Prototyping¶
What Roles Do I Know?¶
pictures to come ~¶
It’s very interesting to me that there are roles assigned to how we discover the world. It feels so human, (academically human) to name how we experience our environment. This assignment speaks to a deeply reflective, silly, but very human part of my brain that enjoys over-analysis (though years of therapy and decolonial thinking is helping me step away from the “over” part of that statement).
It’s interesting to reflect on what roles we inhabit while trying to discover new (maybe just new to us) things about our world. I’ve had the great luck to dip my toes in all four of the outline roles of prototyping – being maybe a combination my curious attitude, design school, and having amazing mentors. (having a depth of experience is great- but where do I start?!)
I think, most recently, I’ve used “Role 2: Prototyping as a means of Inquiry”. Mainly as this was how our team at my old job approached most of our work – creating designs that can help us understand, empathize, and empower (oooh I don’t like that word) the people we worked with. I worked with people with cognitive disabilities, helping design their daily services in hope we can help them build a better life. The thing is, cognitive disability is so diverse – one design that works for one person, could ABSOLUTELY fail for another. This means we would use communication tools, I suppose we can call them prototypes here, to help better discover about people’s lives. The tool themselves were not the objects of our attention, the people were/are. From card matching, visual calendars, emotion charting, and soooo many more prototypes – we would create quick tools to better understand what people wanted and how we might get there.
Role 4: Prototyping as a Vehicle for inquiry is something I feel I use every day in my life – though particularly in my pottery practice. Though I am not writing any academic papers about potting (YET!), I use this art form to try hands on experiment and learn more about the medium. With each finished pot, I have documented process of where I have come from and what I can try next. Pottery is a slow art form, so it makes you move along with the pace of the environment. While there is a certain level of control, it is a game you play with the mud (thanks to Marc for describing it this way to me recently!). Sometimes in the process of making something wrong, you begin to learn how you could possibly make it right (or just different) the next time you attempt it – all a process I cherish more than the finished product itself. To me each piece of work is a commemoration of the process that went into it – mistakes and all!
Now moving forward, I think Role 1 and Role 3 give me the most pause. Role 1, as I do not consider myself a scientific person – I am a little to worried to make a declaration of a hypothesis and then see it be proven wrong (ahhh pride you get in the way once again!). Then Role 3: Prototyping as a Research Archetype – which to me seems very artsy and not very practical (?). In a way, it feels like a speculation, rather than any type of solution – which I suppose is something I also what to grow in. Not be so tied to reality and what not…