Assignment 7+8 – Project Proposals

Creating new screen-based UX design.

Can be based on past field trips:

  • Futureworld – interactions with art
  • Hawkers/Canteens – experience buying food
  • MRT – experience with transportation
  • Interactive design
  • Food UX
  • Transportation UX

Screen-based experience
Can be speculative… hypothetical, abstract, suppositive

Create an experience, interaction, response using…

  • Technology
  • App
  • Website
  • Wearable technology
  • Interface

Wearables

  • Limit interaction with smartphones
  • Useful in an everyday context
  • Wearables have become recognised as the future of technology
  • Smartwatches and activity trackers are so popular but they don’t do anything that a smartphone can’t
  • They aren’t essential

“There will be plenty of people who will benefit from smartwatches, but there won’t be many people who will be worse off for not having one.”

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With that in mind.. my research has come across some products that have influenced my ideas for a project.

Digital Tattoo – Project Underskin

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  • Technology and fashion reaching beyond the wrist
  • Smart digital tattoo implanted in your hand and interacts with things you touch

“It can unlock your front door, trade data with a handshake, or even tell you if you have low blood sugar.”

  • Cultural precincts may oppose this but its not a huge step forward from tattoos, piercings, birth control
  • It runs off of your body’s electro-chemical energy and can send out NFC signals
  • Can recognise location and body movements

—-> Digital Tattoo for MRT users

  • Instead of a smartwatch/smartphone/wristband, having a digital implant to pay for rides
  • Can track your location so reduces need to queue for the card-sensor stations
  • Accessible and useful for everyone as the MRT is used by all

 

Moment by Somatic Labs

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  • A smartwatch with no screen –questions screen as a means of interface interaction
  • Communicates by sending vibrations in each corner of the watch, that the user is able to recognise
  • Connects with smartphones, creates vibration patterns to communicate who is calling/directions/music

—-> SMRT Wristband

  • Use to pay for rides
  • Can vibrate on arrival (to wake sleeping passengers)
  • Vibrate to communicate directions and aid people walking around the stations (signage is confusing)
  • Alternatively, create an app that can do all this
  • Minimises the things you have to carry
  • Makes process quicker
  • Everyone is using their phone anyway
  • Issues –availability of smartphone to everyone? Functionality with a dead battery?

 

Smart Contact Lens by Google and Novartis

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A contact lens to help diabetics monitor their insulin levels from tears. Uses a small glucose sensor and a wireless chip to transmit information from the eye.

  • health tracker
  • removes the need to diabetics to pin prick themselves
  • simple to use
  • design makes it subtle to wear -also not different to normal contacts
  • Google is even working on LED lights that will notify a wearer of low blood sugar right in their field of view -immediate feedback to user
  • can be used for non-diabetics to simply monitor healthy eating/dieting

I’d love to find a way to use this innovation…

 

More ideas I want to explore

  • Addressing the ‘issue’ of queueing and waiting times -providing an experience during these times and activating the dead space/public space
  • EG bringing a taste of the FutureWorld exhibition to the MRT – interactive walls to entertain the people in the space, enhance the boring and tired experience and also to advertise the exhibition to encourage people to go
  • Interactive advertising to provide a taste-test of the experience

Week 7+8 Assignment – Thoughtful UX Design

Uber

Uber is very well-known and popular due to its great use of UX and UI design.

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  • clear and clean design -minimal colours used
  • easy to navigate and use app
  • use of tracking and gps makes it easy to define your location
  • quick response (often)
  • complaints are entertained -easy refund for any issues
  • visibility and recognition of important information -cars around your location/time til pick-up/cost of ride/car options
  • icons are recognisable
  • promos to encourage new users
  • cheaper than taxis (often)
  • easy and simple review system (of driver) -also recognises safety of the service
  • UberPool – I really like this feature as it makes the fares cheaper and also is beneficial for the environment because strangers share the ride instead of taking separate ones. It also shows how the company is constantly looking to improve and develop.

 

Smart Highways, Glowing Lines (glow-in-the-dark roads in the Netherlands)

This is definitely an innovative and forward-thinking use of UX design introduced to enhance road safety particularly in dimly-light streets.

  •  the project was conceived in 2012 by Heijmans and Studio Roosegaarde to create the “interactive and sustainable roads of tomorrow.”
  • uses luminescent paint that is charged by solar energy during the day and then glows for up to 10 hours when it gets dark
  • increases visibility
  • improves safety
  • sleek and simple design, aesthetically pleasing
  • easy to use/understand/see
  • environmentally friendly- solar powered

 

IKO Creative Prosthetic System

This innovation combines robotics, programming, and prototyping into a prosthetic arm that’s half prosthesis, half Lego set. It allows kids who are navigating the world with a disability to be able to create any kind of arm they want for themselves.

The prototype has a three main sections: a base that fits around an arm stump and senses for its movements, a “muscle” that translates those signals into motorized movements, and then the attachments, which can either be a conventional “hand” or many of the toy systems the Danish company has to offer.

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  • an interactive, innovative and creative experience for users/kids
  • playful and fun approach to UXD -appropriate for the target audience
  • empowers children with disabilities
  • encourages the navigation of the relationship between their bodies and the technology that will enhance their abilities
  • its personalisable -can function according to the needs of the user
  • double function -an arm and a lego set

 

One more because this is really cool…

Smart Contact Lens created by Google and Novartis

A contact lens to help diabetics monitor their insulin levels from tears. Uses a small glucose sensor and a wireless chip to transmit information from the eye.

3033085-poster-smartcontactlens

  • health tracker
  • removes the need to diabetics to pin prick themselves
  • simple to use
  • design makes it subtle to wear -also not different to normal contacts
  • Google is even working on LED lights that will notify a wearer of low blood sugar right in their field of view -immediate feedback to user
  • can be used for non-diabetics to simply monitor healthy eating/dieting

 

I discovered some more awesome UX examples on here https://www.fastcodesign.com/3063953/18-of-the-smartest-ux-designs-of-the-year

Week 7+8 Assignment – Reading response

Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services by Kim Goodwin.

It’s so accurate the describe the world as shaped by humans and to suit themselves. We seem to be constantly inventing tools to make our lives easier and more enjoyable. Efficiency and convenience are a big part of innovations these days.

The statement about our different modes of communication is also something which technology has boosted. Thanks to technology, particularly smartphones, we are able to ‘talk to someone’ in a variety of different ways. And not always audibly but through the use of images, other visuals, sounds, gestures and other movements. Popular trends of social media like snapchat make it so easy to send photos to people to communicate something -where you are/what you’re doing/how you’re doing/for no reason at all, even without the use of words or intention for conversation.

“Design is the craft of visualising concrete solutions that serve human needs and goals within certain constraints.”

I like this quote because it summarises what it is to design. It also alludes to the idea that design is a mix of science and art, which I agree with! Design is creative problem solving that aims to serve human needs/goals. I think that with the influence and growth of technology design is moving towards being for functional, everything has a purpose and a goal. Design therefore appears to be improving and developing alongside that of technology.

The digital age has offered new challenges and capabilities to design. Airline customer touch points has really impacted from this – as I was leaving home to fly to Singapore I was amazed at how much technology had taken over the whole process, even for long haul flights, and the general lack of people involved in the process. I checked-in using a machine, printed my ticket and baggage sticker, but my bag into a weighing machine which deemed it okay, which then put it on the conveyor belt to get it to the plane. At no point during the check in process was I faced with anyone who worked for the company!

Product and service design, instead of experience design, is an interesting idea because obviously the designer wants to create a particular experience but a valid point is raised here about the chances of everyone having that same proposed experience perhaps being unlikely. Should the designer therefore create an opportunity for a particular experience, or should they just create an environment for any experience to take place, subject to the individual? Is product and service design successful simply by providing an experience to the user, or must it be the particular and intended experience?

Interaction design/Graphic design/Information design/Industrial design – it is interesting to consider how they all link and contribute to Experience design. HCI and IA design is also comparable. Will one trump all other one day, or will they somehow all merge? It seems confusing and an exaggeration to have so many different ‘types’ of design when they are similar and cross over in so many ways. I imagine that designers would have skills in a few of these areas because of this overlap.

I like the label of Goal-Directed design, however isn’t all design goal-directed? With regard to the design process, surely a designer cannot progress without a goal and a plan or achieving it? Despite not all design perhaps having a functional aim (maybe its just about aesthetic value) it must have an end goal or else what drives the process?

Incredibly, personas and other methods that have been developed and are still successful tools used today in the design process. It seems wise to mix new and successful methods to be most effective in creative problem-solving. Personas is a method I have used for a past project and I found it a good way to make sure that the product did everything it needed to, and that it would cater to all audiences it was intended for.

Principals – guidelines, can’t all be applied in all contexts, not all created equally -help user accomplish goal/help user minimise work?

Patterns -solutions used for similar problems, inform designers vocal

Processes -planning (objectives, idea, schedule)/research (define, decide, interviews, ethnographic research)/modelling (analysis, trends, personas)/requirement definition (implied factors, highlights needs)/framework definition (objectives, solutions)/detailed design (plan, refine, collaboration, determine product specifications, user testing)/implementation support (construction support, ongoing)

Practices -team structure, communication, collaboration, small team, team environment

These elements are a good reminder of how the design process works -it is not a straightforward journey, but consists of many influential factors that need to be considered.

Week 7+8 Assignment – FutureWorld review

Future World: Where Art meets Science exhibition at the ArtScience Museum @MBS.

This was such a cool exhibition! One that was definitely on my list of things to do whilst in Singapore. It was incredible to experience a place with so many interactive exhibits, as a view it really helped me to connect to the space.

We were very fortunate to have someone to show us around as it wasn’t always clear exactly what the artworks could do -but I imagine thats part of the fun exploring.

I think that exhibition showed that experience design has a large focus on the users experience when faced with a product or service. It should induce a response from the user and provide an experience. Future World also highlighted that there are so many kinds of responsive environments. There were exhibits that responded to touch, motion and proximity and they produced different effects.

I believe this has the power to really influence the world around us. We can see how technology is taking over to rapidly and becoming part of everyday life. Things are becoming more responsive and automated which enables us to almost think less and do more. Although Future World is perhaps more aimed at being a children’s playground, it is just as exciting for older people because of this integration of interactive technologies. It is a new technology to everyone and therefore we find it so interesting!

The Future Playground is an example of this as it has integrated technology into children’s toys. Not only do you play with wooden blocks, but moving them around the table then results in a change of animation/projection so it appears the environment is responding to your actions.

Communication appears to be becoming more than just verbal form. The artwork of illuminated colour blocks shows another form of communication -when the blocks match up correctly together then they both light up the same colour, and will change back when moved apart. This form of communication is received visually and immediately.

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Nature, the moving illustrations of flowers and butterflies respond to your movement and swarm around areas of shadow/standing, and the butterflies disintegrate if you hit the wall as they fluttered past.

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100 Years Sea Animation, showing the effects of global warming.

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Future Playground, Connecting! Train Block, the animation reacts to the blocks moving location on the table. This action creates new pathways and alters the thriving cityscape for the various trains, planes, boats and cars. img_9977

 

A Table Where Little People Live, characters and projected onto the table that will try to jump over your hands when you place them on the table too.
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Sketch Town, depicting Singapore city, you are able to colour-in vehicles and buildings and scan them through onto the projection transforming the 2D drawing into a 3D animations.

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Media Block Chair, stacking blocks together makes them change to the same colour. You can construct furniture, towers and other structures. The boxes communicate as they connect and discontent by changing colours. img_9981

 

Light Ball Orchestra, touching the balls changes the colour and sound produced from the ones around it.
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Create! Hopscotch for Geniuses, your drawings customise the hopscotch with different arrangements of shapes. When you complete the course, the colours stepped on trigger another projection of colour and pattern on the other wall.img_9986

Story of the Time When Gods Were Everywhere, touching hieroglyphic characters makes them transform into natural elements like fire and trees, narrating the story of creation. img_9987 img_9988

Crystal Universe, more than 170,000 LEDS to create the effect of stars moving in space as well as planets, galaxies and gravitational waves.

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It’s so cool reading about the different projects Teamlab has been involved in. They have aimed to portray the natural world in many of their artworks. They have even recreated the way that the landscape never looks the same by having a continuous rendering of the programme used- instead of an animation or loop. The fact that many of their pieces are interactive shows their understanding that human behaviour (and other environmental factors) all have an impact on the natural world.

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Nature is also a theme in this piece as it emulates the phenomenon of fire through use of bright coloured LEDs and various sounds. It even expresses the continuously changing and transformative quality of fire by not using pre-recorded imagery but constantly programming the spectacle (like the above artwork).

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I like how the Crystal Fireworks artwork has incorporated the use of smartphones as the means to activate a response from the LED light exhibit. This grants everyone the ability to interact with the exhibit as phones are a very current and popular form of technology.

It would be so interesting seeing this piece displayed outdoors! The external environmental influencing factors would be very apparent -the best visibility would be at night time and I wonder how it would be affected by wind/rain? At the exhibition however I think most of the amazement came with being surrounded and immersed in the exhibit, we were able to walk through it and experience it visually and audibly.

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I think that involving the use of smartphone technology will encourage people to get involved in interacting with the exhibit.

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