Explanation

A design is an explanation justifying a thing's existence. It is not the thing itself.

mPath Design Explanation

A design can be imagined as an explanation for why something should be placed in the world, not the thing itself. My guiding design philosophy utilizes "PRInCiPleS," an investigative framework conceived by Eli Blevis that includes predispositions, research, insights, concepts, prototypes and strategies. These components may accumulate in any order. The depth and breadth of work creates spaces fertile for concepts. The best concepts are explained by grounding design decisions in PRInCiPleS components. Blevis/Siegel paper on PRInCiPleS framework

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Mutual Politics Design Document

One format used to deliver a explanation is a design document. This is a deliverable that is less formal than a requirements document, which specifies exactly how a new application should be built, or an academic paper. It is visual in nature, providing more detail than a presentation but relying on images to tell the story of the decisions of a design. My design document for this project was expanded from my Master's degree capstone presentation, relying on the slide images to structure the content. Much more detail was able to be provided than in the presentation.

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Inner Child Strategic Plan

InnerChild was a proposed start-up company offering innovative computer applications to children aged three to five. This design strategy addressed a toy innovation need that could only be served by a deep understanding of kids' psychology and gaming behavior. The company's flagship product was a PC-based interactive gaming platform involving software, hand-held blocks and a USB interface. Licensed software packages would be distributed through reputable specialty stores and museum gift shops. New sets of pre-defined components could periodically be released to consumers, and children would eventually play the game collaboratively by trading custom components, adopting the strategy of viral marketing. Inner Child Business Plan

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Mutual Politics Academic Publication

Design is related to science and thus carries a responsibility to share new contributions with other researchers. The human-computer interaction community is the primary target for such publications, but the nature of information and technology crosses many relevant disciplines. This project resulted in the publication of an academic paper to the WikiSym 2006 Conference sponsored by ACM. This submission describes PoliticWiki, a six-month study in which participants were asked to use a wiki to construct a political platform from scratch. PoliticWiki: Exploring Communal Politics

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Mutual Politics Poster

Design posters are intended to attract onlookers to a project and spark further conversation. A poster, therefore, should be visually appealing and include enough detail to provide a clear sense of the design explanation. In this project, the central image — a construction of an American flag through component parts &mash; was inspired by the CAS simulation exploring critical mass in creating forums. Since my design goal was to build a new way to talk politics in this country, applying a construction metaphor to an icon of democracy seemed appropriate. A map metaphor was used to separate the text describing the problem space, explorations of the design space, and solutions to the problem. Mutual Politics Poster

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The Power of Gangs Presentation

The most critical aspect of a design explanation is the ability to communicate it clearly and with impact. This happens most frequently in an informal manner, where a few people inquire about a project and have very little time available for discussion. The development process also includes formal presentations to larger groups specifically assembled to learn about this work. Both forums require clear organization by the speaker, an analytical approach to the content, and knowledge about the audience. In this project, communication included many short conversations with people holding very biased views on the topic. It culminated in a 20-minute presentation to two dozen peers.

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