Abstract
In this paper, we will present the results of challenging students into designing impossible artifacts using quick and dirty prototyping. We have worked during 2017 and 2018 school years with three different groups of students of the Industrial Design undergraduate program. The challenge was to imagine how living would be in a house in the year 2050. Results show that imagining living in a near future triggers imagination of impossible scenarios. Also, working with a limited time to complete the challenge using quick and dirty prototyping allows the students to think less and skip the early phases of the design process, eagerly engaging to the ideation phase while they are also discussing with teammates different possibilities. Thus, quick and dirty prototyping is seen in this paper as a thinking tool, fostering creativity and promoting dialogue between students. The more uncertain the challenge becomes, as the year 2050 could be, the more dialogue teammates will need to complete it. Therefore, impossible design activities should aim to bring uncertainty in challenges that could be addressed using quick and dirty prototyping to foster hands-on thinking and creativity in students, while learning about the design process.
Keywords
quick and dirty prototyping, impossible design, border thinking, creativity
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.14026
Citation
Gómez, G.,and Lopez-Leon, R.(2019) Impossible Design: fostering creativity by quick and dirty prototyping, in Börekçi, N., Koçyıldırım, D., Korkut, F. and Jones, D. (eds.), Insider Knowledge, DRS Learn X Design Conference 2019, 9-12 July, Ankara, Turkey. https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.14026
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Impossible Design: fostering creativity by quick and dirty prototyping
In this paper, we will present the results of challenging students into designing impossible artifacts using quick and dirty prototyping. We have worked during 2017 and 2018 school years with three different groups of students of the Industrial Design undergraduate program. The challenge was to imagine how living would be in a house in the year 2050. Results show that imagining living in a near future triggers imagination of impossible scenarios. Also, working with a limited time to complete the challenge using quick and dirty prototyping allows the students to think less and skip the early phases of the design process, eagerly engaging to the ideation phase while they are also discussing with teammates different possibilities. Thus, quick and dirty prototyping is seen in this paper as a thinking tool, fostering creativity and promoting dialogue between students. The more uncertain the challenge becomes, as the year 2050 could be, the more dialogue teammates will need to complete it. Therefore, impossible design activities should aim to bring uncertainty in challenges that could be addressed using quick and dirty prototyping to foster hands-on thinking and creativity in students, while learning about the design process.