Prototyping Systems

WE EXPLORE COMPLEXITY THROUGH HUMAN-CENTERED INTERVENTIONS.

If designers are going to make good on our claims that we can have an impact on increasingly complex, interconnected and systemic problems, we need to ensure that our processes are fit for the task. The Prototyping Systems Lab utilizes elements of design thinking, participatory design and critical making can help to shift our thinking about prototypes from a contained concept to a tool for learning. In doing so, we address complex, systemic challenges in ways that are faster, less risky, and more creative than our current approaches.

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Featured

U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence

The Prototyping Systems Lab has been announced as one of seven launch partners for the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence which is led by the Chicago-based Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL).

Healthy Elections

In early May of 2020 the Prototyping Systems Lab teamed up with a team from the d.school at Stanford University and the Stanford-MIT Healthy Voting Project to use human-centered design and systems thinking to contribute to protecting voter participation in the Fall 2020 election.

Playing with Earth Systems and Modern Convenience

This game serves as a prototype for a hypothetical initiative intended to promote sustainable practices. It utilizes the relationship between gravity and distance from the floor to simulate the ways our planet’s natural and human-systems become more fragile as our population grows.

Prototyping Climate Change Scenarios

This video captures the installation at the Exploratorium as part of the One Climate Event hosted by the John Muir Institute for the Environment at UC Davis.