Welcome to the Interaction Design Capstone Project!

As Yogi Berra said, you can observe a lot just by watching. Watching how people do things is a great way to learn their goals and values, and come up with design insight. We call this needfinding. This module trains your eyes and ears to come up with user needs, breakdowns, clever hacks, and opportunities for improvement.

To maximize your chances of having a great idea, it helps to generate a lot of ideas. Brainstorming is a strategy for rapidly generating lots of ideas. It was named by advertising executive Alex Osborn in his 1953 book, Applied Imagination. When brainstorming, go for volume and defer judgment. Often, something that seems like a crazy idea can lead to something that’s a really good idea. Immerse yourself: it can help to use a whiteboard, butcher paper, or stick post-its on a wall. These ideas will become the 'soil' for growing your designs.

Prototyping is the pivotal activity that structures innovation, collaboration, and creativity in design. Prototyping gets ideas out of your head and into the world. Like a conversation, your ideas will evolve as you articulate them and make them concrete. Prototypes are quick and dirty, not careful museum pieces. The key to prototyping is to jump right in. It’s a tool to see what’s working, what challenges emerge, and to share your ideas with others. Review the user needs you brainstormed. In this assignment, you will flesh out your design ideas by storyboarding and making paper prototypes.