Milestone 1 Report

Due: Monday, October 7, 3:00pm

This assignment is a component of Milestone 1. Be sure you have reviewed that larger context for this assignment.

The goal of this report is to summarize and communicate your development of a project proposal in Milestone 1.

You are free to directly reuse content produced for earlier assignments in this milestone. However, you should revise content as needed to ensure your milestone report reflects your current work. Similarly, we expect that feedback received throughout this milestone will have been addressed or implemented in this report.

Milestone 1 has focused on finding your design direction through a process of developing multiple proposals, receiving critique on each of them, integrating that critique to prepare a final proposal, and doing initial ideation to inform your upcoming design research. In this milestone report, aim to communicate how you came to your design direction and why it is compelling to pursue.

This report should have three sections:

1. Initial Proposals

   Share each of your three initial proposals, as originally submitted in Assignment 1.2. For each proposal, share key critique you received and your own evolving insight into what was or was not compelling to pursue in the proposal.

   Reflect on how the set of initial proposals informed your final proposal. For example:

   • How did you decide what direction to pursue in your final proposal?
   • What aspects of your initial proposals did you decide to keep, what did you decide to discard or revise?
   • What has most informed your decisions?

2. Final Proposal

   Share the current version of your final proposal. If your focus or understanding has evolved since submitting Assignment 1.3, the final proposal in your milestone report should also be updated accordingly.

   Include the following information, as you did in Assignment 1.3:

   • Describe the design problem and motivation. State what the problem is and why it is a problem, or describe an opportunity to enhance an existing practice or approach. Provide enough detail to convince a reader this is a difficult and interesting problem, worth spending a quarter considering.

   • Analyze the idea to give more background and context to convey how your project might evolve to be compelling. Do not just focus on negative aspects of the current situation, but also identify some positive aspects that may be beneficial to retain. A few salient examples from existing systems or practices could be used to support those claims. If appropriate, you may conduct this analysis by describing a scenario that illustrates how someone might encounter and resolve the problem.

     If there are already well-known and widely-available solutions to your idea, explain how these existing solutions fall short or suggest how you may explore a different approach.

3. Design Directions

   Across 2 slides, share 6 to 10 of your top design ideas. These could be from Assignment 1.4, or can be other ideas that have developed in your continued design ideation. On each slide, provide a few specific insights into why these ideas are potentially compelling to explore (e.g., how they could complement each other, how they could introduce interesting tradeoffs, how they could suggest new opportunities).

   Assignment 1.4 asked you to begin thinking about your upcoming design research, considering three dimensions of how you might go about learning more to inform your design:

   • People: types of people you might work with to learn more about problems and opportunities.
   • Focus: specific aspects of problems and opportunities you might focus on learning more about.
   • Method: how you might engage such people to learn more about problems and opportunities.

   Briefly address each of these, providing initial proposals for one to two specific directions, examples, or approaches to consider as you begin to plan your design research.

Submission

Due: Monday, October 7, 3:00pm

Within the Drive folder for course project files:

• Identify the Slides deck corresponding to this assignment for your group. The deck provides a template for this assignment. Edit the deck in-place, so that you can easily share it in critique.

• Prepare a Slides deck with the following structure:

  Initial Proposals

  • For each proposal from Assignment 1.2 (3 total):
    • 1/2 slide: Description of the proposal.
    • 1/2 slide: Synthesis of critique and reflection on this proposal.
  • 1 slide: Reflection on how these proposals informed your final proposal.

  Final Proposal

  • 1 slide: Description of the proposal.
  • 1 slide: Analysis, background, or context for this proposal.

  Design Directions

  • Across 2 slides: 6 to 10 of your top design ideas, with brief insights into why they are potentially compelling to explore.
  • 1 slide: Initial proposals for design research people, focus, and method.

Reminders and requirements:

• Submission via Canvas is also required, in support of grading.

  • Remove instruction slides and template markings from your deck before submission.

  • Export a PDF of your deck, via the menu: File -> Download -> PDF Document (.pdf).

• This is a group submission. Ensure your section and names of all group participants are appropriately clear.

• All group members must submit an individual Contribution Statement for this Milestone.

The Drive folder for course project files is here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Sm12CpuMNsKBqk6E_Ri875hfFs0A-IRS?usp=drive_link

Submit via Canvas here:

Grading

This milestone report will be graded on a scale of 20 points:

1. Initial Proposals and Critique: (3 x 1 point)

   Share each proposal, with appropriate summary of and reflection on critique of that proposal.

2. Reflection on Initial Proposals: (2 point)

   Provide meaningful insight into rationale for pursuing your final proposal, including your decisions and what informed those decisions.

3. Final Proposal - Problem and Motivation: (4 points)

   Provide enough detail to convince the reader that this is a difficult and interesting problem, worth spending a quarter considering.

4. Final Proposal - Analysis of Problem: (4 points)

   Give enough background and context to convey how your project might evolve to be compelling.

5. Novelty and Creativity: (2 points)

   If there are already well-known and widely-available solutions to your proposed idea, explain how these existing solutions fall short or suggest how you may explore a different approach.

6. Design Ideation: (2 points)

   Present a set of your top design ideas and a few specific insights into why these ideas are potentially compelling to explore.

7. Directions for Design Research: (1 point)

   Provide meaningful ideas for people, focus, and method to consider in design research.

8. Clarity and Presentation: (2 points)