d.tools: Reflective Physical Prototyping

by Björn Hartmann, Scott R. Klemmer, Michael Bernstein, Leith Abdulla, Brandon Burr, Avi Robinson-Mosher, Jennifer Gee. Video companion to UIST 2006 paper http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/2006/dtools/dtools-uist06.pdf

Prototyping is the pivotal activity that structures innovation, collaboration, and creativity in design. Prototypes
embody design hypotheses and enable designers to test them. Framing design as a thinking-by-doing activity fore-
grounds iteration as a central concern. This paper presents d.tools, a toolkit that embodies an iterative-design-centered
approach to prototyping information appliances. This work offers contributions in three areas. First, d.tools introduces
a statechart-based visual design tool that provides a low threshold for early-stage prototyping, extensible through
code for higher-fidelity prototypes. Second, our research introduces three important types of hardware extensibility — at the hardware-to-PC interface, the intra-hardware communication level, and the circuit level. Third, d.tools
integrates design, test, and analysis of information appliances. We have evaluated d.tools through three studies: a
laboratory study with thirteen participants; rebuilding prototypes of existing and emerging devices; and by observing
seven student teams who built prototypes with d.tools.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• d.tools
• Toolkits
• information appliances
• design tools
• prototyping
• design thinking