Drawings and sketches can be powerful and persuasive representations of ideas, events, sequences, systems and objects. As part of a larger collaborative design process, hand drawing can serve as a key method for thinking, reasoning and exploring opportunities, yet inherently differs from wire-frames and conceptual models. Innately, interaction designers employ a variety of methods for representing ideas and information, both internally in a cognitive sense, and externally in the devices we employ to record, share and reflect. However, competency in sketching and drawing by hand seems to be diminishing across design disciplines making it a more highly desired skill in contemporary design practice. In addition, there seems to be an apparent phenomenon of fear when it comes to drawing ideas. For many practicing designers, they have convinced themselves that they can’t draw and thus position themselves to the periphery in concept generation…
- Click here to download Mark's worksheets, intended to help non-drawers begin to use sketches to communicate.
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[…] sample isn’t perfect, and as is argued in Pencils before Pixels, the lower the fidelity of the sketch the harder it is to use it to communicate with others. […]
[…] Mark Baskinger, and his article in Interactions Magazine […]
[…] more insights into sketching I recommend the article Pencils Before Pixels in the march/april issue of interactions magazine. Specificly for scribbling iPhone wireframes […]
[…] More at interactions […]
[…] how to Unpack Stories to Serve People Better. CMU Design professor Mark Baskinger will follow up his excellent article in the latest Interactions magazine with a workshop on Drawing Ideas: Quick Sketching for Interaction […]
Thanks for the great article and worksheets! I’m working on a draft poster with two of my classmates in a CS visualization and visual communication class. Mark’s worksheets will be utilized as we put our ideas for interactive visualizations onto paper.
The worksheet provides structure to the visual brainstorming and decision-making process.
Lynn
[…] in hand-generated sketching” - a great article from the current issues of Interactions: http://interactions.acm.org/content/?p=1081 (You’ll need to view after logging in to the IUB VPN or using your Interactions subscription […]
So glad to see attention from a whitecoat about this. My background is steeped in drawing and I “grew” into the UI field much much later in my career though it has now been several years since I’ve had work in UI. It is absolutely true - drawing HAS disappeared from not only design curricula but art curricula as well. At CalArts, where I recently returned after many years to complete a long ago abandoned MFA, the art school students come to us in the animation department to receive any sort of drawing instruction; all lifedrawing goes on in the animation department vs. the art OR design schools. Yes - I say “return to the cave”. It is so much much faster and also gentler on the planet than the reams of boring words and obtuse descriptions and all of the technological headache (and wait time) for the electronic rendering. Also - I’d like to note here that as someone coming from the “art” field who went into UI, this notion that artistic drawing is about “expressing something personal” vs. representing an idea or communicating an idea is a misunderstanding of art. Art, and the making of it, is ALL about ideas and communicating them. This naieve idea about art being about personal expression points out to me that designers and science types in the design field perhaps failed to take a couple of courses in both art history and painting or drawing. Art is not “leisure”; art saves lives and gives form to ideas. The problem that I see with many product design types and UI people who shun drawing is that - sorry to be so blunt but yeah, they just don’t draw well enough to get their idea across effectively but the good news is that adequate drawing ability can be learned - yes, there is a reason why folks actually teach drawing to people other than seniors and children wanting to “express” themselves. It’s for you, readers here, who may not have the skills and need/want to learn them just as you might take a class to learn After Effects.
When I worked at Apple, they wanted me to bring my sketchbooks with me. They were less interested in fancy slick presentations of my design ideas and more interested in sketches of ideas which they would use to look at how I thought and how I communicated even if just to myself.
I love Interactions and I loved this field and miss working in it.
Very happy to see this topic discussed in Interactions for CHI!! Drawing and sketching are quite simply fundamental skills for designers, for the sake of concept exploration, thinking through a problem, feeling out the boundaries and limits and possibilities. Design drawing isn’t necessarily about “artistic flair” (though some do have it
but an alternative cognitive process, expressed in rapid, tangible form…that can better lead to innovative designs! And it’s lightweight, fluid, flexible, dynamic, collaborative, etc. Plus highly portable!
Even writting in paper is, at least to me, quite different and more inspiring than through the screen… I do agree that drawing, and mostly sketching, is a very important cognitive tool for designers. In that sense this kind of drawing differs from artistic drawing as the purpose is not to “express” or share aesthetically personal representations but to “understand” a problem through representations of our its components… Ok, maybe I should concentrate and write later on about this
sorry this is too long and unclear, and hope we can get a full electronic version of the article soon 