Materialstorming

This instructable will illustrate how (scrap)material can be used as a very inspiring source for designing products from websites over software applications to services and tangible 'hardware' products.

Basically this instructable will explain a method that I tend to use and like to participate in at the very start of a variety of projects related to human computer interaction. The main idea originates from the creation of low fidelity prototypes by using cheap materials to simulate some kind of interactivity, which is covered very well in Bill Buxton's book 'sketching user experiences'.

Step 1 Materials

The first thing you need is a material table or material repository, as is often used in creative sessions and in creative techniques. What the materials are is not all that important - but the more diversity in colours, material properties, textures, hardness, etc the better.
Based on several sessions that I have been involved in, some very interesting materials are:
- Paper/Cardboard of different thicknesses and textures
- Universal glue
- Hot glue
- Magnets
- Clay (the Playdough type)
- Fabrics
- Felt
- Postits of different sizes, shapes and colours
- Preshaped boxes (of cardboard, wood and/or plastic)
- Plastic sheets
Excellent places to buy these things are art stores. Other very interesting places can be second hand stores or places where leftovers from production processes are sold (eg. "stichting scrap" in Rotterdam : link)

Comments

[killerjackalope]

Cool instructable... I think material stroming applies really well to the likes of building a website, things where your product will end up intangible, just because it isn't going to be a physical object is no reason not to consider it as one at points...

[tinkernaut]

Brilliant!! In addition, using materials entirely unrelated to your subject can lead your thinking outside the proverbial box. In the website example, the hole-punched ribbon representing the vertical bar suggests a pattern, a set of elements (the holes), or a set of functions (seeing through the holes) which may suggest a design for the real vertical bar in ways you have not thought of before.