Chapter 3 Reading Response

In the first part of Chapter 3, I thought it was a nice visualization to break down elements of the Ocarina into its primitive forms. It reminded me of my work in graphics, and how every mesh and complex geometry can be broken down into triangles! It makes sense that if rigorous programming systems are also approached in this building-block style, general design problems can be too (I guess what else is a computer program without some sort of design!). We are taught very early in our computer science education to decompose our code into manageable segments and isolated functions as much as possible so that building our larger program becomes much easier, like putting pieces of a puzzle together, rather than assembling one large machine all at once.

I also really liked design Principle 3.13 — “Constraints are the underlying rules that define how a system works, give it shape, and ultimately specify how a user engages with it. Like rules in a game, constraints make a system useful, safe, fun, interesting. they provide the basis for creative agency.” I think without rules, there’s sometimes too much flexibility. By having some rules, which have the potential to be stretched or broken, it allows us designers to formulate different types of solutions — one that fits the criteria exactly, one that maybe pushes the boundaries of what our initial question asked, and some that maybe just don’t work for our problem statement! Without constraints, how do we know that we’ve designed a product that can actually help us solve or address a question? I’m glad that there are constraints for our audio visualizer; so far, most of my ideas have come to me AFTER I’ve implemented the basic constraints because it allows me to see what the basic solution is, and then I can ask questions like, “How can I make this more exciting?” or “How can I make this reflect more of my personality?” I’m excited to see everyone’s visualizers for this very reason since we were all given the same general constraints, but each person’s experience will be reflected differently in their projects!