TINK - sketching product experiences of connected objects

Graduation Assignment - 11
1.1 Sketching for interaction design
1.1.1 Sketching with code
In my bachelor program in “Cinema and
New Media Engineering”, I learned Java,
an object-oriented programming language,
meant for cross-platform development.
It isn’t a very difficult programming
language, however as most as other
classical programming languages, it is
quite structured. It was my first encounter
with a programming language, and it
required me to acquire knowledge on
different levels: I had to learn lexicon,
syntax, programming logic, programming
paradigms, and programming tools.
In my first programming course,
programming graphical user interface was
not covered. It wasn’t until a later and
more advanced programming course that
this topic was addressed. Each week’s
assignment was to design a specific
video game. Programming the Graphical
User Interface (GUI) for these games
required learning more lexicon but also
new programming patterns. Displaying
something on screen in Java was not that
straightforward. Lots of libraries had to be
imported and some difficult constructs had
to be implemented.
I gained an entirely new perspective the
first day I started using Processing, a
programming language for designers and
artists to program images, animation,
and interactions 3 . When I discovered that
just a line of code was needed to draw an
ellipse on screen, I was motivated to keep
programming to explore what else I could
do with it.
I was inspired by that platform that made
programming complex graphics quick and
easy. My programming knowledge was
still useful; processing is in fact based
on Java. The difference between the
two is that Processing hides most of the
complexity required by Java. Processing’s
fewer lines of code, is an improvement
in efficiency: it is faster, there are fewer
opportunities to make mistakes, and as a
result programming flows more smoothly
and is much more explorative. The absence
of Java’s structured, boilerplate formatting
makes Processing much more enjoyable.
The way I learned how to program was
mainly taught in my Bachelor as a way
to solve problems. The practice of coding
started always with understanding and
deconstructing the given assignment, the
deconstructing was done on paper, where
the structure of the program was sketched.
Once the program was clear on paper and
in mind it was translated in code. The
sketch on paper has to be correct. In that
depends the effective translation of the
project in to code.
The process of coding described doesn’t
allow for any creative exploration: from a
good programmer is in fact required to gain
complete awareness about the software he
will have to write before start coding: a