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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 observed by researchers and the needs people perceive in themselves in otder to find rich areas for product development.
• Design product interactions that support the emotional connections between the person the reader
• Explore the personal and social roles that ebook readers facilitate
• Communicate the value of the ebook reader through the visual, auditory, and narrative channels provided by a video sketch

Though the time line was short, I was pleased with the results. During the final, a user research specialist from Daedalus Excel showed up and was very impressed with the presentations and solutions.

I was really impressed with the quality of the video sketches. I had them read John Zimmerman’s Video Sketches: Exploring Pervasive Computing Interaction Designs and showed them several examples. We talked about the advantages and disadvantages of different styles. But we did not go over tools, video techniques, or audio, which is typically done. Also, I told them that there was no right way to do this and that they should design their video sketch according to what they thought would be most effective given their skills and the time they had. The quality of the results were really impressive.

In particular, I enjoyed one group that used simple sketches and a child narrator to tell the story for an eReader for moms.

The students got to select an audience focus from a list of six options. Some of the groups overlapped. The documentation links are below, which contain links to their videos and final presentations.

Commuters
Starburst Reader
EasyNews

Moms
Kava
Oracle Reader

Family
Flip ‘N Share

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 by Chris Pacione (now at BodyMedia).

A: Physical cube

Starting with a cube, design an interactive object that you think best communicates the following uses. The cube should look as though you can:

• rub it
• turn it
• squeeze it

The cube can be no bigger than six inches in any dimension. You may add or subtract from the cube, but it has to remain cube-like. Other shapes may be used as long as they play a secondary role. You may also use color, texture, material as well as a relative context. For example, the final solution might be a green fuzzy cube with little circular nibs placed on the floor.

With no mention of research of audience, the students were left to their own devices in their interpretation. There were a range of solutions, many made of some sort of foam or sponge to afford squeeze, a lot of fuzzy bits for rubbing, and various measures to suggest turning.

After some discussion, we started talking about the success of the requirements from a distance and then once you got the cube in your hands. I saw this as a macro/micro perspective similar to how you might talk about a poster. From across the room you might be attracted to a cube because it looks like you can interact with it in one way, and then upon close inspection you discover further ways to interact with it. I had not thought about affordances as being macro and micro before, so I thought this was an interesting point to emerge especially when thinking about keeping people engaged with a product by not revealing all its tricks up front, but allowing for some exploration and discovery.

We also talked about the range between explicit and implicit affordances. For example, an explicit means of communicating that the cube should be turned might be by an arrow. In the middle of the spectrum might be a quote or line of text that starts on one side of the cube and continues across multiple sides, provoking the user to turn it to read the whole sentence by not explicitly telling them. On the implicit side might be a cube that is a puzzle that can be pulled apart and put back together. This act requires the user to turn the cube to examine all the sides to figure out the puzzle.

Finally, it was interesting that no one challenged the requirements by creating affordances that did not deliver. For example, no one purposely designed a cube that looked like you could turn it but actually did not turn. This brings up a point about intention (and perhaps manipulation) in design. When would you want to suggest an action that could not actually be performed? Unfortunately, we did not have time to discuss this. Perhaps for the next assignment.

As for this assignment, I think it’s a great introduction to interaction design because it gets people thinking about interaction design outside of the context of digital interfaces, it’s easy to talk about because you have tangible artifact to interact with, it’s quick, and it’s fun.

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 seven was a great year for me. I have no regrets about taking two years out of my work life to indulge in the grad school experience. People say that you don’t need to go to grad school and that you can get the same experience in the working world. While that may depend on the program, in my case, I wholeheartedly disagree.

The interaction design program at the CMU School of Design has changed the way I think about what my purpose is in the world and how I think about life. I’ve had a chance to learn under some great people—Shelley Evenson, Richard Buchanan, Dan Boyarski, John Zimmerman, Jodi Forlizzi, Ben Fry, Golan Levin, and Kristin Hughes. And I have had the pleasure of being in the company of my peers, a range of interesting folks from various backgrounds with perspectives I truly appreciate. I learn a tremendous amount from them. My coursework has also provided me with real-world experience working for clients like Motorola and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

This past fall semester I taught Design Computing (digital prototyping with Flash) to a mix of graduate and undergraduate design students. It was my first time teaching, and was both challenging and rewarding.

I also had the opportunity to direct the school’s second annual Emergence conference, which was a great honor and privilege, though a lot of freaking work. But becoming acquainted with folks from Adaptive Path, Apple, Cooper, Core77, Electronic Ink, Engine, GM, Google, IBM, IDEO, live|work, Method, and Swisscom Mobile, eased the pain a bit.

Most of the companies listed above also recruit from the school. This past summer I worked at Adaptive Path in San Francisco, which I would not have had access to without going through the IxD program. There I worked on the Charmr project, a diabetes management device with a focus on the diabetic experience. It was very rewarding and a lot of fun.

Finally, my grad school experience has also truly turned me into a designer. So to answer any question as to whether grad school is worth the $70,000 I will owe upon graduation, for me, the answer is yes.

2008

Enough about last year. The year ahead will bring a slew of new adventures. For one, I will be graduating in May. After that, I will likely move away from Pittsburgh, where I have been living since 2003, to wherever it is that I find work. To prepare for this, during the winter break, I have been building a new portfolio and redesigning this site, which I hope complete before the semester begins on January 14.

This semester I am taking courses with Richard Buchanan, Kristin Hughes, and Shelley Evenson. In addition, I am teaching Basic Interaction Design to design, computer science, and HCI undergraduates. Given my enthusiasm for interaction design and the design process, I am very exciting about this.

In February I am heading to Savannah for Interaction08 to the first ever interaction design conference. I would also like to attend SXSW Interactive, but it may not be in the budget.

Speaking of conferences, I am also currently working on a Work-in-Process submission for CHI 2008 in Florence, Italy, due January 8. My paper is on my thesis project work regarding opportunities for interaction design to support identity change. Submission to CHI is a requirement of my thesis advisor.

Mammoth Blizzard

I am writing this post from Mammoth Lakes, California, where my brother, Matt, and his wife live. I have been here (Flickr photos) since December 20. It has been quite relaxing and a good break from my near constant design thinking. That said, I started off 2008 on somewhat of a design note when I met up with Dan Saffer (Designing for Interaction author, Adaptive Path Experience Design Director, and Interaction08 co-chair, MDes IxD CMU) who just happened to be in Mammoth at the same time as me. Dan will be guest lecturing at CMU on January 16 in Jodi Forlizzi’s Seminar 2 class for the first-year interaction design grads. Good beer and good conversation with Dan in an unlikely meeting place provided a fitting start to the new year.

Dan left Mammoth the next day, due to the upcoming storm. Conversely, I extended my stay.

The National Weather Service has issued a Blizzard Warning for Mammoth Lakes warning of significant snow accumulations and strong winds that have the potential to create dangerous winter driving conditions Friday through Sunday. Four day snowfall totals of 5 - 8 feet are possible through Sunday in the Sierra.

To leave Mammoth, I need to fly out of Reno, Nevada, which is already a harrowing experience given the winds the whip over the surrounding mountains. The impending storm will only increase those winds. So I changed my flight from this Friday to Tuesday, January 8, so I could both avoid potential delays or cancellations and also see such a massive amount of snow. Friday’s prediction is three inches per hour.

The fear of storm produced the longest grocery store lines that I have ever seen, stretching from check-out all the way down the aisles to the back of the store. The shelves were being emptied. Got to love people. (We were only there for a few ingredients needed for last night’s meal.)

So day three of 2008 finds me well, looking forward to the storm, the semester, and whatever lies beyond. I hope it finds you well, too.

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 played a role as well.

I struggled over what was more important to teach, Flash or prototyping with Flash. In trying to get everyone quickly up to speed to complete the semester’s assignments, I took a few too many detours into the coding aspects of Flash, and veered away from more interesting topics, like what are effective digital prototypes.

We started with a simple motion project whereby an emotion needed to be conveyed using a single black dot. That broke students into basic animation techniques while allowing us to also talk about the behavior of the animation.

The second project was a control redesign. Students were asked to find a single analog control and redesign it using Flash as the tool. This project yielded many questions from those unfamiliar with Flash. And while everyone successfully completed the project, the questions led me to pursue more instruction on Flash itself instead of the hybrid Flash/interaction design course I imagined.

Fortunately, I recognized this shift, with the help of insightful feedback from several of the students, worked back to my original intention. The third project combined necessary Flash skills for prototyping with a larger focus on communication and interaction. The submitted projects and the conversations around then were promising.

Those first three projects were warm-ups for the three larger projects, one of which began a few weeks ago and will finish up tomorrow. I thought it was important for students to learn about video sketching and spend focused time on creating them outside of their other design projects, where video sketching would only be a part.

I had the students propose a product or service and create a scenario of use that would be the basis of the video sketch. The lack of constraints may have been an issue for some. So I would maybe rethink that for future projects. But otherwise I’m really pleased with the work in progress and the conversations we’ve had surrounding the work. I’m hoping the focus now will mean better decision making for them later during crunch time in their other classes.

Next week we will start a mobile interface project. The final project will focus on emotion and play (or harm) for engagement or entertainment using a virtual pet as a starting point. This was also going to offer an opportunity to introduce object oriented programming, but I’m having second thoughts. I began the course with the idea that there are few ActionScript details one must know to prototype in Flash as an interaction designer. Object oriented programming isn’t really one of them. To add more fodder to my thoughts, tonight I stumbled upon Robert Reimann’s So You Want To Be An Interaction Designer, in which he says:

Designers seldom code—if you are attached to programming, all power to you: the world needs more design-sensitive programmers. But unless you have complete control over your projects, you will be short-changing your users by trying to design and develop at the same time—it’s a conflict of interest. So, if you can’t stomach the thought of abandoning programming, interaction design may not be for you.

So I will likely abandon the more programmy aspect of the final project, and instead focus on interaction. The students have a good handle on the tools already. What’s more important, at least as designers, is how they use them.

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 went a lot quicker than I thought.

The class has 16 people registered, but about 30 people showed up. I scared a couple away with my overview, but eight or so still talked to me after class about getting in. I’m capping it at 20.

While I had a syllabus, the projects and the time line is vague. So I need to clearly define what the projects will be. And I need to do this soon, as I plan to give the first assignment on Thursday.

For the first part of the course, I’m having them do rapid prototyping focusing on the elements of interaction defined by Dan Saffer in Designing for Interaction. But I need to figure out exactly what those mini projects will be, which I realized for sure when confronted by 30 sets of inquisitive eyes.

Here’s the current syllabus, which will likely change over the next day or two. I need to combine or eliminate some of the projects. And, like I said, clearly determine what each will entail.

Design Computing will focus on prototyping interactions, interfaces, and experiences as a designer. We will start with simple, low fidelity prototypes and work our way toward higher fidelity. Also, we will explore ways to communicate experiences for design concepts.

Flash will be the core tool for prototyping, but other options will also be considered, including AfterEffects and Processing. By the end of the course, you should feel comfortable working with Flash as a prototyping tool. This course, however, is not about learning how to program or about making you a Flash expert.

In evaluating the work we do in this class, we will focus on
behavior and experience. Projects and conversation will also focus on the elements of interaction: motion, space, time, appearance,
texture, and sound.

We will also explore how to encourage play through interaction and understanding the role of emotion in digital prototyping.

In addition, throughout the course we will create a web portfolio using a combination of HTML and Flash.

Key Takeaways

• Rapid prototyping
• Communicating and experience with ditigal tools
• Comfortable prototyping in Flash
• Basic knowledge of creating a website

Projects

• Motion, space, time, appearance, texture, sound
• Mobile interface
• Video prototyping
• Physical prototyping
• Website/portfolio
• Play and emotion

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 gave it too much thought when I accepted the position, but with course registration beginning tomorrow, and with a few students contacting me to get more information, it’s more of a reality. And I must say I’m pretty excited to have my own gig and to be able to share my knowledge with people to help them get through their assignments here at CMU and beyond. Should be a good experience.

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.

However, while I was working on getting the Flash course waived, I learned more about the curriculum. The first several weeks would likely be mind numbing. But the rest of the course involves working with video and creating games. That sounds fun and easy!

So I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m having a dilemma about which to drop, Design Computing or Graduate Typography. If I take the computing class, I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll be with my peers and I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll be doing something fun and easy. Also, there?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s been talk about me possibly teaching the course next year. So it would be an opportunity to observe the current instructor.

If I take grad type, I will be learning something new and further develop my design skills. And I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m assuming this would be the more challenging of the two. I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m always up for a challenge.

Since I can’t decide, I’m keeping all five on my schedule for the first week, unless clarity comes to me sooner.

As I was typing this an email came in asking if anyone would be interested in be a TA for Online Information Design. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s basic web stuff. Yes, I would be interested. Will I have the time?

Decisions?¢‚Ǩ¬¶