Calendar / Clock / Compass
A new tool for orienting ourselves in time or space
In this intro project, we're going to design a small but useful tool that helps the user orient themselves in time or space. We're making a new kind of calendar or clock or compass.
Your Client
For this project we won't concern ourselves with a specific imaginary client; your solution will need to be broadly understandable even if the use case is specific. It's OK to make this about you: what would you like to be more oriented towards (in space, or in time)? We'll be able to test with any person-on-the-street to validate basic interactions.
Deliverables
The calendar / clock / compass should be a digital product for screens; an app, website, signboard, kiosk, etc; thus your final deliverable will be an interactive figma prototype, embedded on your course site. See details below for our intermediate steps.
Inspo
Session 1: Introduction & Ideation
- Project Brief: Designing a new type of calendar, clock, or compass
- Discussion: How do we experience and orient within time? space?
- Discussion: What is a prototype? Lo-fi vs hi-fi. What's a prototype good for?
- I want you to answer the question: what's something I want to change my orientation towards? Like: I want to always know where I am relative to the galactic center of the Milky Way.
- Homework: be ready to pitch us 20 conceptual ideas for a new calendar / clock / compass to share in the next class. Have a single-screen sketch for each.
- AND Homework: Low-fi prototype. Pick one approach, sketch out a full set of user actions. (eg: start up, configuration, use over time/space, etc.) These should be wireframes. Can be hand-drawn, figma, whatever works for you. Put them in figma and prototype.
Session 2: Problem Definition & Concept Critique
- Pitch us a few favorite concepts
- And show us your first prototype
- Class critique & workshopping: what makes sense? What questions do we have?
- Homework: Adjust your prototype so you're ready for user testing. Think about what questions you want answered. 'What do you think?' is not a good research question!
Session 3: Prototype & Feedback
- Show us your prototype
- Someone else will test it
- Class observation & critique: what makes sense? What questions do we have? What should happen next
- Homework: Make your prototype better. How close to 'done' can you get?
Session 4: What would a design system do here?
- Talk about when design systems work
- Look at your prototype: what applies here?
- If you handed off this project to another designer: what would they need to add features and still keep your brand intact?
- Homework: Build a minimum viable system. What gets repeated? What gets reused? You might think about: colors, font families, type rules, buttons, form elements. What else would you need to define if you wanted to build consistency across people / products / time?
- AND Continue to improve your prototype. We're be done-done with this in a week.
Session 5: Let's talk about your Minimum Viable Design Systems
- What did you include?
- What could you build with this?
- Does it make you want to change anything about your design?
- Homework: We're done with Calendar/Clock/Compass on Thursday. Be ready for a final review & critique.
Session 6: Final Deliverables.
- Show us your work, reflect on process.
- Homework: Nothing. We're done with Calendar/Clock/Compass!