Pre-reflection: Theme 5.1: Design research

1. How can media technologies be evaluated?

When you evaluate an object you want to explore the value of the object. When you evaluate media technologies you want to explore if it do what you want it to do, how good it is at doing this and if it’s easy to use. Mostly you let users test the product to evaluate these things. For example by letting them test a prototype or a almost finished artifact. Since media technologies is technologies and methods that support human communication over distances in time and space. There is often a person involved in the use of the technology. It’s mostly a good idea to bring in a person that’s not familiar with the product that can try it so you can detect problems with it.

2. What role will prototypes play in research?

When it comes to media technology reserch I think that prototypes is important, since developing a total system for research isn’t time effective and is often not necessary. To just test a system or technology you can often get a good result even if you are staging somethings like in the article "Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration" (by Réhman, S., Sun, J., Liu, L., & Li, H) where the system don't do video analysis live, instead they manually programmed the vibro tactile signals according to a football game. Another time saving and money saving point with a prototype is that it doesn’t need to look as polished as a commercial product.

3. Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?

A proof of concept prototype is a only meant to prove the feasibility of a concept. It is meant to test an idea and to show that it can be realised. A proof of concept prototype could be necessary when you want to see if it is something is worth continue to develop. Another reason to develop a proof of concept is to present an idea to other people and show that it can be realised..

4. What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?

A prototype is a simple model of a product that is developed to test a concept or idea. A prototype is not a final product where all parts works like they should. They are usually developed to test some part of the intended design like form and/or functionality. Prototypes are also used to show a concept or idea to other people. They are often produced with a different material or method than the finished product. Prototypes is often developed fast and at a low cost, this means that you have to focus on the parts that you want to test or present and this may be seen as a limitation.

5. How can design research be communicated/presented?

Design research could be presented with a prototype or a video that show the concept of the artifact and how it’s thought to function even it it’s not developed. Design research is often a process and when the design research should be communicated it could be good to show the whole process. It’s during the process that you make the decisions that leads to the final design and these are important to document and present at the end to explain the final product.