Visualisation

Today we had a really good session with Phillip Joe on Visualisation. I had read his report for the Design Council back in second year of my undergrad, and back then I had found what he was saying really valuable, and so I always tried to implement some of the ideas in my work. It was great to get a chance to get hands on with the methods, and participate in the exercises, as there's nothing better than learning by doing. The discussions our group were having whilst drawing were really active, dynamic and playful.

In his talk, he mentioned how visualisation can be used for whatever you need to communicate, and that it's good for making things tangible and shareable. It's also about storytelling, and progressing ideas through visual thinking. He mentioned 5 stages to remember;

• Visualise early
• Iterate often
• Visualise just enough
• Visualise neutrally
• Be aware of the the responses to different types.

He referenced 3 books in his talk, which I had a brief look at, and hopefully I'll get a chance to have a further browse. They were The Back of the Napkin, Marks and Meaning, and VizAbility.

The value in drawing with stickmen

Whilst watching the videos of Scott Kim from MetaDesign I was reminded of the interview with Bill Verplank from Designing Interactions. I discussed this with Phillip over lunch, as I feel it can be very engaging to watch someone as they explain an idea, and sketch it out at the same time. Sometimes I feel that when explaining an idea after it is drawn it becomes more difficult. I questioned if he knew of any examples of interactive sketching tools, to allow for real time conversations. Although he thought there were some being developed, he further explained how visualisation is predominantly for a conversation between people, and that it is a way of "unpacking" or "encoding" ideas. I tended to agree with him, and a good point that Gus made was that there's nothing better than a pencil and a bit of paper to show someone an idea. He also said that when you are explaining the visual to someone else, it is important that you work out what the major points you want to get across are, and then tell them.

I also mentioned that I was interested in how to communicate research, and particularly to designers. He told me about the company Sonic Rim, who are a design research firm. From the services they offer, they do seem like the type of environment I feel I would be most at home in. One of the methods that seems to be coming up a lot at the moment it participatory design.

Phillip showed a short presentation on the work he had been doing with Microsoft along these lines, with the velcro modelling. The toolkit could elicit some insights by allowing the users to present their ideas in a physical and flexible way. A really good point he made was that "users find it difficult to imagine out-with what they already know". If you ask them to design something for Microsoft, the chances are they will make something which looks like a laptop.