Its Stupid Simple

This week I initially decided to write about interactions that I find particularly frustrating. My inspiration for this post was my relatively new phone. Its hateful - using it is a truly horrendous experience. But, whatever technical problems it may have (and it has a lot), what really annoys me is that despite being a mini computer I can't really make it do anything. It's like it has deliberately chosen to so limit its capabilities.

I was suddenly quite aware that I may be a geek - Apple's iphone sells phenomenally well despite similar issues. Its seems that the mass market will accept potential short comings if what is actually offered works well. Architectural practice and its relationship with technology struggles similarly - CAD software has to predict how architects will try to use it in order to be a useable, worthwhile tool.

SketchUP came out of nowhere and revolutionised the way architects and students work, because @Last came up with something instantly accessible - “3D for everyone” indeed. 10 years later it still doesn’t do everything I would want to do with it, but that doesn’t matter. I could use Rhino/Grasshopper, but I don’t because its interface is not stimulating to me, I don’t script designs.

The most important thing @Last achieved, as the patent application stated, was to create “a three-dimensional design and modelling environment allows users to draw the outlines, or perimeters, of objects in a two dimensional manner, similar to pencil and paper, already familiar to them...” Whatever shortcomings SketchUP may have, this instant familiarity, immediacy and tactility is a triumph of HCI.

Quite how this revelation is going to help me, I'm not sure, but we discuss similar issues in buildings, talking about legibility of space etc.

Turning heads with LED's

I find cycling one of the most satisfying modes of transport, but being seen by other road users is not always easy, especially at night.

Something I came across a while back which has always intrigued me is the idea of a wearable indicator system. It helps to light up the cyclist as well as provide LED signalling when the user presses down on a small switch on each respective wrist.

It also helps those cyclists who are not very comfortable about taking their hands off the handlebars when trying to show their turning intent.

In the following video and link, Leah Buechley shows how anyone can make a DIY indicator jacket using Lilypad Arduino and how it functions once constructed.



Build a turn signal jacket

Using technology in a wearable form like this can help save lives and also bring a sense of fun into something that is fairly mundane.

Another interesting item of interaction design I found this week is the Sound Playground at the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford, USA. Personally I find the sounds it generates a little too high pitched and slightly irritating, but I think it is an interesting idea and it creatively uses the large interactive instrument to make the space much more sociable and fun, whilst maintaining its educational value.

The vimeo video gets a lot more interesting about half way through, when you see people interacting with it.

Sound Playground at Connecticut Science Center from Aesthetec Studio on Vimeo.

On a completely different side note (!), as part of the design project that I am currently undertaking, I came across this lovely bridge design in a place called Lillefjord in Norway. It struck me as an ingenious way to make a bridge and its accompanied public toilet much more appealing and help boost the level of interaction with the building and its location.

Not Just Jewellery.

Continuing an accessory theme from my last blog I have decided to take a look at jewellery this week, starting with the ring.

I find ring designs inspiring with a lot of architectural connotations, such as materiality, form, concepts and even story telling. Below are some of my personal favourites.

Linnie Mclarty Jade Mellor

Selda Okutan

This led me to look into digital jewellery. It seems at the moment to be driven mainly by the ability to produce micro sized computers. In 2000 IBM produced a prototype jewellery set, which would work just like a mobile phone. The earrings would have embedded speakers, the necklace a microphone and a ring which they called ‘the magic decoder ring’, which would have LEDS that flashed to indicate an incoming call! Similar developments such as the Java ring have also been developed to unlock doors and log onto computers eliminating the need to remember numerous passwords.

IMB & Java

For me much more interestingly, I came across some research done more recently, right here at Culture Lab. Digital jewellery and family relationships used jewellery as a way of exploring wider objectives, focusing on user centred design.

My favourite piece is “Blossom” shown below, made from wood, glass, silver and vintage stamps.

Jayne Wallace

The jewellery object, in London, is connected to a rain sensor, planted on the participant’s family land in Cyprus. Inside the dome the old Cypriot postage stamps are closed like a flower, attached to a mechanism, waiting to receive a signal sent from the rain sensor. Once the rain sensor has registered a predetermined quantity of rain in Cyprus, which may take months or even years a signal is sent to the jewellery object and the mechanism is activated, slowly opening the petals like a flower blossoming. This acts as a memory trigger to a certain human relationship as well as a specific place.

Now that’s what I call ‘bling!’

Motivations for Interaction Design Research

In the last linked research session I mentioned three motivations for research. While this list isn’t exhaustive I think that it captures some of the core categories which may help you to navigate the often very complex world of interaction design research.

Technology Led

In some ways this category is a misnomer since all interaction design research tends to be motivated to some extend through technology. We make an assumption in this project that you will design something which uses digital networked technologies and this assumption is also a motivation. However, I use technology led here to refer to research which takes emerging technologies and asks “What cool stuff can we do with it?”. Recent examples of interaction design research in this area have been motivated by commercial products like the Wii and most recently the Xbox Kinect. Both Kinect and Wii (and specifically the WiiMote) made previously very expensive technology easily accessible. The Kinect’s ability to use optical 3D to build sophisticated representations of space and to recognize and track movement uses technology which before the release of the £100 device would have cost a lab 10s of the thousands of pounds. These devices offer many new interaction potentials and this sort of research tends to be playful but sometimes lacks the “so what factor”.

Problem Led

This is territory in which designers feel more comfortable. Problem driven research consists of finding a problem and then attempting to find a way of intervening in the problem to find a solution. The essence of this type of research tends to depend on the type of problem. The shift from Human Computer Interaction research to Interaction Design research is a recognition that in computer science that many of the User centered problems created by the design of computer systems are “Wicked Problems”. Engineering design problems tend to be well contained where the variables of the potential solution can be measured and an optimum found. Early HCI research (and some modern HCI research as well) tended to measure the efficiency of user actions when interacting with a system – e.g. how many clicks does it take to access this software tool or how much time does it take to perform this operation? Wicked problems, however, are diffuse – there are no optimum solutions but many possible approaches. Interaction designers increasingly tackle and seek out wicked problems of the sort we discussed in the last session. How can we support the communication of emotion in the classroom? How do we increase voter turnout in local elections?

Concept Led

Concept led research is more difficult to describe but emerges from a tradition closer to fine art practice than design. Concept or ideas driven work is exemplified by many of the projects that emerge from the RCA and the Interaction Design group at Goldsmiths. These projects are often speculations or provocations. They often question the role of technology or assumptions made by technology designers.

55-02: Process Interaction

After attending a lecture last night by Bob Sheil from sixteen*(makers), I feel inspired to write about a project of theirs, 55-02 and my interpretation of this as interactive architecture. To set the context, 55-02 is a public shelter situated in the remote landscape of Keilder Reservoir, England with the site adjacent to the lake. At first glance, the interaction of this project is due to the movable nature of the parts that constitute the whole. Doors pivot to provide control which is further emphasised by a sliding screen running through the centre of the shelter dividing it into two. These elements enable the occupants to readily and easily control their sense of enclosure within the shelter. On the surface, 55-02 appears like a marvellous piece of interaction however I feel that this interaction is more than skin deep. One cannot start to talk about sixteen* (makers) without mentioning their process of design through making. For them, drawings only represent the tactical plan which is then re-interpreted through modelling. This interaction with models (both physical and virtual) provides a more tangible approach for the architects, enabling them to interact with architecture in ways unachievable by drawings. Once a scaled prototype has been developed, the next stage is prefabricated construction (by the architects), where the interaction now becomes more about the 1:1 scale relationship between man and material. I am proposing this procedure as an interaction of process.

What I feel 55-02 brings to the table for discussion is that interaction in architecture can be something that is involved in the process of its construction, creating a ‘pro-active’ interaction contrasting to the previously documented ‘re-active’ interaction of Lattice Archipelogics. I feel that rich spaces in our environment can be achieved through this 1:1 pro-active interaction which would be interesting to further explore.

Michael Smith

Driven to Drink (Tea)

I’ve spent the last week studying the simple act of making tea. In China serving tea can signify respect, be offered as an apology, and enjoys a special status on ones wedding day. The Japanese tradition has less to do with the actual tea itself, rather the ceremony and associated activities - concepts of harmony, respect, purity and tranquility under pinning the process of brewing and serving tea to guests.

Even in everyday circumstances here, the time, energy and money an individual will invest making a brew is quite revealing. Apparently its not that uncommon to enjoy your elevenses enough to write or even sing about the experience. The inspiration behind “10 Poems about Tea”, the website nicecupofteaandasitdown.com, and countless entries on youtube, it seems that the humble cuppa means something different and constitutes a unique experience to everyone. I’m amazed so straightforward an act as pouring boiling water onto some dry leaves can enjoy such a range of associations and variations in process.

Going back 200 years tea was a purely luxury good - whereas today the UK gets through 165 million cups a day. Its worth noting not only how the design of tea paraphernalia has changed to reflect this mass consumption - from dedicated tea houses containing special stoneware, to disposable paper bags and styrofoam beakers, but also how tea has changed the social landscape of the country. It has replaced alcohol has the acceptable drink of choice in many circumstances, and even contributed to the emancipation of women by offering the tea house as a reputable social venue outside of the home.

Offering a guest a cup of tea is still a significant social gesture, to not do so is a faux pas. “Putting the kettle on” is an act so engrained in our everyday social interactions, that I don’t really consider the tea bag or kettle as a designed object. Yet it is the one relationship I have with a physical object that almost everyone in the country regardless of age or background could identify with. I can’t think of many other products that have achieved the same universal acceptance, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see the iphone becoming quite so ubiquitous.

A thousand ways to have a good drink!

When I was thinking of something interactive to pick to study this week I had a think about things that I use on a regular basis and which are made in a myriad of different shapes, styles and effectiveness. I immediately thought of kitchen utensils and cookware, which vary in price and quality depending on the materials and the reputation that they have. The price of these household commodities doesn't necessarily correlate to the effectiveness and ergonomic quality of the item, something which intrigued me. 

For example, the following image shows a fairly standard corkscrew bottle opener which has the kind of shape and functionality that is immediately familiar to most people. The operation is fairly straight forward - you screw the metal spike into the cork of the bottle until it is fully submerged; the 'arms' lift during this process and in order to release the cork you press down the 'arms' which uses the inherent leverage of the design to help with the pulling gesture.

The following opener, however, has been designed with ergonomics in mind, and even has the name 'Good Grips Easy Twist Corkscrew'. This design helps the user form their hand into a more comfortable position whilst applying pressure, thereby providing a better user experience and potentially helping less able people use such devices.

The last opener shows how such everyday items can become more than just functional and can be styled into attractive products, with equally attractive price tags! Designed by Alessandro Mendini, the Alessi Anna G. corkscrew is available in a multitude of styles and even comes in a male format (Alessi Alessandro M.) and a professional sommelier style bartender screw, which is, of course, a parrot! The functionality and ease of use may be the same as the first bottle opener, but for some, the design makes opening a bottle so much more enjoyable! 

Finally, for those who like power tools and who find removing a cork from a bottle an arduous task, you could always go for something with a little more oomph!!!!

Static Interaction

Herman Hertzberger designed a fixed stage in the hallway of the Montessori School, Delft, providing a platform of interaction for the school children that can be used on its own or extended with a timber frame. Being fixed (as opposed to temporary) encourages the school children to interact more with the platform, with it always being a conscious part of their journey to the classroom.

What I find interesting about this is the simple nature of the stage which allows for a wide range of interpretations, letting the children be really imaginative, thus provoking different ways of interacting with it. Examples of interaction include a stage, work desk and an area for play. This example shows that interactive design can be something static that allows people to adapt and shape to meet their needs as opposed to something that reacts to a person (be it through movement or mapping of data).

Michael Smith

She’s got the whole world in her handbag!

This week we were asked to look at the interaction between a person and a non digital object that has been designed.

I have chosen the handbag. Now and again when I walk down the street and I see, often a man, without a bag I wonder where is he going that he doesn’t need ANYTHING apart from what fits in his pockets? This baffles me as I, like most women, am surgically attached to my handbag.

As the large handbag has been in fashion for a good few years now I can not ever imagine downsizing again as everything in it is a necessity. Here I have emptied a typical handbag.





The handbags at the top of the food chain are pieces of art as much as they are practical. They are iconic pieces that say something about the carrier. The Hermès ‘Birkin’ first created in 1984 and the Chanel ‘2.25' initially created in 1955 are two of the most famous and iconic handbags and still have a major aesthetic influence over the high street today.

Nowadays although the outside may vary there seems to be a set standard for what makes up a handbag. Here I have done a quick exploded study.




There are many studies looking into the ergonomics of handbags. The constant strain on a particular shoulder can unevenly distribute the blood flow. The shoulder that carries the bag is under constant duress and the muscles become sensitized. Also most of us have a favourite position to carry the bag, which will inevitably over time, misalign our spine. There are ergonomically designed handbags but they leave much to be desired. I shall not be switching bags any time soon, but I may just switch shoulders now and again.

Hanna

Introduction to Interaction Design Video

I'm posting this video for the Linked Reserach students as an introduction to the principles of interaction design. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3rxCLhzmXY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Lattice Archipelogics

Whilst reading Digital Tectonics, edited by Neil Leach, David Turnbull and Chris Williams (a very good read) I discovered an interesting piece of interactive architecture called Lattice Archipelogics, an installation for Latent Utopias in Steirischer Herbst, Graz, 2002. This installation was formed by a multi-disciplinary collaboration between Servo and Smart Studio and provides an interactive piece of architecture which reacts to the movement of the audience. As the audience navigates around the installation, motion sensors detect their movement which is processed by software, organising them into cellular particles that distribute in variable, algorithmically-driven assemblies. These assemblies in turn trigger the LED Lighting array.

What is interesting about the project is the way movement of people is mapped and then influences the atmosphere of a space. Furthermore, the lighting patterns help to create a temporary series of vertical planes in a space which also has the potential to influence the people who interact with it.

What this reminds me of is a project done in Grasshopper (a plugin for Rhino) called Component wall. http://www.giuliopiacentino.com/component-wall/. Imagine the ball in the video as a person moving.

Wouldn’t it be great if architecture had the potential to be more adaptive and reactive! You already see elements of architecture that interact with the environment (Such as the Louvers on the Devonshire Building, Newcastle University, England) for sustainability reasons but wouldn’t it be great if the user had the potential to interact with the skin of the façade in some way. Could architecture be something that is moulded and adapted to meet the users needs and then spring back to its original form once it has been used again?

Michael Smith

Seeing is Believing

Autodesk Lab’s Photofly has been around for a while now and whilst perhaps not strictly within the whelm of interaction design, is a project I still find particularly intriguing. The free technology demonstrator attempts to automatically translate photographs, taken on a garden variety digital camera, into a basic 3d model.

At the moment the software is limited to creating a point cloud, (of the sort familiar to anyone using laser scanners for facade surveys), but this data can interface with Autocad and used as an outline to create more tangible solid models. There is though no reason that the could not be further refined to produce mesh data that could be fed directly into a 3d CAD model, and indeed Autodesk have announced that a future release will feature exactly that functionality. Geotagging images to help the computer interpret their position and scale would seem another logical step, further reducing the need for manual input.

We’re used to seeing augmented reality technologies merging the virtual world with the physical, but feeding the real world back into the machine has traditionally been a laborious process. Having spent days of my life building site models from photographs, I am definitely excited about this project as a first step in making the computer see and understand the world in the same way as I do, and how even this rudimentary understanding can aid architectural practice.

Desks & Light Painting

I found this Swedish Interaction Design blog today (http://www.interactiondesign.se/blog/) which is written by students from the Umea Institute of Design. Whilst searching through the posts I came across a very nicely composed short film about the humble desk.

Desk - Music and Sound Design from Aaron Trinder Film:Motion:Music on Vimeo.

It made me think about how I use my desk and how this can differ from other people’s experiences. It also made me remember an innovative product I’d seen on the engadget website, called benddesk. http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/27/benddesk-the-curved-multitouch-workspace-of-the-future-video/. 

It would be interesting to see these interactive desks incorporate and recognise ones own style of organisation, creativity and visual preferences, so as to make the multi-touch interactions even more intuitive and personal. 

Such systems and their potential to be used in educational environments seems very encouraging; easily helping to provide multi-touch, group interactive learning sessions. It seems research in this field is happening fairly locally, at Durham University - http://www.classroom20.com/profiles/blogs/multitouch-interactive-desk

On a slightly different note, I also came across this ingenious long exposure light painting - http://berglondon.com/blog/2010/09/14/magic-ipad-light-painting/. The technique is executed using a series of digital images displayed on an iPad, which is gradually moved through the space and then photographed on a long exposure, thereby creating the shape of the final image. Light painting is nothing new, but this method looks great fun and creates interesting visual effects, something which could definitely be explored further using new technologies and spacial interventions.

I heart Installations!

Upon purchasing a new book called ‘Art and Science Now’ I came across this installation by Dianna Domingues and Artecno Group. The piece is called ‘Heartscapes’ and it was created in NTAV Lab in 2006-2007.

Viewers are invited to navigate an immersive CAVE virtual-reality animated world built from images of a hearts interior. CAVE is a four wall Virtual Reality projection system in which a visitor experiences realistic interactive multi-sensory presentations. In this approach, which Domingues calls ‘immersive poetics’, viewer’s heartbeats and movements influence the flow of imagery and sound. The interactivity of biological signals is triggered by the heartbeat frequency. By interacting with the interfaces the viewers are then immersed in a landscape simulating their own heart scenes.

I love this particular piece of art because it reminds me of the film that I used to watch when I was little, Honey I Shrank the Kids. The possibilities of exploration if we had the ability to be small enough to enter places we couldn't even dream of now is fascinating. The human heart would definitely be on my list of the places to visit!

This particular piece of art encapsulates the wonder of the human body and the manipulation of scale takes the viewer to another dimension using virtual reality and augmented reality. We often see these images on TV or represented in books but creating the ability to physically be part of the human body, Domingues takes it to another level.

Research Group Prescriptions

Following the Linked Research presentations on Wednesday 9th February I’ve been reflecting on the styles of interaction design research and types of project that fit the identities of the researchers within our group. This is just an initial pass but might provide a starting point to look at some of the interests of diverse types of work and groups already doing things. Don’t feel constrained by these. I will also return to edit this post as I get more ideas and also to reflect some of Madeline’s References:

Paul
In some ways this is the toughest of all the presentations to map interaction design projects to. A key theme was the importance of the computer to your design practice. You also discussed the use of Building Information Management systems (BIMs) and design workflow. A set of project which do spring to mind are those of Hiroshi Ishii and the Tangible Media Group at MIT Media Lab. They are famous for defining ‘Ambient Computing’ and well known for their work “mixing bits and atoms”. Some of the earliest work in this area was in collaboration with MITs department of Architecture. Illuminating Clay is a project which allows Landscape Architects to naturally model in clay whilst a projector measures the surface height of the surface and project information back to the surface in issues like wind speed, light and shadow casting, moisture accumulation etc… This was followed up by projects like CADcast and Phoxel Space. There are some particularly interesting challenges in the area of architectural design and education in terms of mixing tangible objects and digital information. For interest also check out Strata – I think you will like the aesthetic and the function.

Jennie
Health an education are really important to the study of interaction design so it’s hard to know where to start. You might want to look at Madeline’s work – particularly the stuff on Subtle Stone – publications can be found here. Some of this work emerges from researchers like Rosalind Picard who runs the Affective Computing group at MIT Media Lab. We are very lucky to have Prof Sugata Mitra at Newcastle University in the Education Department who has done quite inspirational things with computing and education in poor parts of India:

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

The Digital Interaction group has done work with him before. In terms of health, at the scary end of this topic are projects like chi+med which is investigating user interfaces for, potentially lifesaving (and thus also life threatening devices). Closer to home are projects like User-centred Healthcare Design (USCHD). Peter Wright is our contact for this – I hope you will get to meet him over the next few weeks. More generally I mentioned a Scandinavian type of design sensibility. There is a simplicity of use and material in work which comes from places like Sweden’s Interactive Institute.

Michael
A few things to go at here. You want to make something. A good place to start might be the ‘Make’ community via Make Magazine. This site is populated with amateurs who like to build things. Often they use found electronics or open source projects like Arduino and Processing. These are not usually research projects but give you an idea about what is possible with a soldering iron a bit of knowhow and some time. I was interested in your interest in procedural modelling and form creation. I’m not sure how we could facilitate this as I don’t do these sorts of projects and don’t know who does in Newcastle, however, from a research point of view I particularly like the methods and products of Neri Oxman. There is lots of stuff on her work and her group at MIT called ‘Material Ecology’ has just been formed and her work can be found here. The really cool stuff for me lies in the mix between architecture and biology and particularly in the notion that we may program self generating biological materials in a world in which when you press the print button of your CAD drawing you’ll have the option to PRINT TO PDF // PRINT TO PLOTTER // PRINT TO DNA SEQUENCE…take a look at this video if you are interested…it might fit in to what we are doing…but I’m not sure yet + its much easier to program an arduino than a genetically engineer a new organism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAMrtHC2Ev0

Sticking closer to topic you might take a look at the work of another MIT group – the Sensable Cities group. Their work emerges from the theories of William J. Mitchell who was my PhD examiner and academic hero. He sadly died earlier this year but his ideas of cites which could sense themselves and create feedback loops of interaction remain in this group – and the projects are diverse.

Hanna
Your presentation immediately made me think of Design Interactions department at the Royal College of Art. The RCA don’t make a clear distinction between Art and Design so their work tends to be at the cutting edge of a field known as design speculation. Their work isn’t just about digital technology but rather about designing experiences and revealing the pervasive influence of design on our lives through projects which are sometime playful, frightening, provocative and sometimes outright strange. Leaders in the field are Dunne and Raby . Anthony Dunne wrote a book I’m fond of called Hertzian Tales. A former RCA person is Bill Gaver who also works in this area in the Interaction Research Studio. Gaver is an important figure in Interaction Design and acts as a bridge between Design Speculation and more traditional technology development and studies in Human Computer Interaction. While the projects often verge on pieces of installation art and have a pared down aesthetic beauty which is a trademark of the group Gaver is also responsible for design methods such as Technology and Cultural Probes which are now used (and misused) extensively in design departments of large companies. Madeline has also followed up with a link or two to Fashion related projects but in the mean time this is a link to the LilyPad Arduino which Madeline mentioned in relation to electronics which can be embedded into fabrics. In addition these are some groups which might be interesting in terms of lowtech and technology and fashion:

http://www.kobakant.at/
http://www.xslabs.net/
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/acad/sed/sedstaff/design/SharonBaurley
http://hlt.media.mit.edu/

A Brief History of Computers and Design

This is the presentation given on Wednesday 9th February to the Group on the History of Computing and Design using an analogy with the "Tree of Knowldge System".

Tree of Knowledge System and the Evolution of Computation on Prezi