assignments

Assignment 5

Snooping

Part 1: deadline 16.2.11 You will be given an envelope with a code. Gather receipts for one week for all the shopping you buy. Code them with the number on the envelope. Cross out any items you don’t wish anyone else to see:

Part 2: On Wednesday 16.2.11 you will hand the envelope in and it will be given anonymously to someone else in the group who will try and make sense of the data through analysis.

Part 3: 23.2.11 You will interview (and be interviewed) by your no longer anonymous partner. Prepare two slides which visually tells the story of your initial analysis and your subsequent analysis following your interview.

Part 4: 9.3.11 Tell the story of your data in a slide.

Upload either a jpeg or png readable at 72dpi 1024 x 760 into the SID dropbox. If you have made a video, upload it to youtube or vimeo and post a link in the comments box on your last assignment  by 5am on 9.3.11.

I am available in my office from 2pm – 4pm Wednesday 2nd March if you have any questions or want to discuss ideas.

Assignment 4

Read up on visual storyboarding using these resources as a starting point:

• Storyboarding 101: Turning Concepts in to Visual Forms (rather text-heavy – ironically – but the section on “Storyboard Directions for Classroom Use” is useful)
• The Value of Storyboarding in the Product Design Process (a review of a journal article that looks at how storyboarding, a technique borrowed from film and television, is also being used in the design process. Contains pictures!)

You may also find this book interesting: Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You

This book looks at how our behaviour and tastes are reflected in the things we own and the way we organise them. It is available on Amazon for less than £5: http://amzn.to/eWBc5M. It gives you some ideas about how to turn qualitative data into something you can measure.

Assignment 3

For 9th Feb: Your presentations from 02.02.11 have been posted under assignments. Please leave as much feedback as you can in the comments sections using the feedback guidelines and ask each other to share resources (useful tips, sites, software, books) with each other by posting comments in the shared stuff

Assignment 2

Create one slide to present in class on 02.02.11

You will have uncovered some insights when plotting sleep data in a variety of diagrams. Select one diagram and create one .PPT slide which tells the story in a clear and concise manner. You can add other images to it but keep it as simple and text free as possible: you will have up to 2 minutes to verbally explain. If you are using video, link it to the .PPT file in dropbox. Any images should be 72dpi.

Put the slide in the assignment 2 folder on dropbox before 5.00am on Wednesday 02.02.11

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Assignment 1

For your first assignment we want you to collect data on your sleep for the coming week.

How you collect this, and what type of data you collect, is up to you. However you might find it most useful to think about the different types of information you could collect, and then see what is feasible. Getting more data than you end up using is better than getting too little.

Tips:

• With any data gathering exercise it is a good idea to try to understand the thing you are collecting data about. Finding out about sleep would be a good place to start.
• If you have an iPhone, the app “Sleep Cycle” might be useful (there are similar apps available for most smartphone platforms) but you are not disadvantaged by not having access to such software or devices.
• Think how you will record the data in a way that is easily accessible, easy to use, and understandable to other people (it is not always the gatherer who interprets it).
• Don’t bother doing diagrams at this stage, unless it helps you to record the data.
• Think about quantitative and qualitative data. Is it numbers, sentences, video,  photos, sound? (But think about feasibility. If you collect a week’s worth of 8-hour sleeps on video that is 56 hours of video. What will you do with it?)
• It might be a good idea to work in a group to brainstorm the different aspects of sleep and possible data you could gather. You may also want to meet up during the week to discuss what you’re getting.
• Don’t try to interpret the data yet.

Deadline

Bring your data to the session on 26th Jan January, along with markers, notebooks etc.