CMT: 29th Jan ‘08
We usually hold this session on Monday, but because Professor Gaver was attending this IDC seminar, we were all requested to attend in place of our typical CMT meeting for the week.
SPEAKER: Professor Bill Gaver, Goldsmiths College, University of London
TITLE: Curious things for curious people: Designing technology for
everyday life
TIME & PLACE: Tuesday 29 January 2008, 1100-1230hours, Focus Area, Town Hall Building, School of Computing Science, Middlesex University.
ABSTRACT: In my studio, we design computational products that shun utilitarian assumptions to tell more interesting stories about who we are and what we care about. The Plane Tracker, for instance, tracks passing flight traffic and imagines views of their journeys. The Local Barometer displays text and images from local sources as if blown through the home. The Home Health Monitor picks up indicative information about household activities and reflects this back in the form of automatically generated horoscopes. Such designs offer new perspectives not only on the form and functions of interactive systems, but on the ways technology reflects people.
ABOUT: Bill Gaver is a Professor of Design at Goldsmiths, University of
London, and also head of the Interaction Research Studio.
At the seminar, he called the presentation Threshold Devices; he started with the Video window, a device he described as being fascinating and by kick-starting the presentation with it, he gets geared up. Furthermore, he talked about the video window being Multi-dimensional in terms of view, aesthetic and a functional content; it can also be seen as an opening to the world with a personal perspective. He only mentioned ludic engagements calmly; although he supported his idea about designing for play/ everyday life.
PDE : 1st Feb ‘08
We discussed Professor William Gaver’s Speech/ Presentation at the IDC meeting held earlier in the week; individually we talked about the presentation and what we felt about such designs and ideas. Some of us saw it as great way of thinking and designing. That is to say, techniques like design the product first and then apply/ define the theoretical methods subsequently. Others might view this idea as an unconventional way of making things, but at the end of the day, usual pattern of designing things are not quite innovative some times.
When we later got into the tutorials proper, Halil started by showing the improvement/ new studies/ he has done so far relating to his “Augmented Reality Paradigm” in his presentation, he mentioned about shutter glasses and the possibility of applying it to his design.
After Dikshit showed his project plan to the team and received advice from our team tutors/ supervisors, we then adjourned for lunch.
On returning from the lunch break, I put forward my ideas about “Service Design” and also talked about trying to find an edge to grip on service design project. I received advice on my initial idea and how to go about developing it further in order to result into a valid / realistic project.
Finally David presented a Gantt chart and other resources referring to his “Lead user Innovation” project.
