Due before the beginning of your section on Monday, February 9, 10AM (post in the #classnotes Discord forum, on the Activity 02 post)

1) Before watching the videos specified below, write a summary (around 100 words) of how you usually come up with an idea for a project. When you post your response, post that summary WITH your response.

Break this process into discrete steps.  As an example of what I mean by ‘discrete steps’: if I were describing how I make a sandwich, I’d say: 1) I get a loaf of bread, 2) I get the fillings for the sandwich, 3) I assemble the fillings on a slice of bread, 4) I put another slice of bread on top.

2) Watch and respond: Watch two videos (embedded below and included in the assignment PDF) and respond to the prompts listed below.

3) Read and respond: Read Speculative design: 3 examples of design fiction by Tony Ho Tran and respond to the prompts listed below.

4) Post. Bundle together your reflection on ideas, your three responses, and post them all in the same thread on Discord.

PROMPTS

The 4 Steps to Getting an Idea, Kirby Fergusson (https://youtu.be/JPJ3oy-rWUk)

The 4 Steps to Getting an Idea by Kirby Ferguson (4 minutes; answer between 150-200 words):

  • According to Ferguson, what part of the mind generates ideas and why?
  • What common activity does he compare this process to?
  • How do Ferguson’s four steps compare to the ones that you wrote for yourself?

Build your creative confidence, David Kelly (https://youtu.be/16p9YRF0l-g)

How to Build Your Creative Confidence by David Kelley (11:46; answer between 150-200 words):

  • Kelley describes a design intervention in the medical field; what problem was being addressed, and how did design thinking change the outcome?
  • Compare this to one of the prototypes you or your peers worked on in lab; did you approach the problem in a similar way? Did your process differ?
  • Kelley emphasizes building confidence through repeated small successes. Based on your own two design sprints so far, what part of the process do you feel most confident in? What still feels uncertain?

Speculative design: 3 examples of design fiction by Tony Ho Tran. (FYI—This references another text, which is Speculative Everything (2013) by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby.)

  • Write a 3-sentence description of what “speculative design” is, including an example of a question it attempts to answer, as well as its relationship to the “future.”
  • What is one of the key benefits of speculative design?
  • Describe one of the problems with speculative design.
  • Relate one of the examples from the article either to something you noticed in the Design Q&A with Charles Eames (Activity 01) OR to one of the prototypes you and your peers built in the design-thinking lab exercise.

BONUS PARTICIPATION CREDIT: Read and meaningfully respond to the responses of your peers!

A PLEA: I am not particularly interested in what ChatGPT or Claude or et c. has to say about any of these matters; if I wanted to know that, I’d ask it. I’m asking you as a means of structuring our experience and encouraging you not only to develop your own answers, but encouraging you to develop how you develop your own answers!

Put another way: the joy is in the journey. Don’t shortchange yourself.

Submit this response on the #classnotes forum on Discord under the topic Activity 02.