Each student will keep a design journal of all activity related to ENGR 310.  We want to see the evolution of your thinking about your design project, from beginning to bitter end.  We want everything -- the good, the bad, and the ugly -- recorded.  Thoroughness is paramount.

Purchase a blank, 9” x 12” journal with numbered pages from the bookstore for this purpose (AMPAD #22-157 is recommended, since it lays flat.  AMPAD #22-156 is also acceptable. No lab composition books!).  In the journal, keep record of all class-related activities and information: class notes, team meeting notes, individual brainstorming, web or library research activity, sketches of design ideas, user interview notes, contact information, analyses, reflections, etc.  In short, the journal should have a record of everything that occurs in relation to this course.

Journaling Procedures

The basic journal procedures are:

  1. Record the date in the upper left corner. Start each day on a new page.
  2. Use ink. Do not erase. Delete an entry by neatly drawing a single line through it.
  3. Use consecutive pages. Do not remove pages, and do not skip pages.
  4. Record the start time for the activity on the left-hand side.
  5. Label the entry (e.g., advisor meeting, brainstorming session, web research, etc.).
  6. Record journal contents. This is your individual design journal, so record only your activities or group activities in which you participated. As a general rule, record: Who? What? Where? When? and Why?
  7. When you’ve finished the activity, record the end time the left-hand side. Record a new start/end time every time you change activities. The difference between start and end times should represent total time spent on that activity (including journal writing).

What should I put in my design journal?

In a word, everything related to your design project (good, bad, and ugly). Some things to include are:

Sketches
Customer needs/requirements
Doodling
Project objectives
Brainstorming
Specifications
Half-baked ideas
Math calculations
Work-in-progress
Design alternatives
Scratch work
Design reviews
Data collection
Decision criteria
Class notes
Decision process and results
Meeting notes
Decision Rationale
Source of ideas
Evaluation results

How will my design journal be evaluated?

Your journal evaluation will be based on thoroughness: how well have you documented your process? Is the record complete? You will turn in your journal every 3 weeks for evaluation.

We will not grade your journal on whether ideas or ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or on the amount of time spent on a given activity.  Great designers go through lots of crummy ideas before they find one that works (Thomas Edison tried literally hundreds of filament designs before he found “the one” that made electric light possible—fail often to succeed quickly).  The important thing is to be thorough in your record keeping—you will not be graded on how much time you put into this course.

That said, we will use the Design Journal Evaluation Form to evaluate your journal.  As you read through it, notice that lack of activity on the project will hurt your journal grade—there does need to be some content for us to evaluate.

A Few Guidelines

  • If it’s a meeting, note attendees by name.
  • Label your entries (e.g., topic of discussion, captions on diagrams and sketches) to provide proper context for understanding the information that follows.
  • Label sketches, drawings, and diagrams so you’ll remember what they are three months from now.
  • Avoid backfilling.  Record your notes as best you can in real time. (Of course, if you realize later that you left something out, or just want to summarize a discussion, go ahead and write it in, noting that it’s after-the-fact.  More is better than less.)
  • Do not staple items into your journal.  To include print outs and other hardcopy items, tape them into your journal so that they are fully contained and visible on one page (don’t forget to label it!).
  • If you do not work on your project for a stretch of several days, please note that in your journal so we don’t think you’re being lazy on the journal.
  • If you change activities (e.g., switch from brainstorming to working on an AutoCAD drawing, or from group meeting to solo work), try to note the time.

How do I handle computer work?

Your team should keep a flash drive or file share with up-to-date copies of all computer files pertaining to the project (including communications).  For your design journal entry, simply write a detailed description of the activity, and reference the file on disk.  Use the same date and time recording procedure as for any other entry.  While it often does not make sense to duplicate your computer work on paper, it is often useful to do some preparatory work or note things you’ve learned as you worked on the computer, problems encountered, ideas that popped into your mind, or next steps.

Making the most of your journal

We would like your journal to be more than a mere activity log.  Your journal can help you think through problems, assess and evaluate progress while the information is fresh, muse about better approaches, and so on.  In other words, taking a few minutes for reflection can greatly increase the utility of keeping a journal by helping you think more about the problems you’re working on and give you more to refer back to.  Here are some ideas to add reflection/insight content into your journal:

journal

Why keep a journal?

For starters, you’ll need a good journal grade to get an “A” in this course.  Remember, it constitutes 15% of your final grade.  So do a good job.

Second, students in past semesters have found the journal surprisingly useful as they proceeded through the semester.  It’s one place to store all the bits of information you will gather over the course of the project—names, phone #’s, URL’s, spontaneous ideas, checklists, and so on—so you can easily keep track of everything.

Third, keeping a design journal is an excellent habit to carry forward into your professional career.  You will find that it records ideas and information that you would’ve forgotten otherwise; that the act of writing things down helps you think through problems more thoroughly, systematically, and efficiently; that a detailed record of your professional activity will come in handy on lots of occasions such as promotion time or in a legal dispute; that having an accurate estimate of how much time you spent on an activity is often essential information, like when calculating billable hours for a client or creating a project plan.  So start the habit now, and you’ll benefit for many years to come.

Finally, keeping a journal is fun.  You’ll gain a greater appreciation for the work you’ve done when you read through it at semester’s end.  Have at it, do good work, and have a great time.