IAT 431 :: Speculative Design

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The following calendar is subject to change. It contains the dates at which clues will be released and the deadlines for challenges, riddles, and puzzles.

Note: Riddle Questions are always due the day before the lecture so that I can read them before class. For example, questions for Week 2 are due Sunday by midnight before Week 2's lecture on Monday.

Lunch with Carman: Every Monday, after class from 12:30 - 1:30 you can meet with Carman to discuss the course, your assignments, etc. in the form of office hours. He will be at a table at Blenz on the Mezz.

Week	Sunday Due by 11:59pm	Lecture Time	Studio Lab Time	Due by the Start of Class
Sept 14		Introduction: introduce the game and its rules.	Participate in an activity to get to know potential team members for later in the term.
Sept 21	Riddle Questions	Culture: discusses what culture means and how to observe and document it.	Cultural Study: You will participate in an activity that explores individual's cultural values as it relates to technology. You will discuss culture using the terms from lecture and perform cultural observations of game play using children's card games.
Sept 28	Riddle Questions	Critical Design & Design Noir: design for underrepresented need; design for danger, pleasure, death.	Cultural Study: You will discuss your essays from your cultural study to see the reactions of others as to whether they agree or disagree with your future predictions. You will explore additional design noir examples and critique them as individuals and groups. We will look at these examples: Body Integrity Shaper: a design noir project looking at the challenge of body integrity disorder Funeral in a Box: a design noir project looking at a therapeutic process for those wanting to commit suicide Life Line: a design noir project exploring organ donation Heart Locker: a pulsing heart shows you the heart rate of remote friends or family Vacuus Utero: a tea leaf holder that causes you to reflect on abortion Vitelline: a design noir project exploring child death during labor	Cultural Study (1000 XP)
Oct 5	Riddle Questions	Design Fiction: explores design creation for critical reflection on one's attitudes, relationships, experiences, etc.	Design Fiction: Outside of class, take a look at: Corner Convenience's write-up that describes the objects it focuses on. Julian Bleecker's talk at the Lift Conference Matt Brown's Food and the Future of It items You will then be introduced to the next assignment on Design Fictions and perform a design fiction activity focused on solving a real world problem of the future.
Oct 12	NO CLASS THANKSGIVING
Oct 19	Riddle Questions	Reflective Design: explores design creation for critical reflection on one's attitudes, relationships, experiences, etc.	Design Fiction: You will come to lab with sketches AND storyboards (showing the flow and narrative in your video) of your design fiction ideas and present them to the class as a part of 'judging panel crits' or 'speed crits'. You should then use these critiques to refine your design fictions for final submission.
Oct 26	You have no riddle questions for this week.		Design Fiction Presentations: Present your design fiction project to the lab in a presentation. Show your design fiction videos and talk about your rationale behind the scenarios. This will count towards your final grade for this project. We will divide the time by the total number of people to see how long each person can present for.	Design Fiction (2000 XP)
Nov 2	Riddle Questions	Value Sensitive Design: explores design creation and evaluation to reflect the human values of multiple stakeholders	Concepts & Final Project: Think about what you have seen in lecture over the past few weeks and then come to lab this week prepared to do some work to build on your project ideas. You don't need to do anything before lab. You should come with a team of 3 in mind.
Nov 9	Riddle Questions	Ambiguity: explores techniques to move a design's interpretation to the hands of the user.	Before class, you need to produce a one page, single spaced document that describes your final project idea - describe the social problem you are focusing on and a possible design that you can create. You need to generate and include sketches of possible design solutions (outside of the one page limit). Send your document to your instructor and TA in PDF format. During studio lab time, we will do project critiques.
Nov 16	Riddle Questions	Field Trials: learn methods to deploy an ambiguous design to gain critical reaction.	Studio time to work on your medium-fidelity prototype and discuss your ideas with your TA.
Nov 23		Quiz Game: You will participate in a game that asks you questions similar to what you will seen on your quiz in lecture next week. This will act as review for the quiz and also show what types of questions you will be asked.	Prior to lab, complete the TCPS 2 Tutorial Course on Research Ethics. You must bring your completion certificate to class and show me. Otherwise, you can't do the final deployment. Create a deployment plan in preparation for your deployment and BRING IT TO LAB. It should be one page in length and include a brief description of the final medium fidelity prototype a brief description of how the prototype is used where you plan to deploy the prototype, along with details of how you plan to recruit participants what are the basic demographics of the people you will deploy to (e.g., family type, general age group, # of people, roommates, general occupations, etc) - don't name peoples' names! how you plan to introduce the design to them what data collection methods you are going to use (include sample interview questions you will ask) how do you plan to analyze your data how do you plan to keep study data confidential and participant identities anonymous You will need to use this consent form and initial study description as part of your study plan.	Medium fidelity prototype should be done. You MUST bring it to show us.
Nov 30		In-Class Exam: time limit 45 minutes. (3000 XP)		Conduct your deployment this week. Collect data using the methods described in class. Also, be sure to get some video/audio footage of the participants' usage with the system if they are willing.
Dec 7		Final Presentations		Final Project (3000 XP)