Appendix B: Outline for Design Briefs

Schedule   ::   Lesson 12   ::   Track A Summaries   ::   Track B Summaries   ::   Appendix B


Before preparing a design brief, be sure it has been approved with Dr. Shelton. Briefs need to be professional, well-prepared, and conform to standard APA practices (unless otherwise approved) for the IT field. This information has been adopted from Prof. Mitchel Resnick http://llk.media.mit.edu/courses/mas714/.

…your assignment is to design a new tool and/or new activities that support and encourage creative learning experiences -- and to write a "design brief" discussing the motivations, rationale, and principles underlying your design.

You are welcome (in fact, encouraged) to work in groups. If possible, you should test your tool/activities with sample users.

Here is an outline of the key elements of a design brief (http://llk.media.mit.edu/courses/readings/design-brief-guidelines.pdf).

Below are three examples of design briefs. Although these design briefs were written in different contexts, with somewhat different goals, they provide you with a sense of how and what to include in a design brief.

Datagotchi Deep Dive: Report from a design charrette focused on the use of handheld computers for mathematical learning. (http://www.cilt.org/resources/DataGotchi.pdf)

Development of the I-Mail Prototype: Design of an email prototype for people with mental and/or physical disabilities (by Leo Burd and others) (http://www.cs.colorado.edu/%7Esumner/idreams2000/Final_Reports/Imail.pdf)

Interactive Art Construction Tool: Design brief written (by Michael Smith-Welch) for Media Lab class in spring 2003 (http://llk.media.mit.edu/courses/readings/msw-final-paper.pdf)

You may also want to refer to the design documents for the Voices of Spoon River Game Design Project