Visual Prototyping is about visualising (research) concepts.
During my time in Research, I started making sketches out of technical concepts in order to study them. Making visuals was never an expectation in my work, but I always perceived sketching as part of my craft and I also found that it allowed me to think through concepts from different angles.
Gradually my sketches, from personal contemplation material, became a tool for prototyping and envisioning in informal and official meetings, deliverables and research papers. I noticed that graphic design in research was used only for dissemination purposes for broader audiences while it clearly had a place in internal processes. So I thought I could teach that; I developed a methodology to explain to employees and professionals how to distill their work concepts into simple visuals with the open source vector graphic software Inkscape.
I gave my first workshop in Vienna in April 2016. Then, I continued teaching privately and repeated the workshop in Medialab Prado (Nov. 2016). In 2018-2019, I gave Visual Prototyping Workshops to research institutes and companies:
It has been an amazing experience and it continuously opens new horizons for me to explore. In addition, I gave a workshop & a talk on “Visuals in UX”, describing how illustration contributes to User Experience at the UxWien Meetup and the UXcamp Vienna correspondingly, in 2019.
I have made a number of illustrations for project proposals, papers and other projects with the goal to visually explain concepts. An important collaboration was with Max Planck Institute in Munich. My website explains what I do in greater detail.
