Daily Prototyping

A few months back I had the opportunity to hear Tom Chi of Google X design speak. I was deeply inspired by his idea of doing to learn rather than talking and brainstorming. Feeling uninspired and rather lost in my own process and career I decided to perform an experiment of my own - by implementing a practice of daily prototyping. Could I prototype my way into relearning to prototype - or more to the point - back to creating and physically building to learn?

Complex Visual Storytelling
In 2011 I began creating a series of case study PDFs that allowed me to tell a story of my work with an individual client. After prototyping for many months - I'd finally created 3 solid stories that showed my work across a broad generalist skillset and most importantly to me - showed that I worked in physical products, software and cross platform implementations.

Now I was ready to start telling more stories of process and ways that I want to work across my skills and beyond. To do that - I needed a stronger design - visually and informationally.

With that in mind, and to avoid the "planning as doing" habit I've been reinforcing in my daily life the past few years, I dove into a project to prototype the presentation of my portfolio in static form.

I had some basic guidelines:

1. Present a wide variety of information - photos, outlines, wireframes
2. Create a visual language (color, style and organizational graphic elements) that lets me communicate process and complexity
3. Keep evolving my quietAction branding and also bring my name higher up into the communication structure

Since I don't do visual design day-to-day an additional quest was to wake up my skills and explore some different styles of design. This required some time looking at different inspirations I'd been collecting over the past year. I quickly realized that the first part of this prototyping push was to prep materials for my prototyping. So I collected links from portfolios, sites and apps that had visual, information or styles that I found appealing. I also collected text, screenshots and vector art for some basic elements that I could throw into the prototypes.

DAY 1

I began with the brand and visual design from my case study PDFs and attempted to start iterating in new directions.

I was really rusty when I started so I began by trying match some of my inspirational designs. Could I make it dimensional? Could I flatten it out? Could I go for full whitespace design?

What happens when I add increasingly complex information? How can I show the breakout of one part of a product flow so it's clear what is being shown? How about an outline with wireframes? Could my basic architecture and visual hierarchy hold up?

While I was pleased with the informational communication of the day's prototypes, I was left with an overall dissatisfaction with how "stick-ish" it all was. I found the flat, outline quality of all of the elements - text, brand and information - didn't allow any of them to shine. It ended up looking just as complex as it was.

DAY 2

The next day I took this underlying dissatisfaction into the process and continued to attempt to organize the information and iterate on layout and adding more whitespace.

Discriminate and reset
Eventually, it was clear I was rearranging deck chairs (i.e. on the Titanic) and I stopped to chat with my brilliant design friend, Cliff Jew. Over the years I've come to value Cliff's ability to talk through design issues with me and to help me see what I'm missing so I can keep iterating in a new direction. This process of "discriminating" is critical in a prototyping process. You have to know when you've stopped heading in a direction that is fruitful - reset - and then be able to move nimbly in a different direction.

When I explained my irritation with so many flat elements on the page hindering my ability to distinguish between levels of information or even visual flow around a page - Cliff immediately jumped to the idea of "traveling through" the information rather than simply laying it out to be read. Traveling and storytelling both have a time component. What could I add to the visual design that allowed us to make the information special and also allow us to move through it in an organized way. Cliff remembered an old project he designed that used 2.5d graphics to lead a person through a setup of a physical product. By adding a spatial component he was able to separate out textual and design elements from the most important data.

Taking a one of my designs he quickly overlaid a couple of examples of dimensional objects into the page to see if they would fight. Rather than fighting, the additional of a spatial quality to the data made it into a "secret garden" that a person could engage with separately from the text and brand container.

After I got off the phone with Cliff, several things started to happen. I let go of my original brand container and moved toward a stronger whitespace design that focused on my name and that this is my experience exploration (portfolio). I learned how to orient my vectors spatially in Illustrator (be very, very frightened :D). I suddenly got much braver. You can even see the happy accident moment - "Look what happens when I go FULL whitespace" in my Evernote documentation.

DAY 3

2 days later I finally got back to this project and was very pleased with where I had landed. I decided to try laying in some of the material that I had from my case studies to see how things held together when I added even more complexity. I think it turned out pretty well with a lot of room for improvement and continued prototyping. And it's a huge leap from where I started. Definitely well worth the time and effort.

THE REAL LEARNING

So, in this 3-day sprint I learned quite a few things.

1. It's good to have some prep time to gather some base materials to prototype with. While it's cool to have placeholders, it's tough to keep a flow going if you don't have any raw materials handy.
2. Discriminate. Know when you've run into a wall. Phone a friend or simply leave that direction alone and try and jump to something completely different.
3. Keep yourself moving and be brave.

Self-documenting storytelling
One of the principles of Lean UX is that you want to engage in process that is self-documenting. In this case, I quickly created screenshots, threw them into Evernote and added some discussion of how the day went. Because I did this each time I took a break - the result was that I had a living document that helped me tell a story far more powerfully than any single static document could ever achieve. I consider this one more portfolio prototype in these days because it - more than the static elements - will become my FUTURE story.

I can't encourage you enough to begin incorporate this hands-on style of moving through so many of your life challenges. For me there is very little that you can't apply this to in my life. Stay tuned as I'll share some other prototyping I'm doing as I get further along in the process.

2013 - exploring prolific

You might think with a word like "prolific" as my theme for the year that being 22 days into the new year with only 2 posts is a failure. I choose to look at it as the reality of the year - building, clearing and finding the architecture that supports me in moving freely in whatever direction needed.

It also seems intriguing to find prolifically quiet and introspective as well as prolifically active and engaged this year. It's time to move on from seeing "doing" and "output" as the only metrics of a prolific life.

There are many people who inspire me in this quest.

Luke Wroblewski comes to mind. I greatly admire his ability to create containers for his writing and experiments in the form of his brand, templates (blog, presentations, books) and prototyping practices (Bagcheck, Polar). Awesome. I really appreciate seeing how he clears the path to getting his adventures out into the world where others can continue to build off of them in an ever renewing and prolific conversation.

Zaha Hadid inspires by the way she moves between mediums to explore across all dimensions - 2, 3 and 4D. The fact that she incorporates painting into her process makes the squishy artist side of me and the grid architect happy. This expansiveness in process no doubt helps her reimagine the way space and matter work together - allowing her to reshape form in so many amazing ways.

Each time I attend the balcony talks before an ODC performance, I fall in love again with the amazing minds and explorations of the choreographers Brenda Way, KT Nelson and Kimi Okada. Keeping a dance company moving AND tending active artistic lives over 40 years is no small feat - these women inspire me to live life richly in the midst of life's traffic as well as prolifically.

And then there's my Mom. She'll be surprised to be included here. She feels like she never gets much done but when I see how much she accomplishes in a day in terms of care for each of us, explorations in healing and wholeness and just her way of being in the world - I begin to understand prolific in a whole new way.

What is prolific if you move away from doing and output as its defining success? Is it possible to be prolific without ever writing another blog post, talk or book? Taking another picture or tweeting another link? If prolific was a way to satisfying my own enjoyment of moving through the world rather than a way to try and gain approval and love from outside of myself - would it lose it's charge? Is there a quality or shape of life that allows prolific to simply appear?

I always love a good lived question, don't you?!

Inspired: blogging simplified

It was a post on January 2nd that inspired me to come back to my blog again.

Chris Coyier wrote:

I wish everyone in the world would blog.

Did you solve a tricky user interface problem today? I’d love to read about the options you considered and why you picked the one you did.

...

I enjoy living vicariously through you, even for a moment.

Read the full post. Read more by Chris at The Pastry Box Project

I love all of the examples he gives. And that's the same reason that I read other people's blogs. Given my daily prototyping and other play-in-progress, getting back to blogging will be a welcome relief. And some other daily writing might be in order in other formats as well. As Chris points out so beautifully...it's fun and potentially valuable to others to share the adventure.

I'll be playing here this year. Expect things to move around a bit as I attempt to find some fun ways to allow myself to get more of my writing out into the world. I've grown frozen and it'll feel good to thaw back out, shake myself off and get moving again.

How do you do that in your life - get unstuck, unfrozen, pry your foot off the brakes in your life?

DIY: GAFFTA Paper Computing Workshop

In an effort to get more doing into my life I've been switching from interviewing and enjoying the work of creators in wearable tech, digital installations and device design to doing as much hands-on as possible. I think what appealed to me about the Paper Computing Workshop at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) was the speed with which you could try your ideas out. I love the idea of being able to recycle, reuse and tear apart my experiments in combining paper and electronics.

I was also excited when I saw the video of electronics in a painting that Jie Qi, a grad student at MIT in the High-Low tech group and the instructor for the class had created. Natalie Freed, the second instructor who has just completed a degree in Personal Robotics from MIT also showed a pop-up book example with more possibilities of paper switches and play. As I've started to weave metal into my canvases, it seems like a natural extension to find ways to allow people to interact with the paintings.

DAY 1

One of the things that I deeply appreciate about the people that I interact with that go to school at MIT is their understanding that we need to do to learn. Jie began the workshop by showing more examples of people working in paper computing as well as some of the examples that had been created to show all of the different types of projects we could try. Then they threw us in.

Simple Circuit
We learned how to create a battery holder with copper tape leads that grew into our first simple circuit. By placing the copper tape from the positive (+) side of the battery and the copper tape from the ground (-) into a closely aligned pattern we were able have multiple locations to add LEDs. Using Scotch tape we firmly pressed the tiny yellow and red LEDs down so the correct end touched the positive and negative copper tape. Voila. Our first circuit - in the first hour of class. 

Simple Switch
Jie quickly moved on to showing how to create extensions off of the main connection by soldering the intersections. And how to jump over the connections using a paper or tape bridge so you didn't accidentally complete the wrong circuit. And then how to solder the LEDs into place. And then how to make breaks in the tape, and create a small flap of paper and copper tape that when pressed down completed the circuit - and light the LED. Our first switch. All before lunch.

 

Pre-programmed Microcontroller (ATTiny85)
After lunch, things got even more interesting. Giving us an image with callouts of how things needed to end up, she began showing us how to create a more complex circuit that interfaced with a pre-programmed microcontroller chip. Starting with a simple fold-over battery holder we were soon hard at work creating the positive and negative connections we needed to use the microcontroller in our project.

I began by drawing the basic circuit diagram in pencil on my page so I could more quickly lay down the copper tape. This reminds me of the kind of complex wireframing that I do for my interaction design practice - one of my favorite tasks. Then I flattened and traced the microcontroller body and flattened prongs so I could see where each of the legs needed to have a connection meet. I started laying the tape down to get the ground line from the battery attached to the - lower-left leg of the microcontroller. Then the + battery connection to the upper-right + microcontroller input. 

I quickly learned how to cut my copper tape into tinier strips to allow it to only hit a single leg of the microcontroller. After I got the basics soldered in place, Jie showed me a little variation that allowed me to have other LEDs flicker in the opposite pattern from the original LEDs by taking my - LED end and connecting it to both the battery + and output from the flicker leg of the microcontroller. Neat. And it all worked. Bliss. 

That night I spent hours creating possible project fodder. I found old vector art from an interface I created for a Flash project and printed it on transparency film. I played with tons of different papers seeing how the LED was affected by shining through them. I even played with ways to create snow luminaria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminaria patterns. And I had to bring along my paper flowers from my play at Teahouse Studios Jumpstart Creativity evening.

DAY 2

Graphite Potentiometer
In the morning we explored creating a "slider" out of a thick area of pencil graphite. The closer your finger gets to the + end of the switch the more power flows through the circuit - making the LED brighter or cuing a set of programming on your microcontroller if it's watching for the power levels coming into the input leg.

Then we looked at different sensors we might use for our microcontroller project. We could use simple switches, paper sliders, a microphone input, or a touch input where your body completes the circuit.

Microcontroller Project
I chose to create a circuit that was programmed so that when someone blew into the microphone it began lighting each of the LEDs from the bottom up. Drawing the circuitry actually took me longer than building it. I had missed a few things in the previous project, like how to add a reset switch to the project but I quickly hit stop points that allowed me to catch those missing pieces.

In the end, I had a fun little lattice that actually worked as advertised - although it had become a VERY slow art project via a misset timer in the microcontroller code that set each new light to turn on after 3 or so minutes. You'd have to know my fascination with all things slow to understand my delight with that little mixup.

Other people's projects were really fun as well, including a paper boat, touch circuit paper doll string, origami, boxes that light when closed and a really fun paper speaker. I'm very grateful to Jie and Natalie for sharing all of their knowledge and coaching.

I'm over the moon about how much I learned in the class. I've already begun creating a more attractive simple circuit project that I can bring along with me to interviews. While I'm not sure how I'll incorporate it into my art projects, I love how quickly I was able to get deeply into the electronics and really create. The fact that I've already picked up again is a good sign that I may have found a DIY form that I can keep playing in.

More Paper Computing Examples

• Pulp-based Computing by Marcelo Coehlo
• Fold Loud by JooYoun Paek (My artfuture interview with JooYoun)
• Anabiosis: color-changing butterflies by Akira Wakita Lab
• Paper speakers by Hannah Perner-Wilson
• Jie at the Exploratorium and at the Tinkering Studio