Week 1 Tutorial: Field Notes on a Machine You've Already Used

Fieldwork at a parking meter, before any framework is introduced — the discipline of describing a transaction before diagnosing it

22 February 2027

Before the tutorial

Use a parking meter — or, if none is nearby, the closest one-shot payment machine you can find — and write down what happened. Not what you’d change. What happened, in the order it happened, including the part where you weren’t sure what to do.

In the tutorial

We compare notes across the room before anyone is allowed to use the word “design.” The point is to notice how much of a transaction is invisible until you’re asked to narrate it back.

Afterwards

Your notes are the raw material for this week’s lecture and for Assignment 1’s method, so keep them — you’ll be asked to return to them in week 4.

Who benefits when the design is bad?

The spec

What you bring to the tutorial. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.

  • you name one specific parking meter (or close equivalent) you have used
  • your notes describe what happened, in order, before any judgement of it
  • you can point to the exact moment you weren't sure what to do next

Teaching team