Now we're going to talk a little bit about sketching and related to that inspirations. Since when you're making sketches, you're often trying to find that certain something that's going to make your designs special. We'll talk about sketching and where it falls in the design cycle. We'll also talk about some alternatives to drawing on paper and pencils, since a lot of folks don't feel that they have the artistic chops to do it. Although really it's something that most of us can do effectively. Then we'll talk a little bit about some sources for your design inspiration. Sketching is a pretty easy thing to do. A lot of us do it naturally when we doodle in our notebooks or what have you. It can be something you do in a couple of minutes, it can be something that takes hours, depending on how much detail you use. Usually the fidelity for sketching is low and we're really just using it to develop our first pass at design ideas. Broadly defining sketching, we can extend it to say that it's really anything that we do to explore design. Let's move away from just being pencil and pen on paper. The reason sketching is so vital is because it's quick and it's also easy to do. It helps us explore, you can do it with other people. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's really a valuable tool that every engineer should have in their toolkit. The process of sketching is pretty basic. You need whatever equipment you're going to use, you need some time and you need to decide what you're going to focus on and then sketch some alternatives. In a parallel design cycle, you would then review those alternatives and pick which one is the best. It's probably more important in your sketches to work towards clarity rather than beauty. If you're not comfortable drawing, there are other things you can do. I have a tool I use for wire framing and paper prototypes that I also use for doing the sketches called Balsamiq. It's a wonderful tool because the drawings that you make with it look like they're hand-drawn, and it keeps people from thinking that they're too far along to be changed. It's really a neat tool I encourage you to take a look at. You can also sketch in words. You can draw a device and try to highlight its features, but you could also just make a list of what those features are. Then if you were making an alternative, you could try and riff on what those feature's descriptions are and try to change them slightly in the next one. It's important that whatever tools you decide to use for sketching, keep them handy and that if you share them with other people, that you frame your sketches appropriately to tell them what you were thinking and why you're sketching what you are. The book called Sketching User Experience by Buxton is probably one of the better UX books you can spend some time with. Buxton was is an award-winning Computer Scientist. In 2008, he got a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to human-computer interaction. The book covers sketching, design, the importance of annotation, the social nature of design. There's a lot there to dig into. It's a very rich, very visual book, not surprisingly, I definitely encourage you to take a look at it. One thing that I liked in the book, because it talks to those two elements that I often bring up around, premature optimization and progressive elaboration, is the design funnel. In the design funnel, you're starting broadly and you're coming down to a focal point on your design. At the same time, you're increasing and elaborating on the details of your design, and really that's the direction that most design processes go. A really nice view of that. Talk about a sketch. There's a lot of great quotes in sketching UX, ''Design is compromise. The worst thing that can happen with a new product is that it's a failure. The second worst thing is that it is a success.'' I really like those because they really talk to what happens in a design cycle and how you can get trapped in the certain ways of thinking. Most importantly though, is the statement that a designer has to be as happy to be wrong as right. You want to be able to explore things that aren't quite what they need to be and to break out of known patterns in order to come up with things that are really creative. I'll make a note here that on Buxton's website he also has something called the Buxton Collection, which is a huge physical collection of different types of devices, displays, mice, keyboards, etc. He also has a long library list of books on design. Both those things would be interesting for you to take a look at. Buxton also worked with a group Greenberg and Company, developing a workbook that goes along with sketching UX. This is another excellent resource for you if you want to dig into sketching, because you can practice and there's exercises there to get you through it. It also talks about alternatives to sketching using a camera, using physical collections, different ways to sketch using 3D models, using storyboards, having review your [inaudible] work. How to let people look at your work and encourage them to think aloud about it. Really super reference that goes well with the sketching UX book. Just some quick thoughts on sketching again, it's really important to have the right tools for any job, but sketching, certainly a case. I'd like you to spend some time thinking about what would be the most effective set of tools for you. For me, I have a liking for engineers pad, which is that green paper with a mild grid imposed on it. Then I also like using a four color pen with a pencil embedded in it so that I can switch back and forth between colors and pencils and try to put a little more detail into what I'm sketching. But take some time to think about how you would sketch and start to remember to keep those things with you. If you're someplace where you have a few moments that you can work through a design problem, this is a great way to do it. If that's not your forte, if you don't want to be a hand sketcher, do consider other software tools that would also let you do some drawings. It's also important to remember that this stuff is better done as a team sport if you can involve other people, have multiple people do sketches like in a parallel design, have lot of intercourse around what's good in one drawing versus what's good in another. Then involve people that aren't necessarily designers, manufacturers, or other disciplines that are going to help bring that product to life, and of course, don't forget users in that. But having lots of people participate in your sketching exercises will only make them richer. Let's talk a little bit about inspiration, this often comes up around the sketching because people were looking for different ways and different perspectives on how to do something or how to design something. It's always good to take a step back and look for other sources and other approaches. It's also good if you're going to do this on a regular basis, start keeping some kind of a file or a save of links or log on ideas that you find, even if they don't apply to what you're looking at right now, but they just seem like they're neat to you. Sources of inspiration are everywhere, there's a great little article here that's reference, that talks about architecture, photography, food, board games, children's books. There's any number of things that you might see that might trigger an idea and that's really what you're hoping for. I'm going to give you two other suggestions that I like. One of them is a little odd. It's called Oblique Strategies was developed by the musician Brian Eno and his friend Peter Schmidt. It's really just a set of cards that have single line statements on them. Can be as simple as something like "Reverse it" or as listed here, "Don't be frightened by cliches". The idea is to take a look at that statement and see what you can think about differently in your design based on what's there. The other one you might not have thought about, but really it fits well into a lot of wire-framing and flow diagrams is a comic books. Scott McCloud is a conic author who's written a series of books on making comics. In one of them, understanding comics, there's a lot of discussion around the whole idea of the flow and the perspective that brings a comic into a story. I certainly would encourage you to take a look at those if that's of interest to you. Again, my opinion, I think sketching can be one of the most important skills you can develop. It seems to scare a lot of people because you're exposing your artistic talent or lack there of, but really, you don't have to use drawing, you can do other ways. Consider tools that makes sense for you, remember to look at some of these sources and see if there's anything else that you might get interested in, and do remember to start gathering ideas as you see them so that you can build up your own library that supports your design ideas. Most importantly, be open and talk about it with other people, and no doubt those ideas will flow. Thank you.
