RR Week 5 – Constraints! Due by midnight Friday of this week.
Read
the excerpts below and click on the comments section at the bottom of
the blog to comment on EACH reading, mention what jumped out at you from
the readings and why:
what do you think makes sense; what seems illogical to you; what is
something that you might not have considered previously? Tell us what
your experiences with constraints have been.
EXCERPT #1: This
first excerpt is about why features sometimes get overdone or left out
completely when software (or an electronic game) is being created...
"What
has been described as 'creeping elegance' is probably better described
as 'feature blight,' for like a fungus on a plant it gradually
elaborates and blurs the true outline of the product while it drains its
sap. The antidote to feature blight is, of course, the 'constricting
deadline.' This results in features being discarded in proportion to the
time it would take to implement them. It is often the case that the
most useful features take the longest to implement. Thus the combination
of the blight and the deadline yields software as we know and love it,
comprised of bountiful quantities of useless features." —Jef Raskin,
author (from "Why Software Is the Way It Is") From “Getting Real” Read
more here.
EXCERPT #2: Beatrice C. Benne, Ph.D. talks about how we view constraints...
"For
many of us, the word 'constraints' often carries a negative connotation
as it seems to imply that there are ‘things’ in our environment that
limit or restrict our freedom to act and to achieve our goals. Yet,
people with design training know that constraints can be useful in that
they provide the canvas within which ideas are framed, concepts
developed, and decisions made. In fact, without constraints, creativity
and innovation would be merely impossible. As Jeff Klein once reflected,
'constraints are akin to the tiny irritant that causes an oyster to
make a pearl.'
make a pearl.'
For a
designer, constraints provide the context that informs the design
process; without them, the designer would have to choose from an
infinite number of design possibilities – a daunting task. In
architectural design, building program requirements, specific site
conditions, environmental conditions, technical requirements, budget,
material availability, and regulations are only but a few of the
numerous constraints that an architect has to juggle with on a daily
basis. While those constraints force the architect to make some
trade-offs, they also drive the necessary decisions that move the design
process forward. Indeed, we must acknowledge that complete freedom in
the ‘real’ world is an illusion as any decision we make and action we
take drive our next actions and the ones of our peers. In fact, as soon
as a designer draws a line representing a wall on a piece of paper, she
is in fact setting a significant design constraint. In business like in
our personal life, constraints can be self-imposed or externally-driven.
And, while we may be required to deal with most of them, some constraints may be unnecessarily limiting. Figuring out how to use constraints as a source of creativity is one of the most rewarding challenges in today’s complex environment."
This is from: Hirshberg J. 1998, The
Creative Priority: Driving Innovative Business in the Real World. Harper
Collins Publishers, New York.
EXCERPT #3: This is from a post from Beatrice C. Benne’s blog:
Creative Priority: Driving Innovative Business in the Real World. Harper
Collins Publishers, New York.
EXCERPT #3: This is from a post from Beatrice C. Benne’s blog:
“Let’s
say I am a coffee shop owner. I want you to tell me what is better for
the environment: using paper cups, hence increasing deforestation or,
using ceramic cups, which I now have to wash using energy and lots of
water? (Of course, much energy and water were used to make the paper
cups as well.)
Perhaps
you know the answer to this question but more likely you are like me
and you don’t. Perhaps there are some experts out there who have done a
comparative life cycle analysis of both solutions and who know the
answer. Perhaps the answer depends on where the coffee shop is
located—I would suspect the answer would be different in India or Africa
than it is in the U.S. Perhaps ceramic cups are a better choice today
while paper cups might be better in 5 or 10 years when we experience a
major water shortage. Perhaps in 20 years neither solution will be a
good one because we won’t have enough water to make our coffee, anyway.
There may not be any coffee growing, by the way.
I may
be over-dramatizing but you get the point. We all mean well and we are
all trying to do the right thing and we truly care. Yet, driven by our
mental models (yes, I know, I have been focusing quite a bit on them
lately but they seem to me so critical if one wants to move to the next
stage), we love to find easy technical answers to our complex problems
and we love jumping to conclusions quickly.” Read more here.
PLEASE put your name on your post.
Due by midnight Friday this week – 2/8/13.
