The assessment for this unit of study will be based around a semester-long project. The project will be assessed through participation in class and the presentation and submission of three reports covering the research, design and prototype of a mass customisation service based on the techniques and processes of generative design systems that we will cover in the lectures. The relative weightings for the different parts of the assessment are as follows:

• Participation (10%)
• Tutorials (10%)
• Assignment 1 (20%)
• Assignment 2 (20%)
• Assignment 3 (40%)

Participation

Students are expected to participate in classes through (1) attendance at the lectures and tutorials, (2) presentation of project work, and (3) asking appropriate questions and providing critical feedback for classmates.

Tutorials

Students are expected to attempt all exercises set in the tutorials. Work completed in the tutorials will be collected throughout the semester and will contribute to the final marks as evidence of engagement with the material.

Assignments

Three assignments will be set during the semester. Each assignment will require a written report and a presentation to be given in class.

Assignment 1 (Deadline: Monday 25 August)

Research existing mass customisation product design tools.

Start with the products and/or brands that you own and are familiar with, e.g., t-shirts/Addidas, shoes/Nike, bags/Crumpler etc., and research ways that these products can be customised either at the time of purchase or afterwards.

Report

Your report for this assignment should provide a brief introduction to the application of mass customisation that you are interested in, e.g., jewellery design, car design, fashion, etc. You should provide some thoughts about how you would ideally like to be able to customise designs for your chosen product area.

You should compare a couple of different examples of mass customisation related to your chosen application. You may also choose to review examples of mass customisation from other application areas that you think may provide interesting ideas for how your chosen product area may be customised. You should try to review these examples critically and give a brief overview of what they do right and what you think they could do better.

In particular, you should think about how (a) users might engage in a process more like design, and (b) how techniques like the grammars that we've been looking at in class so far might assist in the customisation process.

Your report for this assignment should be submitted via Ning as a blog entry. Your report should be no more than 500 words long, but should be illustrated by including screenshots of the mass customisation systems being discussed and/or the products that can be produced.

Presentation

To introduce the rest of the class to your chosen application of mass customisation, you should prepare a single slide that illustrates the customisation task. You should be prepared to talk for just 5 minutes about your chosen application of mass customisation. You'll need to briefly give an introduction, a comparison about the state-of-the-art, and a brief summary of what you think the opportunities are for doing it better.

NOTE: Talking for just 5 minutes (and making it interesting) can be very hard. Think about this as sort of "pitch" where you want to convince the other members of the class that this is a truly interesting application and one that they should consider researching themselves.

You should upload your presentation slide as an image to the Ning web site as an image and tag the image with "presentation1". An album will be created to contain all of the slides uploaded with this tag that we will use in class for the presentations, so it is very important that you include the "presentation1" tag when you upload your image.

Find more photos like this on Generative Design Systems

Assessment Criteria

The assessment of this assignment will be based on the evidence provided in your report and presentation that you have engaged with this research exercise in order to critically review the state-of-the-art and suggest ways that these types of systems can be improved.

HD	An application (or potential application) of mass customisation has been clearly defined that shows great potential. Three or more relevant mass customisation design systems have been reviewed and compared. Similarities and differences have been drawn and potential areas for improvement have been identified. Possible applications of generative design systems, e.g., grammars, have been suggested.
CR	An existing application of mass customisation has been identified. Two or more mass customisation design systems have been reviewed and compared. Some suggestions for improvements have been made without particular reference to the generation of new designs, e.g., improvements to the user interface.
F	The design system identified does not constitute mass customisation and no argument has been given why it should be considered so.

Assignment 2 (Monday 22 September)

Design a new mass customisation product design tool.

Building on the research you conducted for Assignment 1 and the material we have covered in class, develop an initial design for a computational system/tool to help people to customise products. You should identify the steps that someone will need to go through to customise their product and the technologies that you think will be useful for implementing these steps, e.g., rule-based systems, design grammars, parametric design systems, evolutionary design systems etc.

Report

Your report for this assignment should provide an overview of how your mass customisation tool will work and the technologies you would use to implement it. You should provide a step-by-step guide to the customisation process and highlight the opportunities for using generative design systems where you think it is appropriate.

You should give an assessment of what can and/or should be customised for the product group that you have selected and use this to develop the step-by-step process that your users will use to customise their selections.

You should then carefully consider the different generative design systems that we've been looking at in class and determine which are most appropriate for your application to mass customisation.

Your report for this assignment should be submitted via Ning as a blog entry.

Presentation

To describe the customisation process that you are proposing for users, you should prepare a single slide that illustrates the steps that your mass customisation tool will support. Avoid using lots of descriptive text, instead concentrate on providing a few key phrases and some good illustrations. You should be prepared to talk for just 5 minutes about your proposed mass customisation tool. In addition to the steps you will have illustrated on your slide, you should be prepared to give some technical information about the generative design systems that you have decided would be most appropriate.

You should upload your presentation slide as an image to the Ning web site as an image and tag the image with "presentation2". An album will be created to contain all of the slides uploaded with this tag that we will use in class for the presentations, so it is very important that you include the "presentation2" tag when you upload your image.

Assessment Criteria

The assessment of this assignment will be based on the proposal for your mass customisation tool provided in your report and presentation that you have thought carefully about how best to support the customisation process and how you can make best use of generative design systems in this process.

HD	A proposal for a mass customisation tool that has been clearly defined and carefully thought through. A clear description of the mass customisation process and the steps through which users will engage with the tool. Applications of generative design systems in the customisation process have been identified, described and analysed.
CR	A proposal for a mass customisation tool has been defined based on an existing system. The steps through which users will engage with the tool have been described. Some suggestions for the use of generative design systems have been provided but without much analysis.
F	The proposed tool does not support mass customisation or incorporate generative design systems.

Assignment 3 (Monday 10 November) EXTENDED

Develop a prototype for your mass customisation product design tool.

The aim of this assignment is to develop the ideas for an application of mass customisation more fully and illustrate your ideas by developing a simple prototype. The aim of this assignment is NOT to create a fully working demonstration but to show how your idea might work with either a low-fidelty prototype of the whole process, or a high-fidelity prototype of one aspect of the process.

For example, you might choose to develop a non-functioning web site to give a feel for the process without developing the necessary computational systems to support the act of customisation itself. This would provide a lot of information about the look and feel of the system you're proposing.

Alternatively, you might choose to concentrate on a small part of the customisation process and develop a working system that shows how the interaction would work. This would demonstrate more of the mechanics of how you expect customers to work with your system, but only for a limited part of the process.

Report

Your report for this assignment should provide include brief description of your prototype system and a series of images describing the customisation process. A description of the process that a user will go through to customise a product is necessary, but the choice of whether to describe the whole process as a non-functional prototype or a small part of the process as a functional prototype is up to you.

If you choose to develop a non-functional prototype, you should include a storyboard of the customisation process and some mock-ups of the user interface to indicate what the user experience will be like. Alternatively, if you choose to develop a mock-up website (or interactive presentation) include these either by linking to the site or as a presentation to be downloaded.

If you choose to develop a functional prototype, you should include a zip file of the application(s) you have developed (either Processing sketch or Context Free grammar) with a description of how it works and what part of the customisation process it demonstrates. It is important that you place your prototype in the context of the assignment, but you do not have to worry about the visuals so much.

Your report for this assignment should be submitted via Ning as a blog entry.

Assessment Criteria

The assessment of this assignment will be based on the prototype for your mass customisation tool as described in your report.

HD	The prototype clearly demonstrates that it will be possible to generate interesting custom designs using a generative process and gives an indication of the user experience, e.g., the look-and-feel of the interface. The prototype clearly indicates strong design, i.e., designs produced using your mass customisation tool have a recognisable style. The use of at least one generative design system is clearly described in your application to mass customisation.
CR	The prototype shows the how someone might customise a product through a series of customisation steps. Some suggestions for the use of generative design systems have been included in the prototype but without sufficient detail to assess the validity of this claim.
F	The prototype does not exhibit support for mass customisation or incorporate generative design systems.