Final Project Development: Body Storming

Instruction sets

 

What did you learn from the process?

The extremely fast-paced process of making a paper prototype forces me to condense the essence of my concept to the bare minimum; the absolute essentials that is required for others to understand and interact with. This may feel overly limiting at first glance, but it allows the designer to test out his/her idea with only fifteen previous minutes of his/her life wasted!

Another critical lesson learnt was that having 2-3 variables for participants are more than enough for meaningful interaction. Initially I had the idea of including more variables; like a slowly-spinning platform that forces the participants to either move or use different items as time passed, and more kinds of soil and fertilisers to complicate matters.

Having two players introduces an interesting, albeit unpredictable element to the implementation of the concept, and it is something that I might need to test further with other players.

Rough transcript of received class feedback:

  • Replace soil with something representational(try not to use real soil..)
  • Participants feel obligated to not kill the flower
  • Signage with instructions is sometimes not considered to be important to look at
  • Indicators for current state of flower is crucial for participants to make ongoing decisions
  • Usage of perhaps colors to guide participants with indicators and ingredients to use

What surprised you while going through the process?

It is really surprising how much gaps the human mind can fill when it comes to looking at ‘representational’ motifs and immediately understanding what they each stand for.. For example, participants could tell that the crudely assembled object represents a flower by a satay stick with 5-6 pieces of square papers pierced at the top..

Also, from the direction the pieces of paper are facing; upwards or downwards, participants can imply whether they are improving or worsening the situation.

How can your apply what you have discovered to the designing of your installation?

I will first decide on how many elements participants can interact with; soil, water and fertiliser etc, as well as the form they will be taking on. The visual cues are going to be crucial to allow clear understanding of what is to be done, and how to go about doing it. This can be achieved with colors, and maybe letters and lights.

The concept definitely needs more refinement and simplification. Currently the interaction does not feel fundamentally sound; a clearer final goal and streamlined steps need to be devised.

Originally I have intended to split the process of interaction to different ‘stages’. But seeing the demo test convinced me that it would be more viable to just have a singular stage where users can do any number of things before the conclusion. Simple is better.