Prototyping and Brainstorming was the theme of this week's readings and lectures. In Piantella's lectures, she gives us a few steps to think about when approaching our design methods and how they will influence the overall process of creating the product for this project. She points out that is important to ask yourself questions, incorporate them into your methods, and gather feedback from your audience through those methods.
When prototyping it is likely that you may design and redesign the model based on the information you gather. Here are some methods of prototyping that Piantella pointed out in her lecture:
Materials Exploration
Paper Prototyping
Digital Mock-ups
Models
Physical Prototypes
Wizard of Oz
I believe I will most likely go the route of paper prototyping and materials exploration as I believe that is where my strength lies. With Paper prototyping, as Piantella has mentioned, there really isn't anything you can't build out of paper which is what makes it so versatile and simple to work with. In the second lecture, I appreciated the slides that included a quick activity to help push you along if you get stuck or frustrated on a project. Most of the time, for me, it would be because I would become stuck in my head. I believe it will be a great way to not only trust your own process but value the feedback of your peers as well. Sometimes a design might be great in our eyes but having someone else look it over may help to improve it further.