Goal: Develop New Skills

December 4, 2021 admin Goal

How does this goal fit?

I believe I have significant potential to broaden my skill set beyond its current limitations, and that my opportunities and performance as a designer and researcher will be limited if I cannot achieve this goal. Challenging myself in this regard is extremely important to my overall goal.

Skills that I view as viable opportunities to broaden my capabilities as a designer and researcher are:

• Basic programming (particularly Processing, for its utility in physical prototyping)
• Physical prototyping (particularly electronics and 3D modeling)
• Augmented / Mixed / Virtual Reality interface design (new tools being developed in the Perceptual Artifacts Lab show significant potential to improve this skill, so long as I practice using them)
• Communication design (sketching, visual design – highly dependent on regular practice and continual challenging of my limits)
• Data representation design (I am relatively new to both the practical and theoretical part of this domain, and it is vitally relevant to my MRP topic)

What activities will progress me towards this goal?

• Participate in and contribute to the Perceptual Artifacts Lab
• Practice technical design skills
• Practice communication design skills
• Practice skills & develop theoretical knowledge of data representation strategies
• Find and produce summaries of readings on practical design & tech knowledge

What resource(s) will I need to achieve this goal?

Here, the connection I have fostered to the Perceptual Artifacts Lab is very important, not just for the objective for which developing new skills is necessary for, but for the connections I can make by participating in the lab. There are lab members who are highly skilled in some of the areas I am targeting, and could help me with developing strategies and projects to pursue that would help me accomplish this goal.

Independently, I must be willing to take on different roles than usual in some of the projects and assignments I deliver for my courses in the MDes Inclusive Design program, leverage and expand my network, and look for opportunities outside the courses to practice these skills, such as through online skill development courses (for example, freeCodeCamp, envatoTuts+ and other hands-on skill development channels on Youtube)