87445 VC Project: Visualising Experience

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.

UTS: Design, Architecture and Building: Design
Credit points: 6 cp

Subject level:

Undergraduate

Result type: Grade and marks

Requisite(s): 87731 VC Design Studio: Narrative, Form and Time OR 87441 VC Project: Contexts of Visual Communication

Description

This subject explores visual communication design in the context of complex informational and technological systems. Students design interactions within these systems that are a response to what they observe in the world through basic design research methods. Through these research methods students identity and frame relationships among people, information, technology and their contexts and seek to use their findings to generate novel (new) design concepts that are thoughtful, empathic, human-centred, speculative, or useful.

Students are introduced to ways of communicating and visually representing their concepts, which could include interactive or responsive objects or environments.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1.	employ primary and secondary research methods including but not limited to observation, the analysis of material culture, library and internet research
2.	devise creative designs in response to the specific objectives of a project brief and/or insights from research
3.	iterate and refine a design concept and outcome through processes of critical reflection, feedback, and prototyping
4.	develop refined and original visuals through which to communicate design concepts with clarity
5.	present design processes and outcomes in visual, oral and written forms with thought, care and skill.

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)

This subject also contributes to the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes:

Work cooperatively and professionally as part of a team, initiate partnerships with others, take a leadership role when required, and constructively contribute to peer learning. (C.1)
Create designs that respond to their context in formally or conceptually innovative ways. (I.1)
Advance ideas through an exploratory and iterative design process. (I.2)
An ability to critique your own work and the work of others with reference to standards drawn from contemporary design practice. (P.1)
Employ a range of qualitative research approaches including practice-led visual and material exploration and social and participatory methods. (R.2)

Teaching and learning strategies

Lectures will orient you to specific visual communication concepts and theories, studio activities and project requirements.

Studio sessions will give you the opportunity to discuss questions about the weekly content with your peers and with an expert studio leader, to collaborate on activities directly relevant to key ideas and to develop your skills as a design practitioner with assistance from your studio leader. Studio sessions will provide you with the opportunity to take ownership of the ideas encountered in preparatory reading, research, and lectures. Your studio leader will facilitate discussion and activities and offer expert insight and direction where needed, but as students you are primarily responsible for the mood of the studio session.

This subject incorporates a PBL (problem based learning) strategy. The focus is on allowing students to engage with practical, experiential models of visual communication design. The design methodology of developing creative responses to project briefs continues to underpin the learning experience. Peer learning groups and learning partnerships are encouraged at this stage for students, as individuals and collaboratively in groups to develop their ability to reflect upon and critically analyse their research and design work in order to experience perceptual change and enact their new understandings in progressive design iterations. Emphasis is placed on developing each student’s confidence in processing and refining ideas.

LECTURE AND STUDIO ETIQUETTE

Lectures and studio sessions provide important opportunities for you interact with your studio leaders and peers. Mobile phone and laptop use can be distracting to yourself and those around you. Mobile phones and laptops should not be used in lectures or studio sessions. You will be given explicit information about situations where limited use of these technologies might be appropriate.

PREPARATORY ACTIVITIES

After each studio there are activities that need to be completed over the week before your next studio. These activities need to be thoughtfully undertaken in order for you to get the most out of your next studio and receive quality feedback from your studio leader, demonstrator and peers. An overview of activities that need to be completed after a studio can be found in that week's module and studio overview i.e. the Week 1 module has an overview that lists activities that need to be followed up after the studio and completed for the studio in Week 2.

PEER CRITIQUES

Learning to give and receive feedback is essential to your development as a professional designer. In peer feedback sessions you will ask your group to give you feedback on ideas and visuals. Try to sit back and listen. Try not to prompt your peers with information about your intentions. You want feedback from as many different perspectives as possible.

Content (topics)

practices of interaction and experience design
complex social, informational and technological systems as a design context
basic primary and secondary design research methodologies (observation, visual scenarios, mindmapping, propotyping)
development of design propositions
visualisation methods for conceptual development and presentation (both static and moving image)

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Design Concept and Research Folio

Intent:

For this task, you will be developing a creative response to a design brief. You will be undertaking research activities to understand the context that the brief asks you to design for in order to develop a 'design outline'* (Fukusawa 2003). You will then use this outline to prompt the ideation of a design concept.

Submission:

For your assessment, you will submit a collated and edited folio of your research. This folio will be presented in the format of an A3 digital PDF. Your folio will be comprised of all the different research methods, and iterations, that you have completed within and between classes week-to-week. For each research method, you must also include a brief one to two sentence reflection (no more) on how you think that method extended your understanding or provided insight.

The final 1-2 page/s of your PDF will be a storyboard or visual narrative sequence that both prototypes and communicates your design concept.

We recommend that you set up a file for your research folio in the first week – in InDesign or other software that you are comfortable working in, and that you update this folio each week. This will save you time collating all of your process work in the lead up to the assignment submission, and that you are capturing your process and thinking whilst it is happening.

A brief will be supplied on UTSOnline.

* This term comes from the Week 1 reading 'Without Thought' by Naoto Fukusawa. For Fukusawa, a 'design outline' does not so much describe the form of a potential design object, but various factors of its future context that a designer can find out such as users, interactions, behaviours, problems and so forth. This outline sets parameters or generates understandings that inform the ideation of the design object. Research to understand context and develop insights is an important part of the design process that can lead to better and more useful design outcomes, especially in practices of interaction design (IxD), service design, user interface design (UI) and user experience design (UX).

Objective(s):

This task addresses the following subject learning objectives:

1, 2, 4 and 5

This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.):

C.1, I.1, P.1 and R.2

Type:

Portfolio

Groupwork:

Individual

Weight:

40%

Criteria linkages:

Criteria	Weight (%)	SLOs	CILOs
Quality of engagement with research processes and methods as evidenced in the thoughtful and timely completion of, and participation in weekly tasks - in and out of studio time - and their documentation in a research folio	30	1	R.2
Ability to develop a design concept of high creative or intellectual quality in response to a project brief and insights developed through research of a design context	20	2	I.1
Ability to communicate a design concept as evidenced in the capacity to visually articulate ideas in a clear and compelling manner	20	4	P.1
Quality of visual communication including visual hierarchy, typography, image quality, text and image relationships as evidenced in your final visualisation/s	15	4	P.1
Ability to articulate a research and/or design process as evidenced in its coherent presentation in a research folio	15	5	C.1

SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Assessment task 2: Video Communication of Design Concept and Process Folio

Intent:

For this task, you will continue to develop and refine your design concept by testing and iterating your design using prototyping methods. You will then create a short video that communicates your design concept and its final design prototype in use.

Submission:

For your assessment, you will submit a digital video, between 30 seconds (min) to 1.15 minutes (max), that communicates core aspects of your final design concept.

You will also submit a collated and edited folio of your design and prototyping process. This folio will be presented in the format of an A3 digital PDF. Your folio will be comprised of all the different prototypes, and iterations, that you have completed within and between classes week-to-week. For each iteration, you must also include a brief one to two sentence reflection (no more) on how you think that test extended your understanding or provided insight.

As with the first assignment, we recommend that you set up a file for your research folio in the first week – in InDesign or other software that you are comfortable working in, and that you update this folio each week. This will save you time collating all of your process work in the lead up to the assignment submission, and that you are capturing your process and thinking whilst it is happening.