Jonathan C. Roberts - Five Design-Sheets: Creative Design and Sketching for Computing and Visualisation

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When in the early stages of designing an interface for a software application, it is often difficult to envision what it will look like. There may be many possible layouts, or a number of different ways that a user could interact with your tool. Any of these possible alternatives could be implemented and each may have potential as a usable system. Some designs will end up being more popular and the users will go back and use them again-and-again, whereas other tools may be used once and never again open. Coming up with those designs and possibly building more than one alternatives will take much time and require effort, cost you (or the company you are working for) lots of money. Obviously, when you are planning to build something, you want to make the end result useful, worthwhile, fit for its purpose, while keeping overall costs minimum. It would seem sensible to plan as much as you can before you proceed with the (usually expensive) implementation of the solution. But there is a balance to maintain. You do not want to limit development in deadline sensative applications, but you want to spent as much time in the planning process as possible so as to maximise the efficiency, and success of the development process. Furthermore, you do not want to get into a situation where your designs are impossible to build, due to unconsidered technical constraints from an immature design concept. There is a compromise to be made. You need to have a well considered plan that can be used by you (or other people) to build your idea.

Many of todays software engineers use Agile techniques , where the software is built in close collaboration with users or client. The software development moves forward at a fast pace, and the outputs are rigorously and frequently tested. Yet, software engineers still need to get to a situation where they can start this building process. If you are the developer, you need to know what the end-product may look like, how users will interact with it, and how it should connect with other software. You need, at least, to create a vision document, which records the ideas that you have had, ideas that you have rejected (for whatever reasons) and ideas that you have explored in great detail. In fact, not only is it useful to record these ideas, but you will need to have elements of it down on paper, such to confirm the design idea to your client or supervisor .

Systematic planning of what to build, and thinking over the advantages and disadvantages of alternative design solutions is essential in many fields. Not only is design-thinking useful for software engineers, but it is beneficial when you design and prototype a new piece of hardware, using bread-boards or printed-circuit boards. It can be useful when you are looking to re-design a product, or look to adapt and improve existing products. We do acknowledge that throughout this book we focus on the creation of interactive software tools, and use the case study of building data-visualisation tools. However, we have tried to keep the techniques general enough such that this book would be useful for a wide range of people, with different challenges and different situations, and for different applications.

This book explores design by sketching and describes the Five Design-Sheet (FdS) methodology []. By following the methodology you will produce five sheets which develop designs from initial ideation through to a final concept. Sheet 1 provides a workflow to explore the idea space, where creativity can flow and where lots of different ideas are generated. Sheets 2, 3 and 4 develop these ideas further, while Sheet 5 is used to refine a implementable solution. It is through sketching that you will understand more about the issues, opportunities and challenges of the design task.

The book follows the general structure of the methodology, supported by additional material. In Part I Thinking, after a discussion and overview of the methodology we present aspects that you need to consider before tackling the FdS. Then Part II Preparation, and in Part III Sketching, where we present chapters that discuss each of the sheets (sheets 1 then 2, 3 and 4 together, followed by a chapter on sheet 5).

At the start of any project you need to have a vision ; a concept of where you are heading. In your mind you have an idea of what the tool you develop could look like in the end, and your imagination allows you to envision how it could fit in with other software and tools. Often at the start of any development, this vision is not concrete, it is approximate and abstract. But even a rough, approximate vision affords us many features. It allows us to extrapolate the ideas and work through any problems. It allows us to plan out different aspects of the programming task, which could be given to other people.

Many ideas start off small. Indeed back-of-an-envelope sketches are often the starting point to a new endeavour. These sketched ideas could be initiated by a brief encounter and discussion with someone over (say) a meal. In this situation your mind is free-wheeling, it is relaxing, you are talking about your day, your friends, sports, politics and how cool your new gadget is. It is during these times that you come up with an idea. You apply it to a problem that your subconscious mind has been working on in the background. This idea may actually be an amalgamation of many other ideas. It may be bringing together different concepts. Your brain merely puts different parts of those ideas into order. Sketching down these ideas, or anything that assists your thought process and brainstorming is important. Indeed, many designers suggest that you should have a pad of paper and a pen with you at all times, such that you can write down the ideas when you have them, on the spot. In fact, we highly support this form of sketching. It is timely and necessary, and these sketches can be developed further. We will talk further about where and how ideas are created in Chap. about Idea creation.