Design It!

Activity 38

Sketch and Compare

Sometimes a design only seems good because there isn’t a baseline for comparison. With the sketch and compare activity, we create two or more alternatives of the same design so it’s easier to see the pros and cons.

Any design alternatives can be sketched and compared. This includes current and future, ideal and reality, technology A and technology B, and many others. Sketching the extremes can also be compared. To do this, pick a quality attribute or design concept and design the architecture for that one thing at the exclusion of all else. Then pick another high-priority quality attribute or interesting design concept and sketch an alternative design for comparison.

Benefits

• Expose both the positive and negative ...