The physical manifestation of a hypothesis

On the second day of the workshop, my group started prototyping with existing objects such as wooden dolls, elastic bands, neon plastic containers, small plastic hexagons, ping pong balls, a red carpet square, etc. There was an important premise to this exercise - these objects were not functioning within their original purpose, but their properties were used to represent their intrinsic characteristics. So for example, a rubber band would not be used to bind markers, but its elasticity was important to represent its ability to bond different items.

Following this logic, the leaders of the organizations (wooden dolls) were standing above their own institutions (plastic hexagons). These two players were then positioned over the territory of Harlem (red carpet square), and connections were drawn (red straws) between the leaders to show the cooperation we were establishing with our planned service. Lastly, the audience of these institutions (colorful plastic containers) were standing outside of the territory, and around them, plastic bands were used to illustrate the bundle of benefits each individual would receive (pink Post-its) as a reflection of the organizations sharing their best practices.

I struggle with the physical manifestation of a hypothesis. But my colleagues are often quick to translate ideas into constructs, it seems they speak a language of their own. Indeed, their learning process involves developing cognitive skills that allow their sense-making process to be one through objects and not words or writing like ethnography. As someone without this training, prototyping is always a challenge.

In this dynamic practice, objects are constantly moving following the ideas being shaped by many different minds. This exercise, however, never runs smoothly since everybody thinks they see how an object best represents an idea. So reaching an agreement requires multiple inquiries, critiques, suggestions and opinions. All of them coming from a background of life experience rather than academic knowledge.