The Solution Prototype (SP1) project results in a digital description & mock up to be featured in the screencast video (for the Solution Proposal project) that presents your team's proposed solution to a design problem. The SP1 is challenging because it requires document design, content preparation (framing your solution for discussion), mock up design, and use of technology that is likely new to you.
SP1 is the 3rd assignment in the project set that includes the Team Statement, Problem Statement, Solution Prototype, & Solution Proposal. These projects are linked by team & topic. Once your design team chooses a focus for the Proposal project, that problem becomes the common ground for all 4 projects for your team. If your team has not yet selected a focus, review the Project Pathways & Knowledge Building section of this description as a team, & choose the problem that best fits your team's collective abilities & interests.
This project requires 2 submissions (Version 1, Version 2). These submissions include the following documents:
For the full list of core and supporting documents/files, & specifications, refer to Submission Requirements.
The Prototype component of your Solution project set focuses on the development of an information design product (e.g., app, website, other appropriate genre) that could serve as part of the full proposed set of strategies for investigating and addressing the core problem(s) in your chosen challenge scenario. Your task is not to design a solution to the whole problem. Wicked problems (that is, problems with a high degree of complexity) require strategic, system approaches to developing solutions. Both of the challenge scenarios are beyond the scope of a single semester to resolve. Rather, your goal for this assignment set is to propose pathways by which your design team could contribute to addressing the problem(s) using your developing professional knowledge.
I assume that this project set will challenge you beyond your current knowledge & abilities. I assume that you will need to explore (likely by several pathways) knowledge that will help you understand the general complexity & the specific details of the challenge scenario you chose to work on. That is, when you encounter concepts, language, contexts, & details that you lack comprehensive knowledge of, you'll need to use the tools & services available to you to conduct research into those things. You'll need to conduct internet searches for relevant information (e.g., definitions, articles, web content, sample apps & other information products). You'll need to integrate smart tools into your research & design processes.
However, regardless of the tools you implement into your work, you must serve in the role of the human information designer during this assignment set. That is, you must guide the tools in search of the knowledge & strategies you need. You must assess the quality & plausibility of the ideas that result. You must choose which ideas to investigate further, incorporate into your design vision, and then develop & explain to your audience members & stakeholders. Your team is the final arbiter of design decisions, & the voice that presents your proposed solutions. This is bricolage in action. For more about that concept, keep reading. Although you may have read this passage before, it will continue to become richer in meaning as this project series unfolds.
Every assignment in this project series links to the whole design endeavor that confronts you. With that in mind, it is timely to discuss the notion of design bricolage in the context of content strategy & creation.
The terms bricolage & bricoleur emerged from architecture connected with the practice of harnessing the knowledge & abilities of available personnel to design architectural solutions for problems using the materials & equipment on hand. In other words, bricolage is about design enacted only with the tools, resources, & expertise to which you already have access. A bricoleur is a designer capable of such adaptation. Bricolage is a particularly appropriate design mindset for technical communication & information design, given the impact that immediate context has on the design decisions that lead to effective solutions.
For our purposes in this course, bricolage is your perpetual state of design. That is, you only know what you have learned so far during your studies & experiences, & the palette of tools you have available at any given moment is often limited either by their availability or by your level of ability to produce a professional solution with the available tools. The one element of the project you can control is your own level of investment & dedication to the tasks ahead of you. Thus, you are limited in this project series mainly by your current level of professional development & your degree of willingness to invest in learning what you need to learn on the fly to proceed with a professional information design solution for the problem you choose to engage.
Your team must choose one of the scenarios described below as a focus for its work throughout this project series. The scenarios provide framing & context, but your team determines what it judges to be an appropriate strategy for addressing the problem. Neither of the scenarios or organizations in them are real, although all elements of these scenarios are plausible & realistic.
The Community Farm. Food Is Life, a local nonprofit organization with a history of working to counter the City of Saginaw's federal designation as a food desert, has been gifted with a warehouse on a plot of land.
After much debate, Food Is Life decided to transform the site into a community farm. They envision using 3 of the 4 inner floors as a year-round hydroponic farm that grows vegetables & raises sustainable livestock (e.g., chickens), with the last floor serving several connected purposes: storing & managing produce; housing a kitchen classroom that serves meals to needy citizens & provides a space for teaching nutrition, food preparation, and so on. Food Is Life will establish a rooftop garden for crops that are difficult to grow indoors, & reclaim half of the site's green & brown spaces as community gardens that can be rented to individual citizens as family garden plots.
Food Is Life reached out to your design team to seek assistance in developing appropriate information solutions to support this project.
The SVSU Office for Community Connection (OCC). SVSU prides itself on community connection, work that resulted in the university earning the Carnegie Foundation's Community Engagement classification in 2015. The SVSU OCC serves the university by working to maintain the level of service activity necessary to maintain that designation.
One of the biggest challenges for the SVSU OCC is managing communication. Community organizations who are interested in seeking assistance are not always certain who to contact or what kind of activities are appropriate for SVSU participation. Students, faculty, & staff are not always made aware in a timely manner of the organizations seeking assistance or of the kinds of opportunities for service learning & public intellectualism that are available to them. SVSU also struggles to develop appropriate mechanisms for celebrating individual contributions & achievements of people who participate & who want a way of sharing such work with prospective employers or other interested audiences. The university has considered a special designation for diplomas, a badging, system, and more, but remains uncertain about how to proceed.
The SVSU OCC reached out to your design team to seek assistance in developing appropriate information solutions to support the OCC's work.
Deliverables: memo, prototype
Document scope: 150 words (memo), variable (prototype, refer to the description below for details)
Project value: 150 points (50 points for V1, 100 points for V2)
Evaluation rubric: _Eval_SolutionPrototype.pdf
Recommended tool(s): Figma (prototype); Microsoft Word (memo); OpenAI ChatGPT (research support)
The SP1 project results in a prototype information design that could serve as part of the solution you propose for addressing the challenge scenario your team has chosen to work on. Solutions to both scenarios could include an app for smart phones, a website, or a similar digital document. As your team develops a plan for addressing the problems at the heart its chosen scenario, you'll decide what prototype seems appropriate & plausible within the scope of the project cycle. You'll then develop a prototype using Figma.
Create a research document that is shared with everyone from your design team. Use that doc to gather all of the knowledge that you accumulate through your work for the project series.
The description for the Solution Proposal project directs you to conduct a Vision Cone analysis. Panels 4 & 5 emphasize the steps/stages & strategies that might result in the kind of change that is needed to address the core problem(s) in the challenge scenario. As you work out the details of that pathway to change, identify an appropriate element of the solution that could be addressed through the creation of an app, website, a podcast, a video/video series, social media campaign. Any such information product must be developed to address a specific part of the problem.
Build off of the narrowing of focus from the Vision Cone analysis to set specific goals for your team's information product. Construct a list of all of the ways that an app could serve in the context of the challenge scenario. Do the same for ways that a website could contribute effectively. What other media products might apply, and in what ways? Then identify a subset of goals for the information design that your team will develop into a prototype.
Craft a design statement that follows this pattern:
Seek design standards for your information product. Use phrases such as design standard, design heuristic, and usability standard coupled with terms for your prototype (e.g., app, website, podcast, video, video series, social media campaign) to focus on your design needs.
Design your project prototype using Figma. Because each team will likely choose to create a different kind of prototype, I cannot establish one universal set of design standards for all teams to follow. However, the research you conduct will gather recommended design criteria for your specific category of design.
Use these general guidelines to help you determine scope for your prototype.
Hint. The choices you make along the way as work on the the project unfolds will determine the specifics. You'll have the opportunity to explain your design decisions during the Proposal screencast.
Examples. An app might feature screens for the title + overview, log in, completing specific tasks, learning specific knowledge, and so on. A social media campaign might feature entries in that campaign. The media platform would determine what those entries look like: static screens for Facebook, videos for TikTok or Instagram.
Your project submissions will be accompanied by memos of transmittal. That category of memo introduces the document it accompanies, providing context for its audience(s). Your memo should be addressed from you to me.
Your memo for Version 1 of your Solution Prototype should incorporate the following content and design elements.
Consult the sample documents (refer to SVSU Canvas Files: Project Support) for additional guidance.
Your memo for Version 2 of your Solution Prototype should incorporate the following content and design elements.
Consult the sample documents (refer to SVSU Canvas Files: Project Support) for additional guidance.
This section is designed to help you anticipate and avoid problems as you work on this project. Therefore, as you work, consider the following hints and tips.
Approach this assignment & the whole project series like a design bricoleur. Harness your collective energy, creativity, & knowledge. If you encounter a word, concept, tool, or anything else that you cannot confidently & accurately understand, seek knowledge. You have an incredible array of tools & services available to you for gathering new knowledge: the SVSU library; professional social media platforms; peers & colleagues; internet-based research tools. Adapt & overcome. Become a resilient, self-reliant, strategic information designer.
Whatever information design you choose to develop (e.g., app, website), research what it means to create an effective, useful, usable version of that thing. Seek knowledge using the tools highlighted in the description above. Locate heuristics for evaluating designs. Review published tools from app stores and the internet that pursue similar goals. Identify what makes them effective or ineffective. Apply that knowledge during your own developmental work.
Remember that writing in professional & technical contexts values highly the ability to write and speak with economy, directness, and professionalism. Another way of saying this is to make every word count. Stay focused on the details necessary to communicate effectively with your audience(s). Write and rewrite until your textual content makes sense and represents careful, concise, professional communication.
Consider what it means to establish a strong, consistent sense of professionalism & attention to detail visually and structurally (organizationally) with your design choices. Professional designers use words such as clean, logical, and orderly to describe document designs they appreciate & respect.
If you want to explore the opposite of these design values, feel free to do so. Make an alternate version of your profile document where you make unprofessional font, color, and design choices. Create something ugly so you might better appreciate professionalism in visual design. Just be sure you don't accidentally turn in that version as your project submission.
Edit carefully, seeking to express your ideas clearly and concisely. Edit out loud with the intent of writing in such a manner that your written content sounds professional and focused. Work to meet the design specs. Scrutinize your work so it is consistent, professional, and of good quality. Refine your document continuously as you work.
Read and attend carefully to these submission guidelines. Failure to do so may result in points lost on the final evaluation of your project.
Create a folder for this project inside your shared class folder on Dropbox.com. Remember, I can only view files that you place inside that folder. Until you place files in that space, you have not in practice submitted them.
Name the folder Solution Prototype.
Make sure the files listed below are available to me in the project folder by the submission deadline. Model your filenames on the listed examples:
Note. Do not share the individual files or project folder with me. By placing the project files in the project folder, and by placing the project folder inside your class folder, you have already shared them by default.
Make sure the files listed below are available to me in the project folder by the submission deadline. Model your filenames on the listed examples:
Note. Do not share the individual files or project folder with me. By placing the project files in the project folder, and by placing the project folder inside your class folder, you have already shared them by default.
This section describes the standards by which the Version 1.0 & Version 2.0 submissions will be evaluated.
There are 50 possible points for the prototype stage of this project. You will earn points according to the following standard.
The final project submission (Version 2.0) is worth 100 possible points. You will earn points according to the standard described on the policies page (see Policies for a description of these categories).
The specific areas of emphasis for the SP1 project are drawn from this description and our discussions of the project (including the supporting teaching materials that I provide to you along the way). Review the project rubric (_Eval_SolutionPrototype.pdf) for the specific qualities and characteristics emphasized in each evaluation category.
Remember that I will only post the point values for projects on the Grades page in SVSU Canvas. I will provide the supporting details relevant to that evaluation in your class folder in a project-specific file. Look for a Microsoft Word file in your shared class space on Dropbox with a filename that that follows this pattern:
TeamName_Eval_SolutionPrototype.docx.
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