Design Workbook

Please watch this video to correctly submit your workbook pages.

Goals

The goal of this assignment is to develop your ability to use early design concepts (1) to exemplify and explore possible societal impacts of design and (2) to develop your own voice on class topics.

After doing this assignment you will be able to:

1. Identify and create a personal response to a specific idea in a reading
2. Use speculative design to (a) explore social implications of design and (b) ideate new design possibilities
3. Construct a compelling argument through design

Background

In humanities classes, a standard technique used to help students engage with the readings is to have weekly reading responses, which are short pieces of early writing in which you give a personal response to what you have read, before you come to class to discuss it. In this class, we adapt this method by using design sketches as a language for these responses.

This assignment is based on the design workbook method, which is commonly used in product design in early stages of design research. Design workbooks are a method for open-ended design research in which designers work out the parameters of the design problems and issues that interest them by sketching out tentative designs that explore the nature of the issues involved. Particularly in the early stages of design, design workbooks are explicitly not intended to provide a straightforward answer to a design problem but instead explore trade-offs and issues that arise through design. That is to say, a design workbook at this stage does not contain practical solutions that a designer would expect to be implemented, but rather “speculative” designs that help him or her to understand the nature of the problem he or she is facing. These annotated designs may also tentatively explore the possible social worlds, new experiences, or implications opened up by the design.

Our workbooks

Most designers keep one or many notebooks that they can always scribble notes into. We suggest that you do the same. It’s important to make notes, drawings, and scribbles while reading. It’s far more easy to be inspired while reading, or right after, than days or weeks later. If you are inspired directly while reading, or right after reading, your work might be good enough to be submitted at the end of the unit. In other cases, though, you may want to refine, edit, or redraw/rewrite a bit: you may understand the reading better after the next lecture or section. When we say “design workbook” in this course, we’re referring to the actual pages that you submit to Gradescope. But we secretely hope that you’re keeping an actual notebook, and using it to make your immediate notes and to iterate on designs.

For the actual submissions, we use design workbooks as a method for exploring social issues in and through design and for responding to authors’ arguments and for creating our own arguments. The workbooks are a designerly form of reading response: how can I use a design to respond to topics and issues that arise in a reading? Each design will include a description of the design in the form of text and/or drawings annotated with brief texts, that explore and explain how the design works, what issues it brings up or possibilities it entertains, always engaging with a particular reading.

The form of your design workbook is open. The submissions will not be judged negatively on artistic execution, but rather on the sophistication and clarity with which they explore class-related issues, their accuracy in connecting with arguments and ideas in class readings, and their creativity and variety in concept. People who can’t draw can and do ace workbook pages. You may execute your workbook by hand, electronically, or in some combination of both; you may use photographs, hand-drawn images, collages from found images, or some other form; you may vary the ratio of text and image as makes sense for your own practice and understanding. It is OK to sketch using very poor drawing skills (this is what one of the professors does herself).

What you will do

1. Each page in your workbook will have a single design, which is anchored in a single, specific idea or issue which you have identified from a single course reading. The total number of pages you need for a module is three (3).
2. Your design should be anchored in the reading by including a specific reference (including the page number) to an important issue or idea from the readings that inspire the design or that the design is commenting on. Here is an example of how to cite. Follow this example to be sure you submit correctly. You may include specific quoations from the text (quoted and cited). The specific idea of the author’s on which you are basing the design should always be summarized clearly in your own words. We need to know that you understood the reading. The expected length of your description is 1-3 sentences.
3. Your design should be annotated with short statements (they do not need to be full sentences) which reflect on issues that the design raises and how they relate to the idea from the reading. These annotations should not argue for the value of your design, but instead use the design as a way to explore the idea from the reading: what possibilities would exist if your design were real? These annotations should be nuanced (i.e., not present a black-and-white view of the issues, of the possibilities of your design, or of the reading) and accurately represent the author’s perspective, even (especially) when you disagree with it. Your design can be new and original, but it has to spring from the author’s context.* Not sure if it’s original? Do a search to see if it exists already.
4. You may select whichever readings from the module that you find most compelling to respond to. You may respond to required or optional readings (note that at the end of the semester we have been leaving optional readings off the allowed readings and gradescope – if you have already done one of the optional readings we’ll allow you to submit it without penalty, just contact us).
5. Though we don’t insist you use a larger “scribble” notebook as described above, we strongly recommend one, and that you add to your notebook every time you do reading. You can finish your submission right after a reading. It is much easier to sketch out ideas when the readings are fresh than to think of something later. That said, you may want to refine your initial sketches before submitting. Iteration is a design superpower.

What we are looking for in this design is 1) an accurate reflection of a specific idea from the author of a reading, 2) a creative design idea clearly inspired by or reflecting on that idea, and 3) a thoughtful and personal response that uses the design to reflect on the reading in interesting ways.

What we are not looking for in this assignment is a “good design” with a justification for why the design is good. It is not unusual for the design itself to have serious problems, which your annotations can and should explore. The design might reflect limitations of, alternatives to, or questions about the issues raised in the reading, but again they must be clearly tied to the reading. Again: we want you to be able to show that you understand an author’s ideas, and to design in dialog with those ideas. Why? In lecture we show examples of how often designers can be trapped in their own values, and instatiate those values in their designs without knowing they are doing so (as Nissenbaum described). Doing multiple design exercises based on other people’s arguements helps you to reflect on values that aren’t your own, and to work them into design intentionally. This detachment builds your ability to be conscious of how values are built into designs, and to better make your own fully conscious design arguments.

Again, your submissions will not be judged negatively on poor artistic execution or sentence fragments, but on the sophistication and clarity with which they explore course-related issues, their accuracy in connecting with an author’s arguments and ideas in class readings, and their creativity. That said, graders will absolutely note effort, care, and excellent execution, and they love clear and compelling submissions. No one has been downgraded for a very well-thought-out, readable, and unique submission, and indeed it can be the difference between an 18 and a 20.

Submission

The Design Workbook Checkin is a trial run to check that you can submit to Gradescope and that you understand the assignment. You will submit one single design workbook page based on any reading from Module 1 due on Sept. 5. This will give you early feedback before you submit the entire assignment. We will give you feedback using our standard rubric (see below), but the checkin is graded pass/fail; you will get full credit for any sincere attempt.

DW1, your first full workbook assignment, is due Sept. 19.

For DW2, and all remaining workbook assignments, you will submit three workbook pages, based on three different readings (of your choice!) from Module the associated module. You will upload your design responses to gradescope in pdf format. Please watch the video above to see how to match readings to questions. If you work in a non-digital medium (e.g. pencil and paper), you can upload photos or scans of your work as a pdf. Regardless, please double-check both your handwriting and the image quality; your work must be legible to be graded. For digital submissions, weird fonts must also be legible.

Grading

Each page in your workbook will be graded out of 20 points, using the following measures:

• Idea (5 points): A single, specific idea from an identified, appropriately chosen reading is clearly stated and correctly described.
• Design (6 points): An original design (Google it!) that responds clearly to the idea. The design does not need to be ‘good’ as a design, taken alone.
• Reflections (7 points): A clear, nuanced, convincing analysis uses the possibilities opened up by the design to reflect on the reading in a clearly articulated way.
• Effort (2 points): Effort has been put into the assignment.

An assignment that meets all these criteria will receive an A (18/20). Additional credit is possible at the discretion of the TAs for designs that are truly imaginative, as well as for reflections that are truly thought-provoking and original.

The grade for each design in your workbook for a module will be totaled. Submissions in each module will be weighted proportionately to the number of designs required for that module.