Intro

Introduction

Self development is one of the main reasons for choosing this programme of study, my desire is to understand and learn the underlying technique of Interaction Design. I believe that on completion of this course, I will be equipped with the core knowledge needed to critically analyse a range of extant and emergent theoretical perspectives relevant to Interaction design, demonstrate critical awareness of current trends and technological developments within the field in view to creating exceptional interactive experience for users, through understanding people and what motivates them, designing complex products as well as creativity.

The course runs at Middlesex University (Trent Park Campus), and it consists of the following modules; Product design and Engineering (PDE4210)-Interaction Design Practice, Computing and Multimedia Technology (CMT 4210)-Current Issues in Interaction design (Core theories, current issues, research and practice) and CMT 4211-Interaction Design Thesis. This web log also known as reflective journal is a compulsory element of assessment for this course.

Week8

CMT 4210: 19th Nov ‘07

Following other related engagements, the programme leader Dr. Bob Fields could not attend this session, it was suggested that we do self study and individual research on future topics for class discussion.

 

PDE 4210: 20th Nov. ‘07
In this meeting, we focused our discussion on generating hypothesis for the “Effective Domain”. We only had approximately six to seven hours on the fieldwork. Considering the limited time we spent on the field and all other constraints, we decided that in addition to applying rapid ethnographic account, we talked about collaborative data analysis of our individual findings, “Customer Corridor” (outside entrance-web/adverts/signage) Exhibit Entrance, Hill-Vista (Gorilla Island), Glass wall, Day Gym, Exit- Interactive exhibit. Finally, all the team members were required to perform a specific task through the course of the week to support our report and presentation.

My role was to define and describe the basic meaning of Affordance and Feedback?

Give physical examples of each.

The word “Affordance” was invented by the perceptual psychologist J. J. Gibson (1977, 1979) to refer to the actionable properties between the world and an actor (a person or animal). To Gibson, Affordances are relationships. They exist naturally: they do not have to be visible, known, or desirable.

Donald A Norman describes Affordance as; when a designer announces “I put an Affordance there,” what could possibly be meant? To the purist, affordances simply exist they are the actions possible by an agent (usually a person) and the environment. But the concept was invented for the natural world, and when it comes to the physical, constructed world, it does make sense for a designer to have deliberately shaped and located the materials so as to afford action.

http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances_and.html

Week9

CMT 4210: 26th Nov ‘07
A guest speaker attended the class today; Suzette Keith a researcher on CS (computer Science) with a range of interests in the general area of ‘Inclusive Design’.

She covered two main areas:

1. Introduction to ‘design for all’ in EU and UK, the ‘problem’ of the social and political concerns for the digital divide and the ‘benefits’ of Information and communication technology (ICT) which may improve independence and social participation

2. Introducing our recent project on the needs wants and aspirations of older car drivers in which we decided to apply a participatory design (PD) process to the development of new in-car technologies.

http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/staffpages/S_Keith/

The latter is based on joint work between computing and product design (and may explain why there is half a car in the studio!).

The attached paper was presented at TRANSED 2007 – a biennial conference on transport, ageing and disability held in Canada.

PDE 4210: 27th Nov. ‘07
Deciding on the presentation of our report to the corresponding team at ZSL, we reconciled our various assignments from last week, and then we mapped out the pattern in the following sequence;

General Introduction

Working methods (Gorilla Specialist, Reassure)

Aim (Support, Concepts, Generate hypothesis)

Concepts (Affordance, Feedback-Generic examples)

Customer Corridor (Analytical topics)

Analysis (Design experience, 6 stages, Video stills)

Recommendations (Secondary research) Further Workings

 

Week 10

CMT 4210: 3rd Dec ‘07
Overview and demo of the AR toolkit

AR (Augmented Reality) toolkit is a software library for building AR applications. The applications use the overlay of virtual imagery on the real world.

“In contrast with virtual reality, which refers to a situation in which the goal is to immerse a user in a completely synthetic environment, augmented reality refers to a situation in which the goal is to supplement a user’s perception of the real world through the addition of virtual objects.” Ronald Azuma (1997) “A Survey of Augmented Reality”, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

Few years ago, Virtual Reality (VR) seems to be the main focus of media attention. The user of the VR tool is completely immersed in computer generated images that totally cuts him off the real world images. In Augmented Reality, the user can see the real world around him although; in this case, the images are composited or superimposed using computer graphics.
A well known technique for executing Augmented Reality is with an optical see-through Head-Mounted Display. This translucent goggles place optical combiners in front of the user’s eyes. The monitors reflect images that combine both the real world view and the three-dimensional (3D) virtual representation.

After the AR discussions and experience, we moved on to Project ideas and suggestions session.

PDE 4210: 4th Dec ‘07
PIC Microcontrollers (Programme Instruction Circuit)

There are several types of microcontrollers like the Serial PIC programmer, chip factory, stamp controller, and so on. For this workshop we used the PICAXE systems which consist of PICAXE microcontrollers. They are single chip microcomputers that can be used for both industrial and educational purpose. The PICAXE system is low cost, easy to use and powerful microcontroller programming system designed to simplify educational and hobby use of microcontrollers, however it requires a computer to write the programme.

 

The unique feature of the PICAXE system is that programs are downloaded via a direct cable link straight into the microcontroller, so no expensive programmers or erasers are required. The easy to use software is free, and the low cost approach also means that students can use the whole programming system at home.

The programme instruction circuit is based on E2PROM or EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory)

There are different ways of programming the PIC – using BASIC, C, or Assembly Language.
The PICAXE microcontrollers are in four sizes:

The 8 pin version provides 5 I/O pins (1 analogue input).

The 18 pin version provides 8 outputs and 5 inputs (3 of the inputs have analogue capabilities).

The 28-pin version provides 9-17 outputs, 0-12 inputs and 0-4 separate analogue inputs.

The 40-pin version provides 9-17 outputs, 8-20 inputs and 3-7 separate analogue inputs.

For this lesson, we used the PICAXE18A, and then we used the sample programme below for our first trial. This program flashes LED (Light-Emitting Diode) connected to output 1 on and off every second.

main: ' make a label called 'main'
high 1 ' switch on output 1
pause 1000 ' wait 1 second (1000 ms)
low 1 ' switch off output 1
pause 1000 ' wait 1 second (1000 ms)
goto main ' jump back to the label

We practised further on our own by writing different programmes and executing same. Some of the programmes I wrote could not run. Dr. Bardill was available to give us further guidance on the assembly language. We carried on trying out different new codes, and I also modified some of the codes I wrote to see what will be the effect on the programme output.

For further readings on the above topic, the following web sites were recommended; www.revolution.com, www.parallax.com, www.mutr.co.uk

Week 11

CMT 4210: 10th Dec ‘07
Discussion: Towards a framework for current issues in interaction design. Recap on topics we have covered through the semester.

We then looked at some of the issues we will cover at next semester.
For the recap, we talked about;

1. Technologies and Innovation

1.1. Sound and Light

1.2. Ubicomp

1.3. Tangible Interface

1.4. Augmented Reality

1.5. Sensors and Display

2. Methods and Approaches

2.1. Participatory Design

2.2. Ethnography

2.3. Documentary film making

2.4. Usability Engineering

2.5. Standards and Constraints

3. Domains and Places

3.1. Public places

3.2. Home

3.3. Work

3.4 Car

3.5. Services

4. Concepts and Perspectives

4.1. Challenges

4.2. Ubiquity

4.3. Ludic Engagement—Pleasurable Designs

PDE 4210: 11th Dec ‘07
I.E. (Information Ergonomics) box and Mini-Project tutorials

Week 12

CMT 4210: 17th Dec ‘07

 

PDE 4210: 18th Dec ‘07
This was the last week of the semester; we started by talking about coming to the end of the session, the web logs and today’s presentation and its importance. We digressed to the London zoo project -Design brief, and we all watched the fully edited /final copy of the video clip the team presented to the management of ZSL.
After the usual break, we all returned to do a presentation on the photo locket. The task was to show the full design process to include; the dream feature, mapping, constraints, iterations, and specific dimensions.

 

 

 

 

All the team mates had about 20minutes each to show to the rest of us how they achieved their final design. The presentation started with Halil, David, Anoi, and Dikshit, after which I took my turn, then Madushani, finally Dean closed the day. To assess classmates’ presentation skills, Andy (programme director) introduced a circular assessment sheet, every member except the presenter had to put a dot to signify weak and strong points, the wider your circle the higher your score. An example of the scoring sheet is attached below:

And you can also download and view my presentation with the link below:

pholock-presentation.pps

Week 1. Monday 1st October 2007CMT 4210: This was basically an introduction to the course ,we talked about the components for assessment, perspective on Interaction Design, what/who we are designing for, Novel and emerging technologies, technological trajectories, how we design;knowing and understanding the user,Interaction in Context, Practical Constraints on Interaction Design, Legislation and Standards.

Week 1. Tuesday 2^nd October 2007

PDE 4210: This is an Interaction design practice class, usually held in the workshop, studio or in the field. The MSc Interaction Design class team mates introduced themselves and what they studied in their first degree.

Dr Andy Bardill (Director of Programmes) then recommended the following essential learning materials; P. Jordan (2000) Designing Pleasurable Products,
Norman, D.A. (1998) The Design of Every day things,
Norman, D. (2004) Emotional Designs, Preece. J, Rogers. Y, Sharp. H, 2002 Interaction Design: Beyond Human Computer Interaction
Butler. J, Holden. K, Lidwell. W, 2003 Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design

Finally, we were given assignment for next week Tuesday the 9^th of October, the Assignment reads;

1. Find five unique definitions for Interaction Design, Print on A4 sheets (landscape) for presentation.

2.What do we mean by the term EMPATHY in the context of User Interaction?

 

 

Week 2. 8^th Oct ’07

CMT 4210: We started this week’s session by reviewing last week’s assignment;

Exploring the New Usability,

What does it mean?

How does it differ from the old usability?

What are the implications for the theory and for the practice in Interaction Design?

The class team mates agreed that some of the issues facing the old usability, includes; Technology push, Old versus New, Theories in Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Interaction Design and usability practice, New Interactions- new areas of human activities, and new metaphors and Concepts

New Usability focuses on the complexity of integrating more functions, beauty and eliminates any operational difficulties that the user may encounter in using particular product.

Old Usability is about the basic design concepts and practice, without much attention to aesthetics, how users can operate these products with ease, or who the products are targeted at.
The new usability differ from the old usability because the new is smaller, more complex, more functions, different concepts through initial development plan to evaluations and testing, as well as applying user centered designs principles.

Week 2. 9^th Oct ‘07

PDE 4210: This week, we started by shortly introducing those that did not attend the first class, then we started discussing last weeks assignment. Individually we looked and criticized all the team mates’ definitions of Interaction Design; we kind of concluded that some of the definitions are quite meaningful and relevant to our context.

We then moved on to this week’s topic which is Experience Prototyping

Empathy tools, low fidelity design development and micro project.

Prototypes can be used to generate hypothesis about users needs

Prototypes allows you to produce a marketable model

Prototypes allows us to be Empathic

Experience prototypes help us to build designs (product development)

Prototypes allows us to evaluate designs

This week’s interactive design practice was based on designing a low-fidelity under water ROV (remote operated vehicle). For this exercise, the class was divided into two groups, each group was expected to come up with its own idea on how such machinery can be designed and operated bearing in mind the constraints and the available resources we had. This was a paper prototype, so we cut up boxes, made hand held remote control, then we tried it out and made a list of all the errors we have encountered on this lo-fi design,

Week3

CMT 4210: 15^th Oct. ‘07
Ubiquitous Computing. Today, two of my class team mates had a presentation on the above topic (Ubicomp), and references were made to Yvonne Rogers Moving on from Weisers vision of calm computing: Engaging Ubicomp experience. Yvonne Rogers is a professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the Computing Department at the Open University. She is also a visiting professor of Informatics and Information Science at Indiana University.

PDE 4210: 16^th Oct ‘07
Experiencing Prototyping; Paper, card and screen, then micro project.

Using the provided materials and specifications, we were required to design a low fidelity photo locket interface with the following features:

-Download photos (application running on PC)

-View photos

-Share photos with another photo locket

-Additionally devise and implement a dream feature

All the class members tried their skills in designing and creativity, given the specification we had, of 30mm width and breadth, team mates and myself figured out how to engineer the functions and features without affecting the size, and still be affordable and have simplicity of use.