Thesis News for Week of March 21

Hi all,

Hope you’re all feeling a good balance of restfulness from Spring Break and excitement about what the future holds!

There are a few thesis things to keep in mind for this week:

• Some time this week, you *are required* to post something you have made on the blog! Don’t overthink it! Anything at all…. it could be a survey you’re working on, a storyboard, a sketch, some code, or… a dance about your research! Get into the making + sharing loop, it will feel good, I promise! Leave a comment for a friend!

• Don’t forget to respond to your proposal feedback! I recommend doing so as comments on the feedback doc.

• For March 28, you should come to class with 2 things:

  • A rough version of a testable prototype that you will share for the Show-A-Thing show.

  • A basic production schedule ready to workshop with a small group.

  • I also recommend you start to translate your current work in progress into a slide deck format: use this slide deck template as a starting point. This will be useful going forward for when you need to quickly introduce your project to someone new… and is also a useful tool for organizing your own thoughts!

• Tonight @ 8pm ET, we’re going to be joined by ITP grads Ami Mehta, Jeeyoon Hyun, and Phil Caridi to talk about their thesis projects. Feel free to read about their projects (linked) in advance! It will be followed by a Q&A facilitated by Nun, and including our own IMA residents.

What is a testable prototype?

A testable prototype is something you made that you can share with another person, which allows you to test some hypothesis you have about your work in some way. It could be conceptual (for instance showing someone a very clear storyboard + asking a few specific questions), something interactive and functional (for instance a figma click-through of a website), or something in between (like doing a series of “yes or no” question + holding up notecards to prototype a user flow). The main idea is that you have created something to validate a very specific aspect of your work. If you don’t know a testable prototype looks for your project, talk to me or a resident, or just try something out and we’ll workshop it in class! This slideshow is a good resource, as well: Feb 13 2018 Thesis – Rapid Prototyping Workshop

What is a Production Schedule?

You will be presenting something completed, at some level, for formal feedback May 8 or 9. That means you have about 6 weeks to get something to a presentable state + create a presentation. At this point, it’s really helpful to make a production schedule. That might sound scary! But it is mostly just to help you understand your next six weeks’ scope. There are an infinite number of ways to do this (some great tips can be found in the IMA Low Res Thesis 2023 Additional Resources document in the production section). But the main ideas are:

• Start broad: what are the major milestones? As those milestones approach you’ll break them down into to-do list size tasks – but don’t worry about that upfront.

• Use a calendar, or some kind of visual aid with actual dates. This schedule template has our dates with some suggested milestones, you can make a copy of it if you like!

• Work backwards – where do you want to end up? Working backwards from May 2, what do you do each week? This may take some iteration. Save the last week for just refining your presentation!

• Block out hours in your daily or weekly schedule for thesis! Even if you’re not sure exactly how you’ll use it – set aside time!

• Timebox (ie: limit your time for certain tasks). Some things you could spend 10 minutes or 10 years on: not everything is equally as important, give yourself a time limit on certain tasks.

• Be realistic! If it seems like too much work for the amount of time you have, how can you scope down while retaining the spirit and goals of your work?

• Check with someone for time-sensitive details: did you remember to schedule in time to order materials you might need? Book space for your performance? Organize playtests?

• Remember: you can consider the work you do in your classes as part of your thesis!

• You can always revise your schedule! (and most certainly will)…

• Remember, Spring Presentation is a milestone, but you also have Summer…

What about Summer?

As you all probably know, Thesis continues through the Summer session. While there is a culminating endpoint in Spring (review Project Guidelines if you’re confused) the big reveal is during Summer, when you’ll present your project to the public. For the Summer session, the emphasis will be about integrating feedback you got, documentation, refinement, and culminating with a public presentation (this is a presentation with slides + installation of your work or equivalent depending on the project).

I recommend including the six weeks of summer on your production schedule, even if it is vague exactly how you will spend it.

What’s going on with mentorship?

Unless I have said otherwise to you, I have reached out to each of your potential mentors and you should start getting messages connecting you with some info about what the expectations are around mentor meetings. Remember, you’re expected to have 3-4 meetings with the mentor, sometime between now and the end of May. Look out for the message soon!

Next week in class…

We will be reviewing your production schedules and testable prototypes, talking about next steps, doing a group activity (on miro), and some process Q&A. If there’s something else you want to suggest we go over, do let me know and I’ll consider it!

That’s all for now!

Warmly,

Sarah