Prototyping as Sketching

“All those unseen details combine to produce something that’s just stunning, like a thousand barely audible voices all singing in tune.”

-Paul Graham, 2003

This summed up my experience of approaching the concept of coding for the first time. Sure, it existed in millions of different forms all around me but was more likely to be treated as the fearful and hazy territory that often overcame any curiosity that I might have had for the subject. Hence, when asked whether a designer should make coding a part of their practice, I could agree that it’s too good of an opportunity to pass up, even though I had less than a sketchy idea of what that would entail. But as I dipped a toe in these waters, I realised how it could be much more than just a feather in your cap.

It only seems fair to want know more about the devices that carry the world in your pocket and want to get to know you to create a world that we disappear into for hours on end. But it was only after watching excerpts from the Mother of all Demos (1968) that I could appreciate the smallest details and achievements in the way data could be manipulated. Even in the case of the sketchpad, creating an ‘almost intelligently human’ computer and ‘letting it know’ what to make of a constraint as simple as connecting two lines when close together was extremely fascinating.

Coding as a way of expression to expand and make new experiences opened up a new dialogue for me- a dialogue between man and machine, both approaching each other to better understand one another. I was able to observe this interaction through the many prototypes listed in the Buxton Collection as well as explore comments on expansive learning, digital storytelling and materials that make as fast as you can think.

“If someone had told me that software is really about humanity, about helping people with computer technology, it would have changed my outlook a lot earlier”

- Vanessa, from ‘Girl Develop it’