Thesis I (DES-796-07)

Slides (password: pratt)

• 8 Things I Know About Thesis
• Course Overview

In Class Activity

Questionaire

Assignment

Due: Next week / Submit

This week is all about Research!

Take some time to think about what inspires you and what excites you as a designer or maker. Find a few works, projects, or ideas that catch your attention and write a sentence or two about why they speak to you. Then, jot down a short reflection on any through-lines, patterns, themes, or questions you notice in these inspirations. Finally, make a simple sketch, diagram, or word map of an idea you might want to explore in your thesis.

We will discuss these next week.

Slides (password: pratt)

• How to co-create this thesis experience?
• Research through Design (RtD)
• Prototype as Inquiry

In Class Activity

• The Big Resource List
• Figjam: Brainstorming Prototype

Assignment

Due: Next week / Submit

This week is all about Prototyping!

Over the next 5 days, create 5 different simple prototypes for your project—sketches, diagrams, paper mock-ups, role-play, or any low-fidelity form. Make each one distinct. For each prototype, write a sentence or two about what it revealed, what worked, and what surprised you. Focus on exploration and discovery, not polish.

We’ll share and discuss these in the next session.

Slides (password: pratt)

• Discussion: Rapid Prototypes
• Workshop: When does making become research?

In Class Activity

• Figjam: Brainstorming Prototype

Assignment

Due: Next week / Submit

This week is all about Iterative Prototype!

This week, you will create a new set of prototypes that build on the insights, surprises, and questions from your first round. Over the next five days, produce another five prototypes that explore unresolved aspects, test assumptions, or extend your previous discoveries. Work with you buddy and try to think iteratively. For each prototype, write a brief note on what it revealed, what worked, and what unexpected insights emerged. Let it informs the next one. Focus on iterative exploration and knowledge generation.

Slides (password: pratt)

• Workshop: Mapping Axes
• Finding Research Questions

In Class Activity

• Figjam: Mapping Axes

Assignment

Due: Next week. Print them out!

Crit 1: Research Question!

This week, you will synthesize your prototype mappings and prior research to formulate a clear, focused research question. This question should highlight 1–3 possible directions your research question could take for the next five weeks of iteration. (iteration 2)

• Synthesize your prototype mappings and prior research to formulate a clear, focused research question.
• Reflect on both successes and challenges, including prototypes that worked, those that didn’t, and insights gained from each.
• Highlight 1–3 potential directions your research question could take over the next five weeks of iteration.
• Use the “riddle” exercise to reflect on the trajectory of your research: what you’ve explored, discovered, and learned.
• Emphasize how your prototypes and insights inform and shape the research question you are developing.
• Each person will have 7 minutes to present and 7 minutes to receive feedback.
• Print out your materials and bring them to class.
  
  

Slides (password: pratt)

• Crit 1
• Workshop: The Extremes

Assignment

Due: Next week

This week is all about Form!

Use the extremes you have explored as a means to generate forms for your research question. Based on this exploration, identify 3 possibilities for the final form of your project, considering both conceptual and practical implications.

If you encounter uncertainty or difficulty in determining these forms, consult your initial prototypes or revisit the mapping axis exercise, as these tools can provide valuable guidance and help clarify your design direction.

Your project can take in the shape of any of these:

• as a material form (object, installation, print, etc.),
• as a digital/interactive form (website, code sketch, AR/VR, animation, etc.),
• as a social or performative form (workshop, performance, collective action, event).

If you wish, you can also generate one idea for each of these concepts. We will have an 1-on-1 session next week.

Slides (password: pratt)

• Tooling
• Workshop: Environment Setup
• Discussion: Medium

Assignment

Due: Next week

This week is all about Medium!

Medium is the message. How does the choice of platform, tool, or environment shape your project? From the three possible forms you discussed, choose one direction and begin prototyping it as a way to test your ideas. Keep it small and sketch-like: the aim is to learn, not to polish. As you work, try pushing into one of four medium tracks—Generative & Poetic Algorithms , Web & Interactive Experiences, Fabrication & Installation or Embodied & Mixed Realities or more.

Bring your prototype and a short reflection on what the medium revealed about your concept to share next week. For each prototype/medium you’ve tested, list out all the affordances of it and what it can offer you.

Environment Setup

• Github
• VSCode
• Github Desktop
• Github Student Pack
• Github Copilot

Resources

• Awesome Creative Coding
• Creative Coding Minilist
• The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan

Slides (password: pratt)

• Resources

Assignment

Due: Next week / Print Them Out!

This week is all about Medium!

This week, choose one of the three directions you discussed and begin developing it using a specific medium.

Build a more refined prototype that shows how the medium shapes your concept. Then write a short reflection on what the process revealed. Use the riddle exercise if you feel lost. What the medium offered, what it limited, and how it influenced your idea? Bring both your prototype and reflection to class next week.

Write a few passage accompany your design:

• Consider how your chosen medium differs from the work of others exploring similar ideas.
• Identify ways to expand, distinguish, and differentiate your contribution.
• Determine the form your argument or idea takes, and if designing an artifact, clarify what it could be and why.
• Describe how your idea translates into a tangible design artifact.

Resources

• Pratt Pfizer Research Resource

Slides (password: pratt)

• Cybernetics

Assignment

Due: Next week

This week is all about Feedback!

Move beyond simply receiving critique. Make feedback itself your design material. Choose a work-in-progress and stage a user test that invites real participants to engage, react, and intervene. Don’t just observe: design the protocol of interaction. Decide how feedback will be elicited, recorded, and re-entered into the work. How do users know what kind of response is desired? What affordances, instructions, or provocations shape what they give back?

Write a few passage accompany your design:

Your prototype this week should embody feedback as a participatory system. Design a way for others to intervene through annotation, participation, response, or interpretation. Document the process and outcomes: what surfaced that you couldn’t predict? How did your role shift between designer, facilitator, and participant?

Your goal is not only to collect reactions, but to design the conditions under which feedback becomes meaningful, situated, and reciprocal.