5.1.2.2 Informal Design and Development Processes
An example of the typical informal level of design activities was described by
Schlusselberg (personal interview, October 1, 1992):
Schlusselberg: I took a class in Instructional Design and Development.
I absolutely do think of design before developing, but I do not do it formally.
Which means I do not write it on paper. However, before I begin working I know
what I want to accomplish and basically how things will be structured.
When I work with students I know in my head what I want them to do. Obviously,
as the project gets larger, more story boarding is needed to communicate better
with the people working on the project. I think my style is biased though
because I work at a research center. It's hard to initially structure things
too much if your doing something for the first time or exploring possibilities.
Usually you get a great idea right in the middle of your work. You need
flexibility to implement those ideas. I like to think of it as, "We'll go from here,
and then we'll go to there, and then this is what's going to happen there to get
us way over there." And then once I'm in the middle, I like to be able to think,
"Wouldn't it be great if you could go from here to way over there now!"
The processes of creators of simulations and their interfaces appeared to be just
as informal. There were few formal planning activities outside of what was the
required result of other processes. The main form of communication that was
emphasized in projects with a number of participants was verbal interactions
during one on one or group meetings. Part of the reason for this informality
may have been due to the traditional informality of academic settings.
However, Bucciarelli (personal interview, June 23, 1992) attributes his own
informal processes used to create interactive simulations to the dynamic nature
of the computational medium, which allows for change more easily than traditional
print forms:
Bucciarelli: These are all problems I made up before I decided to do this,
but they are variants on other problems. I do a little pre work, to make sure I can
solve the problem. What I do is go to the computer, sit down, and do them. I customize
the text, in the process. If the programming language is appropriate, so that you can
rewrite things, and you don't feel that you've lost things if you rewrite them,
and you have enough memory to store things, why would you want to write things down at all?
The advantage of an electronic medium is it doesn't cost you anything to erase,
you're not wasting paper. In fact, it's too easy to erase.