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Textbook Five Design Sheets Creative Design and Sketching For Computing and Visualisation 1St Edition Jonathan C Roberts Ebook All Chapter PDF
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Jonathan C. Roberts
Christopher J. Headleand
Panagiotis D. Ritsos
Five Design-Sheets:
Creative Design
and Sketching
for Computing
and Visualisation
Five Design-Sheets: Creative Design and Sketching
for Computing and Visualisation
Jonathan C. Roberts • Christopher J. Headleand
Panagiotis D. Ritsos
123
Jonathan C. Roberts Christopher J. Headleand
Bangor University University of Lincoln
Bangor, UK Lincoln, UK
Panagiotis D. Ritsos
Bangor University
Bangor, UK
One of the many challenges that programmers face is knowing how to start, when
setting out to solve a computing problem. For instance, when we give our computing
students programming assignments, many of them leave the development of their
code until the last minute, just because they do not know how or where to start.
Starting a project, or a programming assessment, is often the hardest part to the
problem. When we (the authors) are faced with problems ourselves, whether for
work or at home, we have often found ourselves reaching for sheets of paper to
make sketches, draw a rough plan and take some notes down. The very act of putting
pen to paper helps us think through the problem in a deeper way. It is these initial
sketches, done on a back of an envelope (so to speak), that help us get our creative
juices starting; they help us to quickly express our ideas and also quickly reject
them.
Each of us is different in how we do this creative thinking. Jonathan will get
his drawing pens out of his bag, reach for his pad of A3 sheets of drawing paper,
write down words to explore the landscape and draw a quick diagram. Chris, on the
other hand, will jump to the wipe board, clean it off from the previous conversation
and draw large pictures on the board, while Panos will pull up a mind-mapping or
graphical editor on his computer, type in a few categories and brainstorm different
phrases, and draw a picture on the screen. While we are different with regard to the
tools that we use, we all are planning and thinking creatively, trying to work through
the problem in our minds, using different depictions to externalize and perpetuate
our thoughts. We are considering alternative solutions and ascertaining which is the
best one to follow. We are organizing our thoughts into our courses of actions or
grouping them into strategies.
Any of our methods could be used on its own or in combination with the
others. These tools (sketching, wipe board or graphics program) help us, not only
to work our ideas through but also to share them and communicate them to others.
Indeed, group work can often be beneficial because you can collectively draw upon
everyone’s knowledge and ideas. Other times this can be problematic, with some
people pushing their idea for their own interest or itinerary, rather than working
toward the common, collective good.
v
vi Preface
The challenge with these techniques being used on their own, however good they
may be, is that they are ad hoc. There is no specific structure for drawing on a
wipe board or for sketching. An empty wipe board or a sheet of paper is merely a
blank starting point. But structure is very important for group activities, as it allows
the group to follow the same guidelines. Structure is also especially beneficial to
students who are learning – as a method can be taught, the students know what
to do by repeating the steps of the method and they can be assessed on how well
they implemented it. So, how can we provide a structure over the sketching and
critical design process? What would it look like? What information will the structure
contain? We believe that such a structure will help students learn how to plan and
think through alternatives for building software interfaces. It will help learners to
have a method that they can apply and reapply. It will help companies, who are
building interfaces, exchange and compare ideas and different solutions.
Drawing and sketching have always been an important part of human expression.
Just consider Leonardo da Vinci who created many beautiful notebooks of his
ideas. These books are still inspiring researchers and inventors today, in art and
design of tools and mechanical devices. Likewise, we have used sketchbooks to
record events and develop our thoughts. We start our story in October 1992 when
Jonathan was studying for his PhD. It was during this time that he started to use
research notebooks. These were A4 glue-bound hardback notebooks that were
ruled. Jonathan can remember walking to every meeting with his notebook and
pen. Every page started with the date of that meeting and every event started on
a new page. Meetings, conferences, thoughts, ideas, concepts, diagrams, etc. all
Preface vii
made it into the notebooks. Importantly, sketches formed an important part of the
recording process. At the time, Jonathan was investigating methods to render and
explore three-dimensional datasets, such as those from magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) or computed tomography (CT) scans. It was only a few years earlier that
Lorensen and Cline had published the marching cubes1 algorithm. Jonathan can
remember drawing many sketches of how to visualise and render three-dimensional
data (Fig. 1). These algorithms were eventually included into the Waltz visualisation
system, to manipulate and analyze three-dimensional data. An early sketch of the
Waltz interface (dated March 1995) is shown in Fig. 2a. This was used as a “plan”
to help design the interface (Fig. 2b). It was used not only to work out the final
appearance but also to help plan the individual aspects of the code.
Drawing, sketching and design are always featured in all our teaching and
work. We pick up the story, once again, in 2007. Jonathan had just moved to
Bangor University and set up a graduate module on information visualisation. It
was during this module that Jonathan started to develop the Five Design-Sheet
sketching methodology. We needed a method to allow students to plan their data
visualisation tools. At first, the methodology was informal and merely encouraged
students to make sketches to plan their goals. But after refining the module and
the technique over several years, the format and advice of sketching and planning
interfaces were gradually developed. At the same time, Chris completed a degree
in education and design. He joined Harlech College, where he developed and led
a creative technologies course. Panos was working for the industry as a software
engineer, having completed his PhD in 2006. From 2011 and over the next few
years, we see the coming together of many events. The first Five Design-Sheets2
paper was published; Panos moved to Bangor to work with Jonathan, and then
Chris followed. Working collaboratively, we started to generalise and develop the
Five Design Sheet further. The outcome of this process was our journal paper on
“Sketching Designs Using the Five Design-Sheet Methodology”3 that was presented
at the IEEE Visualisation Conference in 2015.
Collectively we realised that together we had a common interest in design,
sketching, professional development and encouraging others to develop good
software. It is these aspects that have motivated us to write this book. Not only
does the Five Design-Sheet methodology provide a useful structure for students and
learners to follow in an academic setting, but it can also be helpful for those doing
research and development of new software tools and those developing software in
companies. Moreover, it is not only the mere act of sketching that is important, but
it is the thinking that surrounds the sketching of an idea. What is often difficult
1
Lorensen, W.E. and Cline, H.E., 1987, August. Marching cubes: A high resolution 3D surface
construction algorithm. In ACM SIGGRAPH computer graphics (Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 163–169).
ACM.
2
Roberts, J.C., 2011. The Five Design-Sheet (FdS) Approach for Sketching Information Visualiza-
tion Designs. Proc. Eurographics Education Papers, pp. 27–41.
3
Roberts, J.C., Headleand, C. and Ritsos, P.D., 2016. Sketching designs using the Five Design-
Sheet methodology. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics, 22(1), pp. 419–428.
viii Preface
Fig. 2 The Waltz visualisation tool. (a) Sketches were first made that plan and explain the
interface. (b) The sketches provide a vision for the completed tool. Both sketch and the Waltz
tool were created by Jonathan Roberts while studying for his doctor of philosophy (PhD) thesis,
University of Kent, 1995
Preface ix
is knowing where ideas are initiated from or how to think through ethical and
professional issues that surround a problem. We have experienced this firsthand.
We have each worked on projects and developed software where we have had to
think through the challenges, grapple with ethical issues and develop appropriate
solutions. We see this everyday in our students, especially those who are doing
projects and find it difficult to ideate different concepts and think through the
problem. Creative thinking is not a skill that many have. But it is a skill that
we believe can be learned, especially with some help and advice. We do feel,
however, that there should be more design thinking within the curriculum and a
wider adoption of creative thinking alongside critical thinking in education and
at every level. Things are starting to change, and we are gradually seeing more
sketching, creativity, and planning by design in difficult curricula.
Furthermore, we feel that ethical concerns should be looked at more closely, and
that being ethical and professional in school and academia and in the workplace
is becoming increasingly multifaceted while always remaining important. For
instance, the threat of cybercrimes and cyberbullying is increasing. It is therefore
beneficial for programmers to understand and appreciate how such issues may
affect their designs. While professionalism is part of the curriculum in many
higher education computing courses, students often ignore the related concepts and
implications and do not engage with the material in a truly thoughtful manner. One
challenge they face is that there are few resources that integrate design thinking
with professional considerations. Significantly, we believe that along with design
thinking, professional thinking should be incorporated into the design phase and
especially considered from the start. Consequently, we include chapters that discuss
a range of such issues faced by the developer.
To write the book, we have drawn upon our wide range of knowledge and
skills and many years of experiences within education, teaching and industry.
Collectively, we have experience in leading and mentoring undergraduate, master,
and research (PhD) students and leading and evaluating different computing
modules (from computer programming, graphics and information Visualisation
modules, algorithms, Web design, and Web programming to artificial intelligence
and professional perspectives). We have developed degree programs and led them
through accreditation. We have been external examiners, examining courses and
PhD students at different universities. We also draw upon the experience and
knowledge of many authors, from related literature. As you read, take a note of
related work that you can follow and read at a later stage.
Through our refinement of the Five Design-Sheet method (over the past 8 years
or more), we have also generalised the techniques from being totally focused on
information visualisation tools to also using the method for interactive software
development. We need to be true to the past of the FdS, and so we will include many
examples focusing on the development of data visualisation tools. But we also think
(actually we hope) that the methods and ideas we discuss here could be used for
new applications. We hope that you will be able to take the method and adapt it
x Preface
for your purpose. Finally, we take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank all the
students who have helped us develop the Five Design-Sheet method and have trailed
our processes throughout the years. Without you, this book would not be possible.
Part I Think
1 Introduction: Think, Prep, Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Think, Prep, Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Focused Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4 What Software Tools Can You Build, as a Result
of this Process? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.5 Think: In Your Minds-Eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.6 Design by Sketching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.7 Developing Your Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.8 How to Read this Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2 Overview of the Five Design-Sheets (FdS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.1 Introduction to the FdS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2 The Design By-Sketching Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3 Take Time and Develop Your Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.4 Thinking Holistically. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.5 History of the FdS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.6 Who Has Used the FdS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.6.1 Teachers Can Use the FdS in an Assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.6.2 Project Students, Creating a Chapter on Their
Dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.6.3 In a Company Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.7 Will It Work for Non-Visual Interface Development? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3 Thoughts, Ideas, Problems and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1 Types of Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2 On Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.3 Fast and Slow Thinking of Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
xi
xii Contents
Part II Prep
5 Sketching Design Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.1 Sketching as a Way to Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.2 But I Cannot Draw! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.3 Getting a Kit Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.4 Pens, Ink and Colour Washes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.5 Why Is Sketching Useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
5.6 Techniques: Bold Lines and Faint Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
5.7 Improving and Enhancing Your Sketches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5.8 Other Mediums: Different Types of Low-Fidelity Prototyping . . . . 141
5.9 Sketching Alone or in a Group? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
5.10 Sketching Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
5.11 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
6 Graphical Marks and Semiology for Sketching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.1 Developing a Visual (Sketching) Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.2 Graphical Marks and Gestalt Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Contents xiii
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Part I
Think
Chapter 1
Introduction: Think, Prep, Sketch
Abstract There are many situations when you need to plan and think through
a range of different ideas, strategies, or courses of action. Often, your task is to
find the right tools, or approach for a job and plan a solution to the problem at
hand. In other situations is it useful to work through different permutations in your
mind and decide which idea is the best to implement. Often though, it is initially
difficult to know which design is best and how to proceed. This certainly applies to
programmers, when they design and develop visual computer interactive interfaces,
or visualisation tools that display big data. In particular, software engineers need
often to consider various alternative designs and layouts, before they even think
about beginning to program. In this book we present a method that will enable
you to contemplate, decide upon and communicate different approaches and ideas.
We call it the Five-Designs Sheet methodology, as it is based around sketching
alternative designs in five structured sheets. Through presenting this method, we
discuss techniques to help you contemplate your ideas, combine them to devise
more complex plans and depict them in sketches. These sketches can them be
implemented as interface solutions. This chapter covers the main concepts explored
in the book and the different skills that we wish you to learn, including: (1) thinking
through ideas, (2) preparing to sketch and (3) sketching different ideas and using the
Five Design-Sheet methodology for design-thinking.
1.1 Introduction
you can before you proceed with the (usually expensive) implementation of the
solution. But there is a balance to maintain. You do not want to limit development
in deadline sensative applications, but you want to spent as much time in the
planning process as possible so as to maximise the efficiency, and success of the
development process. Furthermore, you do not want to get into a situation where
your designs are impossible to build, due to unconsidered technical constraints from
an immature design concept. There is a compromise to be made. You need to have
a well considered plan that can be used by you (or other people) to build your idea.
Many of today’s software engineers use Agile techniques, where the software is
built in close collaboration with users or client. The software development moves
forward at a fast pace, and the outputs are rigorously and frequently tested. Yet,
software engineers still need to get to a situation where they can start this building
process. If you are the developer, you need to know what the end-product may look
like, how users will interact with it, and how it should connect with other software.
You need, at least, to create a vision document, which records the ideas that you
have had, ideas that you have rejected (for whatever reasons) and ideas that you
have explored in great detail. In fact, not only is it useful to record these ideas, but
you will need to have elements of it down on paper, such to confirm the design idea
to your client or supervisor.
Systematic planning of what to build, and thinking over the advantages and
disadvantages of alternative design solutions is essential in many fields. Not only is
design-thinking useful for software engineers, but it is beneficial when you design
and prototype a new piece of hardware, using bread-boards or printed-circuit boards.
It can be useful when you are looking to re-design a product, or look to adapt and
improve existing products. We do acknowledge that throughout this book we focus
on the creation of interactive software tools, and use the case study of building data-
visualisation tools. However, we have tried to keep the techniques general enough
such that this book would be useful for a wide range of people, with different
challenges and different situations, and for different applications.
This book explores design by sketching and describes the Five Design-Sheet
(FdS) methodology [8]. By following the methodology you will produce five sheets
which develop designs from initial ideation through to a final concept. Sheet 1
provides a workflow to explore the idea space, where creativity can flow and where
lots of different ideas are generated. Sheets 2, 3 and 4 develop these ideas further,
while Sheet 5 is used to refine a implementable solution. It is through sketching
that you will understand more about the issues, opportunities and challenges of the
design task.
The book follows the general structure of the methodology, supported by
additional material. In Part I – Thinking, after a discussion and overview of the
methodology we present aspects that you need to consider before tackling the FdS.
Then Part – Preparation, and in Part III – Sketching, where we present chapters that
discuss each of the sheets (sheets 1 then 2, 3 and 4 together, followed by a chapter
on sheet 5).
1.2 Think, Prep, Sketch 5
At the start of any project you need to have a vision; a concept of where you are
heading. In your mind you have an idea of what the tool you develop could look
like in the end, and your imagination allows you to envision how it could fit in
with other software and tools. Often at the start of any development, this vision is
not concrete, it is approximate and abstract. But even a rough, approximate vision
affords us many features. It allows us to extrapolate the ideas and work through any
problems. It allows us to plan out different aspects of the programming task, which
could be given to other people.
Many ideas start off small. Indeed back-of-an-envelope sketches are often the
starting point to a new endeavour. These sketched ideas could be initiated by a brief
encounter and discussion with someone over (say) a meal. In this situation your
mind is free-wheeling, it is relaxing, you are talking about your day, your friends,
sports, politics and how cool your new gadget is. It is during these times that you
come up with an idea. You apply it to a problem that your subconscious mind has
been working on in the background. This idea may actually be an amalgamation
of many other ideas. It may be bringing together different concepts. Your brain
merely puts different parts of those ideas into order. Sketching down these ideas, or
anything that assists your thought process and brainstorming is important. Indeed,
many designers suggest that you should have a pad of paper and a pen with you at
all times, such that you can write down the ideas when you have them, on the spot.
In fact, we highly support this form of sketching. It is timely and necessary, and
these sketches can be developed further. We will talk further about where and how
ideas are created in Chap. 7 about Idea creation.
Other times the ideas come to fruition because you have worked hard and focused
on a problem. This is a deliberate form of thinking. Leonardo de Vinci wrote “It
has long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back
and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things” [11]. It is
deliberate thinking because you have spent conscious effort and time, pondering
and considering the idea, and working through all possibilities. In this situation you
can afford be more systematic and rigorous over the design process. For instance,
you can first do some research into your challenge, and see what other people have
done and achieved. You would need to take notes from this research, start to write
(or sketch) the main concepts, and work through different ideas. You are systematic
in how you have written these ideas, and you would put thought into how these can
be placed into a categorisation. You start off with a categorisation of five parts (for
instance) and then refine this category into (say) three categories.
These two types of thought represent fast and slow thinking (see Kahneman [6]).
If you are thinking fast then you are most likely acting intuitively. You draw on your
experience and your knowledge to make decisions and choices. Kahneman calls this
“System 1” thinking. The thoughts associated with system 1 are automatic. They
are routine. We make decisions based on the available information. The second type
of thinking is slow, and Kahneman labels this as “System 2”. It is deliberate and
6 1 Introduction: Think, Prep, Sketch
requires more effort. Slowing down and being more deliberate can deter us from
making rash and unfortunate decisions. System 2 thinking is rational and is focused
on critical-thinking. We need to concentrate hard on finding solutions to a particular
problem. In creative discovery we need both. We need to be fast in our thinking, to
find the easy and quick answers, but also we need to put effort into our thinking,
such to classify and organize our thoughts and ideas appropriately.
However these ideas have been initiated – whether they started as back-of-an-
envelope sketches, or through sustained effort – you will still need to further refine
them. You will need to ascertain how they fit in with current practices, and make
judgements to decide whether the chose solution is going to be appropriate and
useful. These ideas will need to be further planned, fleshed-out and elaborated.
Additional detail will have to be added. If you are to give a sketch of your idea
to a developer, to build, then you will be probably required to add additional detail,
to explain your idea.
This is a process. You will start off with ideas, make preparation and do further
research, and then create the final design documents. In this book, the final output
we will be creating is a set of sketches. Indeed, for any project you will have three
stages: you will make steps to think through different ideas, you will then need to
plan and make preparation of what you are building to confirm to you (and others,
that your ideas are suitable), and finally you will need to sketch your plans to make
them concrete, such that you can implement the software or commission it (for
example). Consequently, this book is split into these three parts: Think, Prep, Sketch,
see Fig. 1.1.
Thinking. There are many aspects to thinking. Some thoughts are creative and
enable new ideas to be generated. Other thoughts we have are critical, and help
us question our ideas. Different types of thinking are required at different stages.
Whatever type of thinking we are referring to at a particular time, enables us,
as software developers to consider many different aspects of the engineering
process. Often, programmers are too keen to get started, which can lead them
to head off on a wrong path. Especially some student learners are so keen to
just get coding that they end-up missing what the main functionality of the tool
should be, ending up with low marks in related assessments. But a little thought
up-front can help a great deal with the appropriateness and effectiveness of the
Fig. 1.1 The book is divided into three parts. Part I covers the vision, where you need to think
and imagine what the idea could look like consider the advantages and disadvantages of an idea
in comparison with others. Part , details what specific preparation you should make, such to create
good designs. Part III covers the Five Design-Sheet methodology in detail, with separate chapters
for each sheet, and looks to further reading and examples of people using the FdS approach
1.2 Think, Prep, Sketch 7
end result. Towards this goal, we explore how we can initiate new ideas, and how
we can engender creative thinking. In this part we also discuss ethical issues and
any ramifications of you doing the work. We ask “can you?”, “should you?”, and
“what if you?” do the work and build the tool.
Prep. The second part covers specific actions that you should do in preparation
before the FdS. The first skill we will investigate is sketching. We will cover more
detail on why sketch, skills to improve your sketching, and also different medium
for sketching or low-fidelity planning. As authors, we have been researching
(among other things) how to develop visualisation tools and create new data-
visualisation algorithms. An important aspect of thinking about new visualisation
tools is to make sure that you understand the data that you have. Therefore
as preparation for doing the FdS we will look at data analysis. We will cover
questions such as: What requirements are there on the tool? What does the client
want? What is the task of the tool? What data do you have or require to implement
the tool?
Sketching. While we can think about the ideas in our mind, we need a way to
record them. It is often through this very act of recording of our ideas that we
realise how these can be improved or whether they are fit for purpose. One way
to display the ideas is to create a fully-rendered, picture of our vision. Such
computer-rendered images are useful, because they can be used to see exactly
what an interface, object or building may look like. However, these full-rendered
versions often look too finished, making people who see them less likely to
question the depicted ideas and their suitability in tackling the problem at hand.
On the contrary, what we want is a way to record our ideas yet still be
able to tweak on them, refine and improve them, and allow people to readily
contribute and challenge them. Sketching our designs provides this half-way-
house. It enables us to record our ideas and exchange them with others, while
its approximate and unfinished state invites people to contribute, making it
more that they will question, refine and adapt them. Following the Five Design-
Sheet method we work through sketching initial design ideas, planning them in
more detail, and finally presenting the realisation design sheet that can be then
implemented by yourself or given to someone else to build.
Throughout these three stages we are not advocating that you should do all the
thinking first and then do sketching. Instead, we strongly suggest that sketching
becomes part of the thought process, and that you will need to contemplate about
your solution throughout each part of the FdS. The thinking that we are advocating
at the first stage is more about preparing your mind and thinking through different
issues that could possibly occur. We are trying to get you to make ‘what if’
questions. For example, “if I build this tool, would it be usable?”, “if I build this
tool, how will it be integrated into current systems that the company uses?”. We are
encouraging you to be critical about your ideas. We are asking you to perform a
critical analysis of what could be. We are thinking through different combinations
and different possibilities in our minds-eye.
8 1 Introduction: Think, Prep, Sketch
Naturally, when you start a project you will have many questions in your mind.
These questions will be vague and general. You will be thinking over the challenge,
what to build, and how you can gather your thoughts together. Indeed, if you
have been tasked with building the tool – for instance, you could be a student
doing an assessment – then some of these questions may already be posed by the
requirements document that your teacher has given you. Some of these could include
the following:
• So what are you going to build?
• What have you been asked to build?
• What ideas do you have in your mind?
• What challenge are you trying to solve?
• Where do ideas come from?
When you have decided what idea you are working through, then you need to
start to be more specific. Here you need to make firm the requirements of the tool.
Consider where it will be used by the user. You especially need to consider questions
over ethical considerations of the tool. Questions such as the following come to
mind:
• What will the tool look like in the end?
• What have other people done? (research)
• Do you already have a solution to your challenge?
• Are the ideas ethical?
• Are the ideas suitable?
• Will they make a good product?
• Will they work with existing software?
• Do you have any specific requirements to the solution?
• Where will the tools be used, what environment and location?
Finally, you will need to work through the ideas that you have in your mind and
make them into usable plans. We use sketching and sheets of paper to articulate the
designs. At the end of the process you should be able to take your ideas and build
the tool; the concepts should be valid, fit the requirements and have been properly
considered for their worth and value.
• How will you record your ideas?
• How will you work with clients?
• How will you plan out your idea solutions?
• How many component parts are there to your solution?
• Is it actually possible to build the ideas?
• How can you take your ideas and implement them?
• Can you give your ideas to others to implement?
All these are relevant questions, and all need you to have a vision (or many) of
what the tool will look like. This book will lead you through contemplating this
vision (or visions), and help you make suitable plans to build the tool.
1.3 Focused Learning 9
As educators we support focused learning and deliberate practice [2]. We want you
to focus on design, particularly design-by-sketching, and deliberately direct your
thoughts to consider different solutions. We wish you to pro-actively learn new skills
and to purposefully practice these skills as you go through this book. We help you
on this journey by providing a set of exercises at the end of every chapter. These
exercises help you to focus your knowledge and deliberately practice the skills that
we have been discussing in that chapter. We also want you to develop your critical
thinking skills, help you to better prepare and develop your sketching abilities. The
more you perform a Five Design-Sheet plan, the better you understand what to put
on the sheets and how to record your ideas.
There has been much talk about how long it takes to become an expert. For
example, Erricson [2] and colleagues presented some excellent work describing a
basic rule of 10 years of involvement needed, for becoming an expert. Likewise,
Malcolm Gladwell [4] in his book titled “Outliers” talks about the need for 10;000 h.
It may seem obvious, regarding some skills, where this would be true. Musicians
need to practice long hours to improve their skills and to master playing a particular
instrument. In other situations there may also be an advantage from genetics. For
example, we can imagine that basketball players may be generally advantaged if
they are taller. One counter argument is they may developed physically earlier than
most of their peers, and thus, because of their physique, were selected early as being
promising individuals in basketball. Therefore they may had more time to practice
and become experts sooner than others!
Superior performance by very young children without prior instruction may suggest excep-
tional promise, leading to the early onset of training. This in turn leads to a consistently
greater accumulation of practice (and hence, by our framework, performance) relative to
later-starting individuals. Ericsson et al. [2]
As a reader, you may be feeling that you will not be able to give over 10;000 h
to developing your design and sketching skills, and in fact, you did sketching as a
child and found it difficult. But, the figure of 10;000 h somewhat masks the main
point: that it is not about putting hours and hours into mindless practice, rather it
is being focused on the task. What we want is for you to try to stay focused on
the target and make time count. Deliberate practice is also about being mindful and
understanding the process, knowing what you are doing and for what reason. In
our case, we are getting you to learn and develop your skills in design, sketching,
considering new ideas and critical thinking. It means that you understand how you
are improving as a learner yourself. Indeed, we suggest that you keep your ideas and
sketches together in a book or a folder, or you could scan them in to a computer and
keep them electronically. You can look back over previous sketches and see how
you have improved your skills in sketching, have developed your style, and have
ideated new concepts.
As authors, and educators ourselves, we wish to empower you to have the right
knowledge and right skills to do the job. We want you to be an empowered learner.
10 1 Introduction: Think, Prep, Sketch
Where you feel motivated to learn and develop the necessary skills, feel confident in
what you do and how to apply the techniques that you learn to different (and new)
situations. Throughout this book we want you to think about yourself personally
and how you are learning. To be a self-aware learner. We want you to be passionate
about design, and excited about developing your skills. We want you to be confident
to use the Five Design-Sheet methodology in your own problem solving. To be
self-assured in creating new ideas and work through different solutions that you
are confronted with. We also believe in a constructivist approach, where you as a
learner are involved in your own development. We wish to develop your critical
thinking skills and motivate you to become independent thinkers who are active
learners . This is why we encourage you to pick up a pencil and a pad, and start
taking notes. Start sketching and planning ideas, and work through the exercises at
the end of each chapter. Especially when we discuss design thinking, rather than
merely reading the text, we want you to start sketching. Grab a pad of plain paper
and a black pen and start making notes. Keep your own notebook and put your notes
and sketches in the book. Start sketching different ideas. Turn your imagination to
the challenges or projects that you are working on and do some sketching!
It is useful at this stage to say what visions are possible: what tools can be built, and
what kind of software can be built as a result of this book. Actually, as authors we
do not want to dictate what can (or even what cannot) be built, because there are an
infinite number of possibilities in computer interface design. Also, we acknowledge
that interface development is rapidly changing. The use of non-WIMP1 interfaces is
growing fast [9]. Computer interfaces that use pens (styluses), touch or gestures are
definitely on the rise. We do not exclude any of these interfaces, in fact we embrace
these new types of interaction, and (as researchers) we encourage developers to
develop more tools specifically suitable for these interfaces. Whatever style of
interface you are considering to build, we believe you should still go through the
stages of Thinking, Preparation and Sketching.
The data-visualisation tool is one type of interface that can be built. Figure 1.2
shows a sketch of a visualisation interface that was designed by a student. The sketch
shows a plan of their idea, alongside the completed tool that reads in historic rainfall
data. The user can load the data which is displayed at several levels of aggregation,
from one year, individual weeks in the year, to several years. The visualisation
shows data in several panels, and demonstrates the quantity of rainfall in Britain
from 1911 to 1933. The visualisation tool allows a user to display rainfall from a
specific regions in Britain. This figure shows the quantity of rainfall in Wales, which
1
WIMP – Windows Icons Menus Pointers
1.4 What Software Tools Can You Build, as a Result of this Process? 11
Fig. 1.2 On the left, a sketch of the final design taken from Sheet 5 of the FdS. On the right an
implementation using the Processing.org Java library to display rainfall in Britain. It is clear to see
that there are similarities, but also there are differences in the final implementation of the tool
is shown by the colour highlighted in the map at the top. This work was submitted
as part of the Information Visualisation Masters module, and demonstrates how a
student has taken their early sketch ideas and changed them into a working prototype
tool. If we were being critical, then there are several places where the tool could be
made better. For instance, the colour combinations could be improved, the summary
information at the top of the page is extremely small and could be made bigger, and
there is no clear scale or tick marks to indicate the actual quantities of rainfall.
However, it is an excellent example to demonstrate several lessons that we are
expressing. Namely it demonstrates that a student has thought through the challenge,
come up with a design sketch, and then interpreted how to implement the tool.
Data-visualisation tools are not the only type of interactive systems that can
be built. In a web-technology course, students are asked to develop an interactive
tool that will manipulate geometric patterns through an interface. Figure 1.3 shows
the sketch that a student made on their realisation design sheet. The image on the
right shows a picture of their final tool. They chose to focus on geometric patterns
that looked like flowers. It is interesting to see what types of patterns can easily be
generated by very few basic shapes. While each of the results are somewhat similar –
they are circular, and are symmetric – there are still many contrasting visual patterns
that can be created with the tool (see Fig. 1.4).
The tool works in a web browser, uses HTML5 and CSS for the slider controls,
JavaScript for the functionality and interaction, and the graphics is rendered using
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Sure it is a simple tool, but it is an excellent
example of an interactive tool. In fact we can clearly see some basic principles.
12 1 Introduction: Think, Prep, Sketch
Fig. 1.3 The left image shows a sketch of the layout of a flower pattern generator program that
was sketched by a third-year (final year) computing undergraduate student. They then implemented
a version of their tool (as shown on the right) which allows a user to change different parameters
Fig. 1.4 Examples of geometric patterns created by the pattern-generator tool. While this is
basically a simple interface the flower-pattern tool can still create some interesting patterns
There are buttons to control the interface (the sliders), a position where the results
are placed (the SVG output), and while not visible, there is some underpinning
model that holds the state of the system parameters. In this case the state is a set
of numbers that represent the properties of the petals.
1.4 What Software Tools Can You Build, as a Result of this Process? 13
The pattern generator has been designed with three columns of controllers: colour
controls (on the left of the view), with opacity controls and size controls to the
right. These sliders and buttons control the appearance of the petals, two back, two
middle and two front. The parameter values are stored as variables and represent
the state of the system. The JavaScript code creates the SVG geometry, which is
displayed in the centre. The geometry gets created when the user releases their
mouse click, after sliding a slider or selecting a button. The implementation connects
the interface (the buttons and sliders etc.) to the rendering of the geometry via the
Document Object Model (DOM). The DOM model treats the HTML document
as a tree structure, to allow the program to access and individual elements of the
page. There are certainly many ways to implement this tool. For instance, the
student could have used different JavaScript libraries (such as HTML5 Canvas,
Raphael.js, processing.js, etc.). However the implementation provides us with a
good demonstrator to investigate interfaces in more detail, and to explore general
principles and structures of computer interfaces.
Most interfaces have a similar structures. In a simplistic view, the buttons on the
screen (or the gestures we make) are used to call functions (which provide the logic
and the operations), that then perform some result. Obviously, in reality, there are
many different interaction elements that can be created (such as sliders, buttons,
radio buttons, drag-and-drop etc.). But these interactive elements all share similar
traits. Let us consider a few example interfaces. In a computer driving game the
input could be from the AZ and NM keys to control the car up/down and left/right,
respectively. The program needs to ascertain whether the user wants the car to move
forward, and if it is free to move forward then the outcome is to play the moving
forward animation. If an obstacle is hit, the car crash animation needs to be played.
In another tool, the user wishes to display data (data visualisation), the developer
has created menus to load the data, and buttons to determine how the data is filtered
and mapped onto the output in graphical patterns.
Whatever the interface, similar structures exist. These, in computer science, are
software patterns.2 These patterns are strategies that have been found to be useful
and are generalised, such that they can be applied to many different situations. A
useful pattern for many interfaces is the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern.
(We do acknowledge that there are many variants of the MVC pattern, but for now
let’s keep it simple.) The MVC pattern is useful for user-interface development. The
flower-pattern generator uses the MVC model, and is shown in Fig. 1.5. The Model
is the underlying data that the user is storing or adapting. The View enables the
information to be displayed. It is the actual result of the tool. The Controller part
of the model represents buttons, sliders and other components that manipulate and
control the underpinning model. The driving game can be considered with a similar
pattern. The user controls the car, and the program then needs to decide whether the
2
To look further on software design patterns, see “Design patterns: elements of reusable object-
oriented software” by Gamma et al. [3] and also for data-visualisation “Software design patterns
for information visualisation” by Heer and Agrawala [5]
14 1 Introduction: Think, Prep, Sketch
observes
VIEW
Variables
graphical Stroke TRUE
Back petals 1 #7ED7E6
display
of model MODEL Back petals 2
Middle petals 1
#F56170
#D937CD
Middle petals 2 #60FF31
Front petals 1 #B0108D
Front petals 2 #901DDA
CONTROLLER manipulates
Fig. 1.5 The flower-pattern tool uses the Model View Controller software design pattern, where
the Controller updates the Model, the Viewer reflects the state of the Model, and the controller
generates the graphics
car crashes or moves forward. For the data-visualisation example the user needs to
have several menus and buttons to control how that information is mapped from the
data elements onto the graphical elements. Maybe a suite of buttons could be used
to change the colourmap of the data, whereby the button switches the view from
showing data in a greyscale colourmap, to that of a white to blue scale.
The idea of patterns is useful and relevant to us in this book. When learning
computing programming and developing interactive systems it is often useful to
follow a pattern. Many interface developers follow the MVC pattern (or a variant)
to create suitable interfaces. The structure enables developers to work separately,
yet together on the same problem. The structure enables code to be more easily
re-used, and new people (who need to pick up your code at a later stage) can easily
understand how components are connected. While we are not necessarily advocating
that the MVC pattern is useful for all situations, it is a good starting point.
The Five Design-Sheet method, that we discuss in great detail in Chap. 2, is also
a pattern: it is a general method, which can be applied to a wide range of situations.
The FdS has a series of steps to help you think about the problem at hand, in small
steps. It can be re-used and once learned can be exchanged and applied as a model
with other people. Sheets 2, 3, 4 and 5 all have a similar structure, that enable you to
detail the Vision (Big Picture), Components (and operations of the functions), and
what the main functions do and how they are created. By doing this planning you
are able to think through the functionality of the interfaces, what they would look
like, and how they could perform.
While the act of imagining new design solutions can be demanding, it can also be
a fun and rewarding experience. Such solutions can be insightful designs, futuristic,
unconventional or unusual. They can be made out of any material, include any
1.5 Think: In Your Minds-Eye 15
components, and work in any way that your imagination can handle! In your mind
there are no limits, no one to stop you from imagining the impossible. This my
sounds like a thought experiment. On the one hand it is – we are actually advocating
the use of creative visualisation. We are asking you to use your imagination, and to
consider in your mind what the idea will look like and what it will do.
Let us do a little exercise now. Imagine that you have a two-dimensional white
square that is hovering just in front of your head. Now, along with the square,
imagine that you have a round drill bit. The drill is quite large, yet not too sharp. Use
the drill to carve holes, with their vertical axis in parallel to the square plane, into
the four sides of the square. This shape now looks like an idealized jigsaw piece.
Now you can easily duplicate this shape. Make a 2 5 grid of these shapes, and
place them next to each other. In this grid formation, colour them in different shades
of grey, from a light grey on the left to a dark grey on the right. Once you have done
this, you can open your eyes and look to the Fig. 1.6. Look at the picture that we
drew and see if it matches with the picture held in your imagination.
The picture you have considered in your mind may be slightly different, but
hopefully not much. You would have needed to create a virtual plane in three-
dimensional space to put your two-dimensional square. You would have needed
to make assumptions over how large the square is – but probably you would have
Drill-bit
Fig. 1.6 Imagine that you have a two-dimensional white square that is hovering just in front of
your head. Now cut into the square with a small drill. Now duplicate the result 10 times, placing
them in a grid 2 5, color each one a darker shade of grey
16 1 Introduction: Think, Prep, Sketch
automatically scaled the image to make it fit into your minds-eye! Sure, there will be
differences. Your drill bit may have been sharp. The depth of how much the drill has
entered into the square would be different. As soon as we have mentioned drilling
your mind may have also considered the material that you were cutting into. Maybe
you had imagined wood, or metal. You may have even considered what happened
to the swarf (the remaining material that comes off the object when it is drilled).
Maybe in your imagination you still have the swarf in the picture. The depth of
the cuts could have been different. There are many possible interpretations of this
vision, and in fact, there is no wrong answer. It is just that one persons imagination
is different to another person. What we are doing here is creative visualisation. We
are telling a story, explaining a situation, and in your mind you are painting the
picture.
Creative visualisation is thus a cognitive process, where you generate a visual
mental image of something (with your eyes open or closed). You are forming a
mental image in your mind. You can rotate and manipulate that image in your brain.
At this point, we do note that we are using the word visualisation to refer to the
creation of a mental image of these stories, and that the pictures are not made explicit
in the real world, but rather they are merely imagined by yourself. By forming a
mental image, you can manipulate the idea in your mind, turn it around and look
at it from different angles. You can also start to work out whether it is feasible and
how it could interact with other things. For example, considering the adapted square
that you imagined before. You can now rotate it, overlap it with other versions, cut
out a circle in the centre etc. There are endless possibilities.
These are mental images that you have in your mind. You form such pictures
when you give directions to help someone find a building, when you try to recall
what a person looked like ten years ago, or what they were wearing last week. Many
of the pictures we have in our mind are created from events that happen to us as
individuals. As such, we can remember places, people, buildings, trees and positions
of objects. We often remember these as pictures. While we can recall images, as we
have seen, we can create new thoughts.
These thoughts and ideas are obviously shaped by who we are, our experiences
and knowledge and the environment that we live. In fact, gaining new ideas may
require us to push out of our comfort zone, move us into a new environment, or get
us to meet new people. We will discuss methods that help us create new concepts in
Chap. 7 when we discuss the generation of ideas for interface design. Yet, this book
is more than a methodology for thinking. Yes, we cover idea creation and look where
ideas can be inspired from, but we also cover detail of acting upon and drawing your
ideas such that you and others can use them. By placing the ideas on paper you are
working through the ideas, moulding them and helping them take shape. You are
committing the concepts that are running through your mind on paper. These sheets
of paper then be exchanged and shared with others.
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*****
Kauan ennen sitä aikaa, josta nyt on puhe, tuli Moreno eräänä
yönä jokseenkin myöhään kotiin iltakutsuista kenraalikuvernöörin
luota ja näki kaukaa autiolla kadulla, joka kulkee tataarilaiskaanin
entisen, nyt ruutimakasiiniksi muutetun palatsin ohi, naisolennon,
joka astui samaan suuntaan kuin hänkin. Oli talvi ja kylmä, lumi peitti
maata useampien tuumain vahvuudelta, kaikki oli jäässä ja yö
synkimmillään.
Kun hän suuttui, tuli häneltä verta suusta, ja hänellä oli tuntikausia
tuskia. Annoin siis perään.
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