run the card game so follow the steps relevant to your number of people.
   • For groups of 2: Use the provided theme templates to record your themes. We suggest using blue-tac or tape at this stage in case you’d like to revisit and build on the themes. It’s at this step in the activity that you would share your themes with others and they might contribute cards and suggestions on how you might further refine the theme – so think about presenting your themes to a peer or colleague and consider their input. Also think about repeating the activity with a different set of 10 cards and see how those cards might influence your themes. The key to this activity is to keep an open, exploratory attitude!
   • For groups greater than 2: Use the provided theme templates to record your themes but do not use glue (yet!) to affix the cards to the templates as they’ll be moving around. Present your themes to the other people in your larger group. Explain the meaning behind each theme, how you’ve interpreted each of the clips and why you’ve chosen specific clips for each theme.
     
     Others might contribute cards from their own set of cards (this is where those duplicates come in handy again!) if they fit into your theme, while themes might expand, collapse, break apart or be removed entirely. Approaching this step with an open mind and attitude of accepting change is important as we expect themes will (and should) change! A ‘strong’ theme is often the result of multiple iterations so you might repeat this step once or twice as needed.
5. Once themes are finalised, adhere them using glue to the theme template, fill in any further details and you’re done! These themes might be used to inform further design development, act as a rough model to ideate further from and can even be considered as a form of data to base further research on.

References

1. Buur, Jacob, and Astrid Soendergaard. 2000. ‘Video Card Game: An Augmented Environment for User Centred Design Discussions’. In Proceedings of DARE 2000 on Designing Augmented Reality Environments, 63–69. DARE ’00. New York, NY, USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/354666.354673.

As you might have guessed, thinkering is a portmanteau of the words ‘thinking’ and ‘tinkering’, meaning just that – thinking through tinkering! When we tinker, our hands stay active and engaged with the materials in front of us, while the mind is allowed to wander, and these moments are when some of the richest and most exciting ideas can happen. We advocate for the value of thinkering as an exploratory ideation method regardless of skill level, as even the most experienced interaction designer can benefit from the kind of ‘playful’ freedom the method fosters.

Thinkering is most useful when developing a project concept that involves some form of technology. Open-source platforms such as Arduino², LittleBits³ and Makey Makey⁴ are recommended for those unfamiliar with electronics as they’re well supported, with thorough documentation available online.

While thinkering and physical prototyping are similar methods, a prototype might include technologies in later stages, whereas thinkering starts with technology and focuses on what these components might mean for a design project. This difference in approach enables us to see new possibilities when addressing a design problem.

Thinkering can be used at multiple stages of a design project, from initial ideation, resolving stubborn issues, reframing a project or simply exploring potential alternative features and interactions. Having a plan when thinkering can aid in resolving particular issues you might be experiencing with a project. You might just like to ‘play’ if you’re new to the method or exploring early ideas, although we do recommend setting yourself some constraints no matter what your thinkering goal is. Choose 1 or 2 different pieces of technology as a starting point and see where thinkering takes you!

Consider these points before thinkering:

• Interaction & movement – what styles suits your project?
• Inputs/outputs – what interactions connect to an input, and what is the resulting output? (e.g. A touch sensor triggering a red LED)
• Layering & structure – how will the project’s physical elements be structured? Think about breaking it down into layers and building it up, piece by piece.

Activity

Before you start

You’ll need to source your materials and decide on what technologies you’d like to work with when thinkering. We recommend referring back to our tips on the physical prototyping method as we give some suggestions on where you might source unique, cheap or potentially free materials from! As for technologies, we mentioned platforms such as Arduino², Makey Makey⁴ and LittleBits³ as good places to start – all are just as suitable and have various levels of entry in terms of technical ability so do some research and decide what works best for you on an as-needs basis. There are no electronics, soldering or programming experience needed to develop a simple project using these technologies – while these skills can come in handy, they are not essential and might be worthwhile pursuing further if you’d like to produce more advanced outcomes in the future.

If you do not have access to your own prototyping technologies, it is worthwhile asking your lecturer if you can borrow one! The interaction design discipline has access to a select number of Arduino kits, which contain all of the basic components essential to develop a simple project.

Activity steps

1. Select your materials and technologies.
2. Frame your explorations – this might be using a keyword, a specific goal or aim, the purpose of this ‘framing’ is to ensure that while you’re experimenting with different materials and technologies, the outcome relates back to your project.
   
   You might like to thinker to address a specific design issue, or simply to explore new opportunities. Whatever your goal, ensure that you come back to this before you finish thinkering, as reflecting on your explorations – make sure they’re actually contributing towards your project development in some way.
3. Thinker away! Remember that thinkering is not a linear process and you’ll move back and forth through different activities within the broader thinkering process. Here are some tips on where to start:
   • Build outwards from the technology – what can you do with it?
   • Start with familiar materials – this can be a great way to ease yourself into quite an exploratory process.
   • Combine and break apart things – this can help to familiarise yourself with the qualities of your materials.
   • Think about inputs and outputs – what interactions can be performed by someone? A button push? A motion sensor? A touch sensor? And what happens afterwards? Does an LED blink or a motor spin?
4. Thoroughly document your thinkering process – you might take photos along the way, make notes and sketches. We highly recommend developing a good documentation practice. Consider using Reflective Practice methods during and after thinkering as this provides a good structure for documentation and helping you to uncover insights that can benefit your projects.
5. Storage – will you keep prototypes to further develop later on? Can materials be repurposed for future thinkering or prototyping sessions? Developing good storage habits, much like documentation, will help you to work more efficiently and effectively.

Further reading

• Sundström, Petra, Alex Taylor, Katja Grufberg, Niklas Wirström, Jordi Solsona Belenguer, and Marcus Lundén. 2011. ‘Inspirational Bits: Towards a Shared Understanding of the Digital Material’. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1561–1570. CHI ’11. New York, NY, USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979170.

References

1. Ondaatje, Michael. 1993. The English Patient. Toronto : Vintage Books.
2. Arduino. n.d. ‘Arduino – Home’. Accessed 20 February 2020. https://www.arduino.cc/.
3. Sphero Inc. n.d. ‘LittleBits | Electronic Building Blocks for the 21st Century’. LittleBits. Accessed 20 February 2020. https://littlebits.com/.
4. Makey Makey LLC. n.d. ‘Makey Makey’. Makey Shop. Accessed 20 February 2020. https://makeymakey.com/.

Sketchnotes can be used to aid in your day-to-day studies, for example when recording notes on a lecture, tutorial, workshop, academic paper or book chapter, as well more design-specific practices such as capturing a design process, plan, visualisation, concept or idea. You might use sketchnotes to communicate a concept to a design team too, as their underlying value is in their ability to capture a lot more detailed information when compared to purely textual notes.

The combination of image and text within sketchnotes allows for implicit or tacit information to be recorded directly within your notes, which affords your notes more context and richer detail.

A key misconception about sketchnoting is you must be great at sketching to take great sketchnotes, which is quite untrue! The process of sketchnoting tends to help designers actually exercise and refine their sketching ability, but you do not need to possess any particular sketching ability to produce sketchnotes. As with generalised notetaking and sketching, everyone will develop their own style and this is encouraged – but do keep in mind that your sketchnotes should be relatively legible and self-explanatory, like a mind-map but with more detail!

Sketchnoting uses a visual language that includes but is not limited to: text, emphasis text, basic shapes, containers, connectors, icons and symbols, sketches and illustrations, shading and colours. We’ll go into further detail about these different elements in the following activity, but the key takeaway to remember about sketchnoting is that it’s an accessible, practical and simple method that can help you to produce more useful notes.

Activity

Before you start

While sketchnoting might seem quite time consuming, especially if you don’t regularly practice sketching, this is another common misconception. Through regular practice, you’ll begin to develop a style of sketchnoting that allows you to capture ideas visually that might be difficult or time consuming to express solely through text. In our experience, sketchnoting is especially useful when used in place of conventional notetaking to record notes on lectures and academic readings.

We’ve found that lectures and readings specific to interaction design tend to express both theoretical concepts and well as their implications for design practice. It is the relationship and connections between interaction design theories and practices that can be some of the most important information and at times, difficult to capture with written notes. The following activity suggests a basic outline of how you might approach sketchnoting a lecture or reading.

Activity steps

1. In place of a contents page in your sketchbook, write down 15-20 common words or phrases you envision you’ll use often in your note taking. Some examples based on our experience include:
   • Idea, process, user/s, technology, prototype, website, app, iteration, team, theory, practice, framework, toolkit, sketch, team and development.
2. Assign a unique, recognisable icon or pictogram to each of these words/phrases in your list. By following this process you’re creating a kind of visual library and reference tool that can be implemented throughout your sketchnotes, saving you both time and improving your ability to recall important pieces of information when both recording and reviewing your notes.
3. Start sketchnoting! Use varying colours, line weights, icons, pictograms, arrows to create hierarchy, organisation and structure. Draw on your visual library of icons and over time, refine this list. You might notice some words are used often, while others very little or not at all. Develop this library and make changes as relevant, adding and removing items as necessary.
4. Review your sketchnotes and focus on what is and isn’t working for you. The key to effective sketchnoting is to be persistent and critical about your process, while ensuring that the most important information is easily identifiable and memorable. Consider adding emphasis to the key finding, theory, principle or process described in the lecture or reading you sketchnoted.

References

1. Rohde, Mike. 2012. The Sketchnote Handbook:  The Illustrated Guide to Visual Note Taking. 1st edition. Peachpit Press. QUT Library Permalink.

In recent years, the SCAMPER method has been widely used by designers who praise the method’s simplicity and capacity to generate a large amount of new ideas. In our experience, the SCAMPER method can be most valuable when you encounter ‘creative block’ or find yourself seemingly ‘going in circles’ when working on a project or trying to overcome a particularly tricky design problem.

We have provided a template that follows the SCAMPER acronym, which can be used for ideation in your projects.

References

1. Eberle, Bob. 1996. Scamper: Games for Imagination Development. Prufrock Press Inc.

As design practitioners, we tend to get into a state of ‘flow’ when working on a project, often making hundreds of subtle decisions without even realising it. These decisions are always informed by a kind of subjective criteria that we impose on task at hand. While you may not have clearly articulated these criteria, they do exist and the reflection-in-action method can help you to become more aware of these criteria, and perhaps interrogate or question them. Reflection-in-action doesn’t involve any formalised process, and it more so an attitude or way of thinking. When beginning to work through a design project, clearly articulate your goals and as you make decisions, take a moment to pause and critically think about what you’re doing. It often helps to ask, “why am I doing this?”, as well as “why am I doing this, in this particular way?”. Over time you will begin to enact this kind of critical interrogation and reflective way of thinking implicitly, which can lead to richer, more critically informed design decisions.

While reflection-in-action focuses on in-the-moment decision making, refection-on-action is retrospective, taking place after the action has occurred. It is through pairing these two kinds of reflection that practitioners can come to a much deeper understanding about their cognitive processes and clearly articulate their ‘practitioner frameworks’ – the subjective decision-making criteria we were talking about above. We suggest a rigorous approach to reflection-on-action, such as keeping a design journal, where you can record reflections on your current projects. Get into the habit of reflecting at regular intervals, which should be flexible to accommodate changes in projects. For example, if you’re working on a variety of projects you might make reflective notes before moving between projects, whereas you might reflect at the end of the day if focussing on a single project.

Activity

Before you start

Before you begin reflecting you need to make a decision about the format in which you’ll record your reflections – are you going to work analogue or digitally? Both of these mediums have a wide array of advantages and disadvantages. While a traditional journal is accessible and a seemingly obvious place to start, it can become difficult to organise and manage your reflections as you start to produce a large number of them. Digital alternatives, such as keeping a blog for reflections, note taking software and digital journals can make organisation, searching and sharing reflections very efficient. The limitations of these digital formats vary but a common issue is that digital mediums don’t facilitate the same kind of expressive, spontaneous and ‘messy’ reflections that are possible with a physical journal. In our experience, we find keeping a physical journal for everyday reflections, where notes and sketches on general practice, research and projects are detailed and reflected upon as well as a personal blog is a happy medium. When we’re working on projects, we find it much easier to take quick notes in a physical journal and build reflections from there, while we find a blog is a great place to upload any images of prototypes, relevant research and write accompanying reflections.

Experiment with different formats for your reflections – remember you’re aiming to develop a reflective practice – which takes practice! For reflection to become valuable and useful to you, it must become habitual, so we suggest starting small and developing a simple, sustainable reflective routine. Thinking of reflecting on your practice as a burden or additional task will likely make you disinterested and disengaged, so again, experiment and try a variety of different ways of reflecting until you determine what works best for you.

The following activity is a quick and easy approach to recording reflections when you’re finished working on a project for the day and provides a few prompts to get you thinking critically about your practice.

Activity steps

1. In your journal, begin your entry with the date and title of the project or task you worked for the day. If you worked on various projects, we recommend organising your reflections by project as this will allow you to critically reflect on each of them as well as draw comparisons between them.
2. Depending on your available time and level of engagement, you might choose to reflect in short paragraphs, in a series of notes or using dot-points. There are no rules for reflection and it’s common that you might vary your format between and even within reflections. We do recommend that you make a summary of key points at the end of your reflection as this will aid in revision as well as enhance your capacity to remember your ‘findings’.
   
   Consider using this list of questions to structure and guide your reflections:
   • What did you do? A brief description of the task here is sufficient.
   • How did you do it? What was the process applied to the task?
   • What skills and/or experiences did you draw upon?
   • What is the goal or aim of the broader project?
   • How did your activities contribute towards realising this goal or aim?
   • What was successful? What could be improved? This might apply to practical tasks or activities as well as the processes or methods used to undertake them.
   • Is the project heading in the right direction? If so, what can be done to keep it moving forward? If not, what can be done to course-correct?
   • Summarise the key points using dot-points. Underline or highlight them if you’ve used dot-points to format your reflections.
     
     This is by no means an exhaustive list, rather, it’s a list of prompts to provoke a reflective and critical mindset. We highly encourage you to build, adapt, expand and/or reorder the list to suit your own style of reflection.
3. Don’t be afraid to doodle, sketch and style your reflections. Relevant imagery such as sketches of concepts, project details, images of prototypes and diagrams can all aid in communicating your thinking while also prompting recall – use whatever tools suit you!
4. Keep track of your reflections – consider setting yourself a time limit if you tend to over-explain, or conversely, allocating a specific amount of daily reflection time.
5. Practice, practice, practice! Reflective practice is not only a practice in and of itself, but it takes practice – there is no time wasted reflecting on your work as a designer so keep practising your reflective practice!

Notes

If you haven’t already read about sketchnoting it’s both worthwhile taking a look at and considering as a format for your reflections.

You might be familiar with ‘reflective writing’ as a style of writing, much like descriptive, analytical and academic are all styles of writing. In essence, reflective writing shares much of the same underlying aims we’ve described here about reflective practice – developing an ability to critique your work through reflection on it.

The subtle difference in ‘reflective writing’ for an assessment item and the kind of writing you undertake when reflecting on your practice is one of conventions. When writing reflectively for an assessment item you will need to adhere to whatever format and structure is outlined for the assessment, whereas your own reflective practice is very much that – your own, meaning you have complete freedom to write in whatever format suits you best.

Keeping this in mind can help you to apply your critical, reflective thinking to more conventional writing structures. If an assessment item requires a reflective writing style or if you’re simply interested in learning more about the style, check out the reflective writing resources available via the QUT CiteWrite website.

References

1. Schön, Donald A. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books. QUT Library Permalink.

While you may be familiar with the term ‘prototype’ specifically in the context of user-experience and user interface design, this method, which we’ve termed ‘physical prototyping’, focuses on prototypes made from physical materials that are used to explore tangible and interactive qualities of projects that don’t reside on the screen.

It’s important to let go of the idea that a prototype has to possess a certain degree of functionality or finish and a helpful way to do this is think of your physical prototypes as a kind of ‘sketch’, but rather than using pen and paper, you’re using physical materials!

While physical prototypes will inherently take many different shapes, it’s especially important to think about what you’re prototyping for. You might be exploring an initial idea or further refining an existing concept and you might be looking at creating a representation of the entire concept or focussing on a specific element and looking to scope this out in more detail.

Just like sketching forms a vital part of your design process, physical prototyping is an invaluable way to unpack design problems and explore ideas when working on projects that involve interaction with physical objects and materials.

We recommend spending some time developing your concepts first through sketching and once you’ve reached a point where ideas can no longer be developed on paper, sketch out a plan on what you’re going to prototype. In our experience it’s helpful to have a plan to aid in structuring your physical prototyping explorations, while also being open to new ideas that can spark when working with materials.

Some questions to consider:

• What dimension of the project am I exploring? (size, weight, colour, texture, robustness of materials)
• Am I prototyping a piece of the project or the entire project?
• What tools and materials do I need to work on my prototype?
• How will I simulate interactions in the prototype?

Activity

Before you start

The following activity involves prototyping with physical materials and is designed for any skill level. Think about what kind of materials enable movement in your prototype. A good place to start is by experimenting with joining methods, such as hinges, nuts, bolts and screws – anything that enables movement in your project will be suitable.

Activity steps

1. Select 1 movement prompt and 1 aesthetic prompt from the following list:
   • Movement prompts – twisting, bounding, prancing, perching, galloping, scampering, creeping, foraging, galivanting, bounding, leaping, falling, spluttering.
   • Aesthetic prompts – stable, proud, timid, flamboyant, shy, aggressive, perturbed, bombastic, elegant, rigid, sweet, fragile, sarcastic, joyful, exhausted.
2. Brainstorm the different kinds of forms implied by the combination of these prompts, for example, ‘fierce’ and ‘perching’.
   • What might a ‘fierce, perching’ prototype look like? (for example)
   • What kind of movements and interactions might it evoke and enable?
3. Begin the prototyping process by exploring your materials, trying working with temporary joints at first (such as tape and blue-tac). Explore a variety of different ways you might realise your prototype before committing to a single idea.
4. Once you’re satisfied with the direction of the prototype, make some decisions about how you’d like to produce the movement.
   • Try springs, hinges, double-sided tape – anything that enables different qualities of movement!
   • Think about whether part/s or the entire prototype will move.
5. The outcome of your prototyping should be something that evokes the aesthetic and movement qualities from the prompts you selected.

Notes

The QUT Design Workshop, located on the ground floor of J Block at Garden’s point campus is not only a great place to prototype, but also to find prototyping materials! Ask the workshop staff about using spare and scrap materials in your projects.

Reverse Garbage QLD is a not-for-profit in Wooloongabba that diverts waste from landfill and resell all sorts of unique materials that might be worth a look for your prototyping.

Much like the SCAMPER method, the PACT framework entails breaking down a design project or problem into a small number of parameters or elements, which enables a designer to reframe their current line of thinking and helps to illuminate often overlooked elements of a project. The PACT framework can be especially useful in scoping out a project in its infancy, as well as uncovering gaps in a more developed project as a way to direct further research. Unlike the SCAMPER method, the PACT framework can be used for both ideation and analysis, making it a very powerful tool for any designer to familiarise themselves with.

We have provided a template that follows the organisation of the PACT framework that can be used to apply the framework in an analysis for your projects.

References

1. Benyon, David, Phil Turner, and Susan Turner. 2005. Designing Interactive Systems: People, Activities, Contexts, Technologies. Addison-Wesley.

Octopus Clustering requires your ideas to be organised into individual, moveable elements – sticky notes tend to work best. It is best to ensure that when transferring your initial ideas to their moveable format that they are recorded in the same amount of detail, using the same pen or marker and onto paper or material of the same colour. The reasoning here is to ensure that each idea is given equal opportunity, as difference in detail, colour of pen and paper are all added variables – we want to focus on the ideas only and avoid all other potential biases and distractions.

Be clear about the aim of your clustering session – if working with a design team, what are you trying to achieve? While clustering is a great way to make sense of initial ideas, it is important that each member of the team is well informed about the project goal. A short discussion before commencing clustering, where the project aims are restated is worthwhile and a simple way to avoid potential issues around clarity. Clustering might also be used by a design team to address a specific problem, such as a usability issue or even to make sense of participant data. We encourage you to experiment with the method and adapt it to suit your projects on an as-needs basis.

If you’re clustering with users or participants as a way to involve them in the design process, ensure your notes are suitable to their demographics. For example, not using design or project-specific jargon if your participants are considered ‘lay persons’. Again, the rationale here is that this method can only be effective if your notes are clear, simple, legible and can be quickly interpreted by the people involved in the clustering activity.

Activity

Before you start

Firstly, you’ll need access to a space with both a large wall (around 2-3 metres wide) and plenty of room for your group to move around in. Randomly arrange your sticky notes into a ‘cloud’ across the wall and mark off the boundaries where the cloud finishes using tape, string or sticky notes of a different colour. Organise your group into 3-5 rows (at least 3 people per row) and brief them on the following:

• Row 1 are actively creating clusters and grouping the sticky notes.
• Row 2 are giving helpful suggestions to row 1.
• Row 3 are observing row 1, the emerging clusters, looking for any outlying or orphaned notes and shouting any useful suggestions about these to row 1.
• After 30 seconds has elapsed, row 1 will stop clustering, hand any notes they’re holding to the person behind them in row 2, and then step to the back of the row. In this process, row 1 becomes row 3, row 2 becomes row 1, row 3 becomes row 2 and so on. This cycling of people only happens in the form of entire rows – the rows do not mix between individuals.
• If your group is large enough to have 4-5 rows, rows 4 and 5 can discuss the emerging clusters with each other and prepare to offer advice when moving into row 3 and then row 2.

As a facilitator you have 3 verbal cues that will signal to your group what to do:

• “Empty hands!” – row 1 must stop clustering and hand their notes to the person behind in row 2.
• “Come out.” – row 1 will turn to the left and head to the back.
• “Step forward!” – row 2 step forward, becoming the new row 1 and begin clustering straight away.

Use a timer or stopwatch to keep track of time – aim for 30 second intervals of clustering with a few seconds of handover time.

Activity steps

1. Start clustering!
2. People might need to be reminded about what role is associated with their row, so don’t hesitate to remind them if you notice people are becoming lost or confused.
3. As clusters start to form over the cycles and you notice they’re remaining relatively unchanged there might be outlier or orphaned notes – point these out to the last row if they’re not noticing them.
4. Aim for around 5-8 clustering cycles – you may need more or less to arrive on solid clusters. This is up to you, the facilitator to determine based on your observation.
5. Give the final row a warning that they are last and once their 30 seconds has elapsed, cheer and applaud the group for their work.
6. As a group, encourage everyone to step back and get an overview of the final clusters – do any need to be merged or is everyone happy with the outcome? Each cluster should be labelled with a heading and a short phrase or sentence to describe it.

References

1. Stickdorn, Marc. 2018a. This Is Service Design Doing. 1st edition. O’Reilly Media, Inc. QUT Library Permalink.
2. Stickdorn, Marc. 2018b. This Is Service Design Methods. 1st edition. O’Reilly Media, Inc. QUT Library Permalink.

• imagination, due to performance involving enactive, experiential behaviour;
• empathy, as designers re-enacting what users experience allows them to momentarily assume the role of the user, ‘walking in their shoes’;
• clearer communication between peers, clients and even users as performance affords a shared perspective between these different groups;
• playfulness as performance adopts some elements of gamification, such as improvisation and role-playing. By breaking down pre-conceptions between groups and by removing designers from their comfortable, familiar environment this may enable more honest, less self-conscious contributions in ideation.

Where we find ourselves in contemporary design research and practice is with the well-established method of bodystorming, which has built on the early research detailed above. Bodystorming can be thought of as physical brainstorming, involving a group of people role-playing and enacting scenarios with simple prototypes. Where bodystorming differs from role-playing is the active generation of new ideas and concepts while simultaneously providing an opportunity to test these out.

Improvisation, spontaneity and working with what is at hand is encouraged as bodystorming uses the body to act out scenarios and explore ideas, rather than pen and paper. Props or prototypes may be produced but these should be kept to a low fidelity to ensure flexibility. Appropriating available furniture and features of the surrounding environment are also encouraged, which is reflective of the notion of ‘working with whatever is at hand’.

An underlying aim of bodystorming is for designers to establish a degree of empathy with the end users of their project by ‘stepping into their shoes’. By assuming and acting out the role of the user, we gain access to ‘tacit knowledge’, which is often overlooked when discussing user experiences verbally.

Activity

Before you start

Bodystorming is most useful when initial ideas and concepts have already been decided and can be used to address a specific design problem within the broader project scope. A flexible space with moveable features is also essential to bodystorming so take some time to identify a suitable space before organising your bodystorming session. We suggest both D and J Block studios at Garden’s Point campus (D levels 3 & 4, J level 2), pending availability of course. Check room availability and book a space online via https://learningspaces.qut.edu.au/.

Activity steps

1. Write down the problem situation your team is addressing and decide on 3 different scenarios relevant to this problem that you’ll enact. Along the way your team will generate new ideas and these should be noted down on a dedicated sheet of paper.
2. Setup the space to simulate the scenario decided above in step 1. Use the additional paper, masking tape, scissors and furniture at your disposal to assist you in the simulation. Remember, bodystorming is about working with what you have at your disposal!
3. In your group, decide on the roles of each member. There should be at least 2 actors and 1 observer. The actors will enact the scenario you’ve chosen, while the observer/s will make observations, take notes and sketches and photo documentation of the bodystorming session.
4. Enact the scenario – don’t forget spontaneity and imagination are encouraged to deal with any problems that might emerge. Simple sketches can take the form of imaginative prototypes, which can be expanded upon as more of the problem starts to become clearer and understood. Again, use what you have available such as moving furniture to ‘stand in’ for something else, affixing taped sketches or labels – anything is possible!
5. At moments where inspiration begins to wane in the roleplay, an observer might call out FREEZE. In this situation, the actors stop while the observer poses a ‘what-if?’ question that modifies the logistics of the scenario. This might involve giving more detail about one of the characters, changing the situation or adding a constraint. The observer then asks the what-if question and the roleplay resumes with these changes altering the course. Some what-if questions might consider the following:
   • More details: the character’s backstory such as where they grew up, their job and hobbies, their physical and/or intellectual ability, their proficiency using certain technologies, familiarity with similar scenarios – anything that might enable the team to further scope out and add more depth to their character.
   • Situational factors: adding a conflict where there wasn’t one, such as a sudden power outage or adding support where it’s needed, such as adding a window where there wasn’t one – anything that might change the situation to enable new discovery through when resuming the scenario.
   • Constraints: removing a piece of furniture, all actors must stand on one leg for the remainder of the scenario, a magical unlimited power supply – get creative here but be strict with the constraint!
6. If the first enactment has produced plenty of new ideas and your group is satisfied with the outcome, move on to step 7. If the team agrees there’s enough time and more ideas to be explored, repeat steps 2-5 with one or both of the other scenarios you listed in step 1.
7. Take 10 – 15 minutes to debrief in your team. Firstly, discuss and note down and immediate thoughts on each of the scenarios you enacted and then review the notes and documentation taken by the observer/s. Go through this process for each of the scenarios and add any thoughts and reflections. Ensure all of the documentation is kept together. To make sense of these new findings and ideas you might consider one of the organisational methods detailed in this guide, such as an analysis using the PACT framework or the Octopus Clustering method.

Notes

Don’t forget to use a timer to keep the bodystorm moving – we find that 15 minutes should be plenty of time to enact each scenario.

It can be easy for groups to slip into a discussion during an enactment, especially at moment when inspiration sparks but it’s important to keep the enactment moving, so the observer should reassure the actors that they’ve taken note of any ideas mentioned and then the enactment should resume. Try to avoid these kinds of breaks when enacting a scenario as they can slow down the entire group.

It’s common that designers will have some preconceptions and ideas about where to take a project forming before using a method like bodystorming – this is entirely okay and cannot be avoided, nor should it! How we suggest dealing with preconceptions is for each team member to write down their ideas on a dedicated sheet of paper before the bodystorm commences – we’ll call these ‘memos’. Now each person should take their memos, fold the paper and put them in a safe place, tucked away and forget about them! Follow the steps for the bodystorming activity and after step 7, take out these memos and review them! Do your ideas still make sense? Can they contribute to the project or answer any of the questions raised through bodystorming?

Memoing is an established practice in qualitative research², which also has a lot of positive implications for design practitioners and in our experience, memoing preconceptions is a great practice to get into as it enables a kind of ‘blank slate’ approach in ideation, while also not sacrificing any ideas that might come in handy later on.

References

1. Burns, Colin, Eric Dishman, William Verplank, and Bud Lassiter. 1994. ‘Actors, Hairdos & Videotape—Informance Design’. In Conference Companion on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 119–120. CHI ’94. New York, NY, USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/259963.260102.
2. Birks, Melanie, Ysanne Chapman, and Karen Francis. 2008. ‘Memoing in Qualitative Research: Probing Data and Processes’. Journal of Research in Nursing 13 (1): 68–75. https://doi.org/10.1177/1744987107081254.