This week we had an exercise on assumption-challenging. This means seeing the assumptions on how certain aspects of a design or situation is and then challenging that to see if there is another way that it could be better. It is an exercise in constructive self-criticism, to help the person see flaws in something where they would not when they already have a preconceived opinion. This is very relevant in the process of design as it will help the designer see what others will see when shown the end result. Not only is it helpful with fixing issues before they become an issue, but also a good exercise to prepare a person to being able to accept the criticisms they may have put upon them or their work.
Challenging Assumptions
The first Challenging assumptions exercise was a quiz. The following are the questions and solutions:
Q1. Relatives -
A doctor in London had a brother in Manchester, who was a lawyer - butthe lawyer in Manchester did not have a brother in London who was a doctor. Why?
A1: The doctor was his sister.
Q2: Bottled Money - If you put a small coin piece in an empty bottle and replaced thecork, how would you get the coin out of the bottle without taking out the cork or breakingthe bottle?
A2: By pushing the cork in.
Q3: The Restaurant Meal - Three women each have two daughters, and they all go into arestaurant for a meal. There are only seven vacant seats in the restaurant, but each hasa seat for herself. How do they manage it?
A3: The people were as follows. A grandmother, who was the mother of 2 daughters, her 2 daughters also had 2 daughters of their own.
The second was Mike's Audition.
Mike had been told of a movie role audition at a last moments notice. He had very limited time to get some distance to get to the audition and had to account for traffic, sleep and personal hygiene. He had focussed first on how long it would take to drive to the audition and from that determined how much time he would have left for sleep and personal hygiene. It was one in the morning, his calculations were that he would have to share his time left in this way:
Getting up at three am, providing only 2 hours sleep
Time to shower and get ready
4 Hours of morning traffic
These were my assumptions:
The movie audition is at a certain time and cant be changed.
- Perhaps he could get it rescheduled.
Mike lives a fair distance from the place the audition is being held.
- Are there more direct routs?
Mike wont be getting much sleep.
- How could he gain more sleep? If he wasn't driving himself he could sleep on the way.
There is a safer and faster way to get to the audition than Mike driving to it.
- Public transports are available, could he use one such as the subway instead of the bus.
Assumable solutions:
If they have a train service Mike could usethat as generally that is a faster form of transport as it goes in more directlines and all traffic has to give way, unless it was a subway then again itwould likely be faster but traffic wouldn’t have to give way.
Mike could take the rout he knows, atleastthen he would know a more set time of when he would get there and be able tomanage his time wisely.
Mike could risk taking what he thinks is abetter rout and risk getting lost, completely missing the audition.
The correct solution was that Mike could leave at that time, drive across town and then sleep in his car and use a service station shower or take some water and washing things to clean himself once he got there.
The last task for the challenging assumptions exercise was taking some of our own working and applying the technique to it. Coming up with 2 assumptions and challenging them.
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| My website background. |
Assumption: The colours are as they need to be andproportions are acceptable.
Challenge: The colours could be better done. Theleaves and vine roots could be a better colour, they would be better to be adarker green but lighter than the vine itself. The vine roots would also bebetter as thinner and more of them to make the vine roots look not only niceand less eye-catching, but having them smaller and more of them would enhancethe picture. The leaves could be removed completely, as there are vines thatthrive without leaves. The background of blue could be altered to look like itis the sun and blend in to the overall picture.
Assumption: Its finished.
Challenge: The picture is clearly not finished. Thevines do not have roots for the entire length, the blending on the wood is notdone properly as the grain lines are needed to be more prominent on the branchso it looks like it verges into not being able to be seen. One of the smallerbranches coming off the main one is out of place and the grain colour iscompletely wrong. The vines are too constrictive on the main branch and toostraight in the diagonal lines, most likely they would hang mor directly downthan go in the diagonal lines in such a uniform way.
Video:
Comments:
Reflections:
This week i learnt that i need to criticise my own work before submitting it as a finished product and ensuring there is no way i could make it better. By doing this i will produce better work, pick up on mistakes and correct previous mistakes during the creation process. This will allow me to produce not only better designs but also by learning from my mistakes and being aware of the mistakes i make i can most likely reduce the time it takes me to create designs.
The Assumption-Challenge exercise taught me to that sometimes the best solution is the utmost simplest, i will now remind myself not to dismiss something just because it is the obvious answer (and therefore can't be the answer I'm seeking because "shouldn't it be more difficult or complex?"). Also this exercise was a good reminder to not undervalue the process of reduction in problem solving, i feel that a regular use of problem solving methods would indeed help any designer keep a sharp and open mind to all possibilities, small or large.
