#closingthoughts

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into a class focused on the history of Hip Hop. That was probably a good bit due to my own musical background. Not counting a few outlier cases, I’ve never been one to listen to anything remotely close to Hip Hop. That’s never been out of some deep-seated animosity; I just never took the time to explore the genre.

Thanks to this course, though, that discovery process was facilitated in a very comprehensive way. In reality, I can hardly think of a better way (for me, at least) to be truly introduced into the world of Hip Hop than this kind of historically-grounded survey. Music is more than just a hodgepodge of sounds, and this class helped me to really understand and appreciate the context that surrounds the world of Hip Hop culture.

Will I now convert to listening to Hip Hop full time? Definitely not. And, if I’m being honest, I’m not sure if my music listening habits will change much at all following this term. That’s more a reflection on my own allegiance to the familiar than a judgment on how the course “sold” Hip Hop. What I will always have, though, is that little bit of understanding. A grasp, even if slight, on the hows and whys of this genre previously so foreign to me.

Following Donald A. Schön’s ideas of the reflective practitioner this course has emphasized the value of sketching and prototyping. Schön describes design practice as a conversation with the materials of the design situation (Schön, 1992). Here the designer performs certain moves and “listens” for the situation’s reaction. From that he adjusts his understanding of the situation and thereby the design, he is creating. This is a process of reflection- and knowing-in-action. When engaging with this conversation prototyping and sketching are very important design moves, which allow the designer to explore, affect and understand the design situation. Inquiry of the design situation can be done through prototyping and sketching. Therefore this is not tools that only belong to the final stages of the process.

This course has given me a better understanding of Schön’s processual concept and most importantly, how it applies to practice. It is not just a matter of making and refining prototypes. Design is about being able to articulate the arguments behind design decisions and understand the results of a prototype put into test. In the context of interaction this requires an understanding of the different aspects, attributes and relations, that constitute interaction. Here I have been introduced to different vocabularies and frameworks for approaching and articulating specific interaction attributes.

Compared to other design courses, that I have followed, this course has focused on the practical aspects of interaction design. I have obtained competencies within three areas: Processual experience, articulation of concepts and technical skills.

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