WEEK 12 | Reflection

(Image from https://www.infographicdesignteam.com/blog/important-elements-include-infographic/)

The last week of class, we were asked to look back to what we did in the prototype process and reflect on the experience. At the beginning of this course, I was quite worried about coding and the process of come up new idea, since I am not really creative and good at coding. During the prototyping process, I think I could spend more time to observe my surrounding or neighbourhood, to get inspiration. I could even ask people around, what aspect of their life they want to improve, instead of just base on my own experience. It would give me more creative idea that suit different individuals. For developing the prototype, I think I spent too much time to worry about what I could show others and the appearance, instead of focus the interactions. Sometimes, people did understand my concept, but they don't really interact with the prototype, which make them difficult to give constructive feedback. Also, I was so conscious about people's opinion on my works and judgement. I should be change my mindset and learn to accept people's opinion. For the actual prototype, I should have spend more time to develop a more complex code and design, so I could have more aspect to test on.

My perspective on prototyping has change. From experiences in other DECO courses, I thought prototype is redundant and time consuming. I was surprised how prototype can be in many different forms. It not only in physical forms (paper, Lego), but also in complex code forms. Prototype is really important when it comes to design and development. The testing allow designer to build a better design and keep modify until the product is satisfied. Prototype testing doesn't require a huge social installation to test, rather, it can be a simple, small scale test. But the results can still be effective and useful on the development. I think the course could involve more team work or team-oriented tasks to enhance our skills in team working and communication, which is essential to real world design team. Also, work as a team to come up with an idea and complete a product is much interesting and satisfying.