Graduate Design Studio

51-712 Graduate Design Studio

M/W 1:30 - 4:20 pm
A11 Margaret Morrison

Jodi Forlizzi, Instructor [forlizzi@cs.cmu.edu]
Joonhwan Lee, TA [joonhwan@cs.cmu.edu]
Office hours by appointment

Sharing Personal Media: Introduction

Society has seen a rapid increase in the use of hand-held devices. Today, these products are used not only for routine task-based transactions, but also for entertainment, communication, social networking, and as statements of personal value. As designers, we are faced with a wonderful opportunity to understand how product design and product behavior can support current and evolving ways of using mobile products.

The Sharing Personal Media Project, sponsored by the Microsoft's Social Computing Research Group, will focus on exploring the creation, connection, and behavior of future hand-held and mobile devices. These products make use of communication technology that makes digitial video, sound, and full color displays available on mobile and hand-held devices. Rather than generating solutions driven by technology, we will explore how people might use networked mobile devices to communicate, share information, organize their lives, and form communities of use.

To do so, our class will explore user needs, existing products, and user interfaces and physical design of new, hybrid devices. Throughout the semester, a Microsoft representative will act as our client, providing research, input, guidance, and feedback.

Motivation for this project

How can new computational devices augment people's lives in ways previously unconceived of? How can devices foster new social uses? How can we explore new interaction paradigms (for example, lightweight auditory and haptic interfaces) within this project? This course will provide students with the opportunity to identify new products and create functional and demonstrational prototypes to solidify their thinking. .

Educational Objectives

The goals of this project are as follows:

to learn what is encompassed in a design process, both through practice and by reviewing case studies presented in readings and class presentations
to work with upfront user, product, and technology studies to understand how they inform new product design
to use early studies to help define functionality for a new product
to combine research, visual design, product design, and interaction design skills to emerge with intuitive, accessible product ideas
to build presentations and prototypes that solidly communicate those ideas.

Design Process and Deliverables

In the beginning of the semester, the problem and initial research will be presented by the client. Students will work in interdisciplinary teams to perform additional user research, identify product opportunity areas, generate ideas and scenarios of use, refine those ideas, and prototype and communicate a final solution. One team will be chosen by our client to represent CMU at the Microsoft Design Expo in July, 2003 along with other participating universities. Deliverables include, but may not be limited to:

report/presentation of the research process, summarizing needs and opportunity areas
sketches and scenarios of use, bringing opportunity areas to life
"experiential prototypes" which allow teams to test product behavior
prototype of a final solution (both product and UI components)
web-based progress reporting site which must be updated every two weeks

Each team must report their progress bi-weekly on a web site. This brief progress report must include:

goals from the previous week
accomplishments of the current week
goals that are set for the next week
time recorded for the week

The report must be posted to the team web site by 12:00 noon every Monday.

Grading and Time Management

Work and performance in the course will be evaluated four times during the semester. Attendance, assignments and progress reports are a critical part of the grade. In addition, the process of exploration is as important as the final product, so it is important that students manage time well and devote time to working on the projects during the course of a week.

Each student is expected to spend roughly 12 hours per week. Learn to manage your time individually and on the team so that you do not need to exceed this expectation.

Students will be graded on individual contributions as well as synthesis with the team. Important criteria include the following:

participation in projects, assignments, class attendance/discussions, and critiques
rigorous design explorations
quality of craftsmanship and level of completion
quality of the team's reflection on a design solution
quality of progress reports

Overview | Project Descriptions | Resources

Last modified 12/26/02. Send comments to forlizzi@cs.cmu.edu.