Idea Visualization: sketch vs. prototype

So far in all my class­es, pro­fes­sors have con­stant­ly said things like “just idea viz it up!” My inter­nal response was always some­thing like, “what the hell does that even mean?!”

So, here it is – my first group attempt at real­ly idea vizzing it up!

In class at 8:00 this morn­ing, we were dis­cussing the dif­fer­ence between sketch­ing and pro­to­typ­ing and when we use both skills as design man­agers. Most visu­als involv­ing diver­gent and con­ver­gent think­ing use the metaphor of a fun­nel, so our group was try­ing to stay away from that as much as pos­si­ble.

I ini­tial­ly had the thought of some­thing grow­ing out­ward like a tree, where each sketch builds upon the last, and then we start­ed think­ing about the roots. Our group decid­ed to use the metaphor of the growth of a flower. In this metaphor, unlike a fun­nel, the diver­gent think­ing (or sketch­ing) sup­ports the pro­to­type after the con­ver­gence of ideas, just as the roots are cru­cial in sup­port­ing a plant.

It’s not bad for a first real attempt. I still am not com­fort­able being the one actu­al­ly draw­ing up on the board, so I only con­tributed words and thoughts to this one. I’ll force myself to do it next time, after I do 100 more prac­tice sketch­es for home­work!