ProjectProposal-TabassumKhan
From CS160 User Interfaces Fa06
Contents |
Introduction:
Designing is imagination at work. The first step in becoming a designer is to master the art of putting your vision on paper effectively and realistically. This is known as design sketching. This step is important because it is impossible to explain and sell your vision to others without a good visual support. Despite the advancement of computer-aided design, sketching ability remains an important advantage in designing industry. There are a number of software that have fully automated the sketching process, however, it eliminates the suggestive power of the sketch. Employers still prefer to look at portfolios that contain hand-drawn sketches.
Target User Group:
The target user group is the designing industry which includes students, professionals, instructors, employers, portfolio hosters, etc
Problem Description:
Regular method of sketching has all the limitations that are associated with any kind of data collected on a piece of paper. Computer-aided designs are not personal and lack originality because the ease of erasing, duplicating, modifying geometric shapes encourages the designer to refine his/her art resulting in an artificially clean representation. Additionally, these software packages comes with the inherent problem of dealing with the traditional hardware i.e. keyboard and mouse.
Problem Context and Forces:
Teaching aid:
In designing school, the instructors use pen and paper to demonstrate the technique of sketching. This method has many problems:
1. There is only one copy and many students who can benefit from having their personal copy.
2. The strokes cannot be traced back. The students cannot replay the strokes and thus cannot exactly mimic the process.
3. The students go on a field trip to do inspirational sketching which has all the problems mentioned in ButterFly article.
4. The instructor need to go to each of the students in the classroom in order to watch their progrees for the day.
Portfolio manager:
The software used for creating portfolio currently in the market provide all sorts of features but lack personal touch. They provide no way of incorporating a hand-drawn sketch other than scanning. The scanned image provides a finished version of the process that took considerable amount of thought and important steps. There is no way to break the image into the various strokes that made up the sketch.
Solution Sketch:
The designer will draw sketches on anoto paper. He/she can also mark space for sticking a picture or put additional notes on the paper. The designer will do any of the following:
1. write the name of a folder - to which this sketch will get added.
2. write email address to transmit the sketch as is to someone.
3. can send it directly to the portfolio
4. can be projected on a screen so the students can watch the sketch as it is made and later can compare its stages in an interactive environment.
Since the digital images are not static they can be replayed in the sequence of strokes as they were made on paper. This will enable the recognition of drawing actions with an interactive timeline. This will aid in teaching and evaluating a particular kind of sketch. Moreover, while sketching users can synchronize with the computer frequently in order to get an immediate feedback on their intermediate stages.
The digital image is a precise and exact copy of the sketch drawn by hand. It also document the information about the paper on which the sketch was made which eases the task of document management. The images then can be linked to a software application where post-processing of the images. The portfolio can be created by incorporating the images with basic contact information, bio, and pictures of earlier work.
