Footholds for Design

1
Footholds for Design

• Shahaf Gal

2
Main Ideas

• Ray and his bridge
• String, different types of wood, glue, 3 weeks
• The process of design
• Experiments, revision, reflection
• How tools should interact with people
• Growltiger
• spreadsheets

3
Ray the top-down designer

• Goes to the library
• Reads some books
• Watches some movies
• Draws some bridges
• Evaluates his final designs and they dont work!

4
Another Approach

• Reflection
• Ray prepares 6 designs for a bridge
• Uses growltiger to reflect on his design
• Eliminates 4 designs
• Experiments
• Lab experiments
• Tests materials strength

5

• Revision
• Finalized overall design
• Added some final pieces
• Took 4th place

6
Rays use of software

• Growltiger helps Ray form a conceptual framework
• Image foothold
• Allows for reflection

7
The spreadsheet(why is it so useful)

• Representation
• Interactive Modification
• Incremental Programming

8
Things to think about

• How should software tools interact with people?
• Does Rays design process translate to software?
• Is Dr. Turner going to relate this back to Herb
  Simon?