Generative walkthroughs
Danielle M. Lottridge, Wendy E. Mackay · 2009
Generative Walkthoughs support the redesign phase of an iterative design process, helping designers generate new design alternatives informed by social science principles. Designers first analyze their own scenarios or storyboards with respect to concrete examples drawn from five socio-technical principles: situated action, rhythms & routines, co-adaptive systems, peripheral awareness and distributed cognition. They then walk through the scenario and brainstorm new design alternatives that reflect the design principle in question. This combination of structured walkthroughs with focused brainstorming helps designers, particularly those with little social science background, to generate concrete, actionable ideas that reflect key findings from the social science literature. We taught Generative Walkthroughs in ten courses with over 220 students and found that technically-trained students not only learned these socio-technical principles, but were able to apply them in innovative ways in a variety of design settings.