Process

When it comes to a big project, most of us have trouble getting started. It's that delay that subsequently affects the rest of the project. Ultimately making a stressful situation and the quality of the end-product probably suffers as well. So given the things that aren't variable, (deadlines etc.) what can be changed to improve the outcome. Those early choices can be and usually are pivotal in a healthy design process.

…from the git go.

Starting at the core. The professor had a plan. He challenged the class to observe and describe.. the most basic concept involved in the design process. With the class unaware of what was to come, he distributed one small orange mandarin fruit to each of us. We were then asked to take two minutes to truly absorb it all in, use our senses, to get to know the fruit in our possession. When the timer beeped, the plot thickened, we find that now we must communicate all the attributes of it to a partner for the next two minutes without showing the actual fruit to them.. I must say this is not as easy a task as it seems.

In my experience, I found that it was difficult to communicate as thoroughly as taking in the sensory experience. Even though I was quite specific about its shape (diameter at the equator vs. distance through the poles), colors(variation), texture, smell, and other details specific to that particular specimen. There is too much information in the experience that is inevitably left out in the description. This phenomenon is hard to describe. Challenge yourself with a friend, and see if your experience is any different.