eReader and Gestural Interaction Projects
Just want to share the results of the eReader and gestural interaction project I had my Basic Interaction class (undergraduate HCI double majors) do for their final project. This was a six-week project with the following focus: Synthesize needs and opportunities from both potential product users and other sources. Discover the intersection between the needs [...]
Teaching Gestural Interaction
Today marked the beginning of the third project in the Basic Interaction course I am teaching this semester. The goal of the project is to design an ebook reader taking into account gestural interaction for particular audiences and contexts. I thought this would be a good project because it combines a product with much opportunity [...]
Six More Weeks of Grad School
If you follow this blog regularly, you will have noticed that I have not been regularly updating as of late. Time has been very limited, and the brain power needed for blogging has been diverted to other tasks, like thesis, thesis, teaching, coursework, and, of course, finding a job.There are six more weeks left of [...]
Insights from Physical Cube Assignment
The first assignment for the Basic Interaction course I’m teaching this semester was due today. With it being only a week into the semester, I did not know what to expect from the students. But their efforts provided fodder for some stimulating discussion and considerations for interaction design. The assignment was as follows, originally developed [...]
Design Computing Course Evaluations
Last week, the course evaluation results were made available for Introduction to Design Computing, the course I taught last fall. Unfortunately, the feedback I got was not very positive. In fact, it was outright deplorable. Out of 5, the average score for the course was 2.09, and for me as an instructor, 1.91. I must [...]
Design School 2007,
Me in 2008, and a Blizzard
Happy new year +3! What follows is my experience in 2007 as a graduate student and the opportunities it afforded me, as well as what I will be doing in 2008. Finally, I mention the blizzard that is about to hit Mammoth Lakes, California, where I currently am. Design School and 2007 Two thousand and [...]
Classes for Final Semester
Course registration for the spring semester began today. I was a bit sad the past few days realizing that the classes I chose were to be the last of grad school. There are still many courses that I would like to take. But alas… In addition to my thesis project and thesis paper, I am [...]
Midway Through Design Computing
We’ve hit the midway point in the semester for Design Computing. And I must confess that my first teaching experience had a bit of a rough start. There were a bunch of factors that affected this—planning Emergence, not following last year’s model, Flash C3 being very different from the previous version—but to some extent inexperience [...]
Teaching Video Sketching
As part of my Design Computing class, I am introducing my students to video sketching as a prototyping tool. For most of the students, this is new, but something they will end up doing repeatedly throughout their time at the School of Design. Today, John Zimmerman gave a guest lecture on video sketching, complete with [...]
Survived My First Day Teaching
Today was the first day teaching Intro to Design Computing. It was my first day teaching anything, ever, officially. I didn’t die. So hurray! But it was harder than I thought it would be. My throat got dry and we’re not allowed to have any drinks in the computer lab. And my introduction and presentation [...]
Intro to Design Computing
This fall I am teaching Introduction to Design Computing, a required course for first-year interaction design graduate students at Carnegie Mellon. Last year, I waived the course because it was primarily a Flash course and I had six years of professional Flash development and design experience. This year, a couple students asked to waive it [...]
Teaching Next Semester
A while back Dan Boyarski asked if I would teach Introduction to Computing in Design this fall, and I accepted. The title of the course doesn’t say a lot, and the current description is even worse. But essentially I will be teaching the incoming interaction design students how to prototype in Flash. I can’t say [...]
I Was a Guest Lecturer
Over the summer, during my design fundamentals training, I had a bit of an argument with the instructor of one of my software training sessions about table-based web design versus CSS web design. The argument was positive, however, in that it ended with the instructor, Cheryl Riedel, offering to have me be a guest lecturer [...]
Debating About Courses
As an interaction design student, I have four courses that I was automatically signed up for, all of which are required. One of the courses, Design Computing, is primarily as Flash course. As I have designed and developed with Flash for many years, I got this course waived. I then signed up for Graduate Typography. [...]