“In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
— Carl Sagan
The world is full of interesting and elegant design, and it is important to be aware of them so you are not re-inventing the universe. In this assignment, you will distill a product concept based on your observations from the Discovery assignment. Then, you will search for and analyze designs related to that concept.
To begin, pick an idea or concept based on the needs identified in the Discovery assignment. The idea could be for a useful product, service, or even a simple bit of functionality that helps satisfy one or more of the needs identified. Pick something you’re excited about; this will also form the basis for next week’s storyboarding, and final group project topics will ultimately be selected from the ideas generated here. If you would like help sorting through your observations from last week to come up with a product concept, visit your TA during office hours… it will be fun!
Now you’re ready for the main part of the assignment, finding inspirational designs: existing products or services that relate to your concept. Remember, web search is your friend. This activity is similar to what business folks call “competitive analysis” and academics call “related work.” Find as much as you can. Some things you find will be quite related (i.e. a typical reaction to your idea is “Oh, you’re doing a Facebook for pets!”), but it is important to interpret “related” broadly. It may be that a carrot-peeler or a measuring cup is your inspiration for an elegant and ergonomic design.
Try the related product or service out. Read reviews (both amateur and professional). While not required, we encourage you to keep track of your findings, perhaps in a blog, wiki, or online notebook.
From your search, select three products or services to analyze in more detail.
For each of the three you picked, do a brief analysis where you pull out the important design elements and discuss what they imply for your own design. For example, if your idea was for a location-aware mobile ice cream shop search interface, you might choose Google mobile search as an inspirational product. For the analysis, you might discuss how the service integrates the search results with maps, and point out how this would be useful for your own product but that the map would also have to visualize the places where your favorite flavor, super-duper chip, was available.
Each analysis should include images (pictures, screenshots, etc.) of the product you are analyzing. The text may discuss which design elements were good, which were bad, and how you plan to use those design ideas as inspiration for your own product concept. You should also discuss specifically what elements you will “borrow” and which you won’t, and why. You may also share any other insights that you had while performing the comparison.
To complete the assignment, you must submit online:
Your summary will be submitted online as a body of plain text and a series of digital photograph attachments. Do not spend time "beautifying" your summary.
The submission website can be accessed through the course website with your SUNet login.
To submit the assignment, log in to this website and click the Submit Assignment link in the Current Assignment box. On the submission page you can enter the writeup as well as upload any number of images. Clicking the "Save" button will save the current version of your writeup. Your latest save will automatically be submitted for grading when the assignment is due. You can save as many times as you need until the deadline (11am Thursday).
Submit early! The system is not design to handle everyone submitting at 10:55am on Thursday! Late assignments will not be accepted!
Be prepared to informally present your product concept and the three related products or services you analyzed (3 minutes maximum). You should not prepare slides or other visuals for this presentation – we will have a projector set up that will allow you to easily present the digital photographs you submitted with your assignment. You will be giving feedback to your classmates and also looking out for ideas that are in line with yours or are totally different but interest you. This will help you form project teams, which will be made within your section.
The assignment was graded out of 50 points. The points were broken down as follows:
Steve Marmon's assignment
Christopher Archibald's assignment