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IDC LAB: COOPERATIVEPUIC 3101 IDP 7539

Spring 2013

Parsons The New School for Design

School of Design Strategies

Integrated Design Program

CHALLENGE 1:An Explorative Tool(learning how to see,

listen, observe, provoke, gather)

Deliverables: 1) concept prototype 2)

testing/response 3) two critical questions

Objective: Design an object, service, orsystem that facilitates the exploration of

someone elses experience with their help.

Your design should enable three aspects of

communication / knowledge exchange:

articulation, observation, and recognition.

This challenge is intended to facilitate a broad conversation in our class about the nature of

exploration, discovery, and understanding and to challenge our assumptions about these

endeavors in our design practices. How do we come to know things about other people, unfamiliar

contexts, or new situations? How much can we expect to truly know about experiences outside ofour own? How does what we observe differ from what we understand? What constitutes

exploration (for instance, is making a form of exploration)? What encourages or discourages

discovery? What role do others play in shaping our explorations, discoveries, and understanding?

Your goal in this challenge is to engage with these questions, and/or those of your own, through

making an object, service, system, interaction, or intervention that facilitates the exploration of

someone elses experience and promotes shared understanding. This explorative tool should

seek to enable the articulation, observation, and recognition of new knowledge between two or

more people (one of whom could be you). You will begin by developing a concept for your tool and

a scenario of its use with others. Then you will create and test a prototype and document and

reflect on its use by shaping two critical questions to present in class. The insights and questions

developed in this challenge could serve as the basis for your work in the following challenges.

Exploring, listening, observing, provoking, and gathering are fundamental to design processes of

all sorts, and they take on additional significance in collaborative design processes and in the

design of collaborative systems. Your projects are expected to show a critical engagement with

these issues. You are encouraged to work with materials, concepts, and skills that are interesting

and compelling to you. Your design might seek to solve forexploration, discovery, and

understanding as design problems, or it could also primarily pose questions, reveal problems, or

suggest possibilities about these activities through its use or documentation. Any or all of these are

welcomed outcomes for this challenge.

DEADLINES: Feb 7 [Week 2]:

Task A

Cooperative

Process Example

Feb 14 [Week 3]:

Task B

Tool Concept and

Scenario of Use

Feb 21 [Week 4]:

Task C

Prototyping and

Critical Questions

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CHALLENGE SCEHDULE:

Jan 31

[Week 1]

Introductions to course and

to each other, collaborative

process examples, my

cooperative life

CHALLENGE 1 Task A:

Identify an example (case study) of a collaborative

process. Create a PDF (tabloid-sized, landscape)

including the name of your collaborative process, at least

one representative image, and a short description of its

participants, structures, and outcomes. Email me your

document and print it out for review in class.

READ:

Action Research and Change, by David Gray, p. 373-393

Feb 7

[Week 2]

Discuss reading, introduce

CHALLENGE 1, expert

insight presentation,

Sections Meet Together:55 West 13

thRoom 304

CHALLENGE 1 Task B:

Create a visual and/or text-based scenario representing

the use of your explorative tool. Be prepared to answer

these questions about it: Whos exploring? Whose

experience is being explored? What is the context? Whatis happening and how?

Feb 14

[Week 3]

Review collaborative

process examples, studio

time

CHALLENGE 1 Task C:

Build a prototype of your tool based on your scenario and

document deployment. Prepare for review, including

presenting your concept, prototype, testing/response and

2 critical questions.

Feb 21

[Week 4]

REVIEW CHALLENGE 1,

skill workshop, introduce

collaborative tool examples

CHALLENGE 2 Task A:

Identify an example (case study) of a collaborative tool.

Create a PDF (tabloid-sized, landscape) including the

name of your collaborative tool, at least one

representative image, and a short description of its users,

usage, and outcomes. Email me your document and print

it out for review next class.

READ: Creative Collaborations, by Marc Downie, et al.