Your Sketchbook

Hint. Keep a printout of this page with your sketchbook and refer to it periodically!

Why a sketchbook?

Real progress in developing yourself as an interaction designer will depend on you frequently and habitually sketching out your ideas and their variations, and then developing those ideas after reflecting on these ideas. Use your sketchbook to help you develop this habit.

Sketchbooks are useful in many ways. It will serve as a way for you to refer back to your ideas over time. It will provide you with the opportunities for immediate and then repeated application of the lessons learnt in class. It is a place for you to jot down and annotate your own ideas. You can jot down good ideas you see elsewhere e.g., in other systems, in your readings, and in your classmates' work. You can also take existing material (e.g., pictures from magazines, screen snapshots) and staple them into the sketchbook. Regular use of the sketchbook will help you develop your skills, your accuracy and your confidence in sketching out your ideas.

Sketches do not have to be pretty, beautiful, or even immediately understandable by others. However, you should be able to explain your sketches when anyone asks about them.

Learning objectives

Students will develop their skills in freehand sketching and annotation as a way to describe visual information (ideas and descriptive details) related to the the course materials being learnt .
Students will develop the sketchbook as a personal reference of tracing their interaction design ideas and for reflecting on the progress of these ideas.
Students will acquire the habit of using a sketchbook for freehand sketching and annotations of interface ideas (from casual and spontaneous ideas to studied interface design development) and for detailing where inspirations came from (other systems, students, magazines, etc.)

Sketchbook grading

In grading your sketchbook, I and the teaching assistant will be looking for evidence that:

you regularly use the sketchbook to jot down, annotate, and develop ideas over time;
as the course progresses, you are developing skills in sketching out these ideas;
your ideas are descriptive and informative;
you credit other people's ideas that you are using;
you can can explain the development of your ideas and sketches.

Due dates

I and the teaching assistant will be looking at your sketchbook

as it is being used in class;
periodically (by collecting and reviewing it after several weeks);
at the end of the term.

Example

A portion of a page from my sketchbook. Note that I am not very artistic, and that I use both sketches and annotations to explore my ideas. You will also see that I have credited the source of my idea in the upper left.

Format

Your sketchbook should be an 8 1/2 " x 11" or 9" x 12" coiled book containing (mostly) unlined paper. This size of your sketchbook is important: its pages should be large enough to accommodate idea development comfortably, while still being easy to carry with you at all times. A coiled book means that you can fold it over easily and you can hold it in your arms while sketching.

Hint. If you are right-handed, the sketchbook is easiest to use the right way up, coil on the left. If you are left-handed, simply rotate the sketchbook 180 degrees: the front cover will be upside down and the coil will be more comfortably on the right side

Strategies

Always bring your sketchbook with you to the class! Use it for jotting down ideas that develop during class, and for working out the new processes taught during the course of the semester.

With the sketchbook oriented the way you will use it, place an adhesive address label with your name and email neatly lettered at the outside lower front of the cover. This is important as there may be many similar sketchbooks in class.

Use discreet, careful lettering to date the pages as you work, usually in the upper or lower outside corner.

Start at the front of the sketchbook and work the pages sequentially, usually on one side only.

Use this sketchbook for interaction design only; do not use it in other classes just because you do not have any paper.

As new material is presented in class, practice relevant ideas in your sketchbook, and then continue working with those consistently in both your sketchbook and in assignments.

To benefit most from this assignment, use your sketchbook as frequently as possible. Try to work 15-20 minutes a day in this book. Return to a page each day until it is full.

Use pencil; you may even want to arrange it so you always have a pencil handy in the coil binder.

Feel free to erase things as you are working on them, but do not erase ideas because they are messy or because you no longer like them. Remember that your sketchbook is here to help you record your developing ideas. It is only rarely a place to record final ideas.

Each page should be composed thoughtfully and should indicate intentional application of the lessons and processes addressed during classes and/or ideas related to your interface designs. Fill the pages with a series of related drawings about a design idea, or with a single well-composed design idea.

Discreetly annotate drawings appropriately, including information such as descriptions for ideas that you cannot draw out well; textual addendums; sources of your ideas (e.g., books, magazines, classmates) or any other relevant information. Use small, careful lettering for annotations

Hint. A series of sketches related to the same interface problem might explore different aspects of the interface. These could include different interface representations, different interaction details, different screens, different levels of details, different contexts of use, and so on. Each page can become a series of studies that will help you develop and reflect on the many ideas you will have.

Remember

Keep your sketchbook handy and use it!

As you learn things in class, apply them to develop ideas in your sketchbook.

Refer back to you sketches. Reflect on your ideas, and add to them.

Credits. This page is a modification of Sketchbook Ideas by Colleen Campbell, a designer and artist who teaches at Mont Royal College.