The Interaction Design concentration at the Division of Design, School of Art moves into its fifth year beginning this fall. Prof. Axel Roesler presented some of the projects that were developed in the Interaction Design sequence ART383, ART 483, and ART484, graduate work in Interaction Design, and research trajectories.
Launched in Winter Quarter 2006, IxD studios have provided a platform for the collaboration between students in Industrial Design and Visual Communication Design, Human Centered Design and Engineering, the iSchool, and Computer Science and Engineering, among other departments.
Watch a audio/slide capture of the talk to learn more about recent collaborative projects such as the recent Microsoft Design Expo 2009 and the commercial flight deck of the future with the Boeing Flight Deck Concept Center.
Find out about the DUB group at the University of Washington here.

University of Washington students Kris Martin (Interaction Design), Jenny Kam (Industrial Design), Drew Bregel (Human-Computer Interaction & Design), Kayhan Atesci (iSchool), and Jennifer Milam (Applied Mathematics) received the Best Product Design Award for their project ‘post.it.nodes’, a new interaction design concept for contextual file management at the Microsoft Design Expo 2009 in Redmond on Tuesday, July 14. 

Watch a video of the UW IxD post.it.notes presentation at the Design Expo’09 in Redmond (07-14-2009 - this is a preliminary handheld video – a link to the MS video will be posted here soon)

View photos from the Design Expo’09

post.it.notes video presentation (06/2009)
post.it.notes documentation

Post.it.nodes had originated in ART484 – Projects in Interaction Design during Spring Quarter 2009, taught by Prof. Axel Roesler in the Interaction Design concentration at the Division of Design, UW School of Art, and was one of seven projects that were the result of interdisciplinary design studio work – Projects in Interaction Design builds on an interdisciplinary team setting to provide design students with opportunities to explore interaction design development in a professional context and engage in collaborations with students from other human-computer interaction oriented departments on the UW campus. Georg Petschnigg from the MS Pioneer Studios served as project liason between Microsoft and the Interaction Design Concentration at the Division of Design. The class was sponsored by Microsoft Research.

The Design Expo is an invited design challenge as part of the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit, a three-day conference and showcase for international academic research funded by Microsoft Research. This year’s Design Expo provided a forum around the theme ‘The Future of Work’ to showcase exceptional design process and ideas. Participating universities in the 2009 Design Expo were Carnegie Mellon University, School of Design; New York University, Interactive Telecommunications Program; Art Center College of Design, Product Design; University of Dundee, Product Design; Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; and Universidad Iberioamericana, Mexico City.

pictures of the installed show

link to Design Show 2009 student website

Interaction Design defines the structure and behavior of interactive products and services. Interaction Designers create compelling relationships between people and the interactive systems they use, from computers to mobile devices to appliances; Interaction Designers lay the groundwork for intangible experiences. The University of Washington Division of Design offers a MFA in Industrial or Visual Communication Design with a concentration in Interaction Design (Download PDF IxD brochure)

The Interaction Design concentration at the Division of Design is tied into the University of Washington’s DUB initiative, a coalition of faculty, researchers, students, and industry partners with HCI-focus. Weekly DUB talks present cutting edge research, guest lectures, and conference practice talks. HCI/Design faculty in the DUB coalition entertain research collaborations with a number of industry partners, including Microsoft, Intel, Nokia, and Google. Research and industry collaborations of the Interaction Design concentration include Microsoft, Boeing, and the Institute for Simulation and Interprofessional Studies at the UW School of Medicine. 

IxD Gallery

Prospective students interested in the MFA in Industrial or Visual Communication Design with a concentration in Interaction Design need to apply either for the MFA in Visual Communication Design or Industrial Design and Indicate their interest the in Interaction Design concentration in their cover letter. For questions about the program contact Prof. Axel Roesler.

MFA in Visual Communication Design
MFA in Industrial Design
Admission Information

The need for interaction designers in the development of new products, systems and services has increased exponentially over the past few years. Interactive systems are present in many areas in everyday life where people coordinate tasks and engage in activities in collaboration with others. Examples range from mobile phones to computer software, from GPS systems for cars or navigation in the open ocean, and information systems that support the work of expert practitioners in technology-driven domains such as aviation, medicine, and process control.

Central themes in interaction design are the study of interaction in context; dynamic and interactive representations, affordances, activities, processes, and systems; the role of different views shared by prospective users, clients, and designers; and the presentation, simulation, and testing of interaction design concepts.

Three Interaction Design studios form a platform for interdisciplinary design teams of graduate and undergraduate students from Industrial Design, Visual Communication Design, Human Centered Design and Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Informatics, Information Science and Management, and many other fields from the University of Washington’s thriving Research-1 campus. The three interaction design courses (ART383, ART483, and ART484) address human-computer interaction issues that designers encounter when they design for the interactions between people and technology. The courses are offered regularly every quarter and approach different projects in different teams every year. All three classes are open to design students and students with a focus on Human-computer interaction from outside the Division of Design.

ART 383 – Fundamentals of Interaction Design (SU and AU quarters) Introduces students to the study of interaction in context, foundations such as dynamic and interactive representations, affordances, activities, processes, and systems; the role of different views shared by prospective users, clients, and designers; and the presentation, simulation, and testing of interaction design concepts.

ART 483 – Fundamentals of Interface Design (WI) focuses on the display and interaction with information. In the course of a quarter long design project, student teams are introduced to an expert domain such as aviation or medicine and learn techniques to elicit domain knowledge, develop conceptual models, and design information display concepts that support the work of practitioners in the domain. Past collaborations with industry include the design of future flight deck interfaces with the Boeing Flight Deck Concept Center (WI’08 and WI’09)

ART484 – Projects in Interaction Design (SP) challenges students with the design of an innovative new interactive product, system, or service for everyday use. Broad topics such as ‘Health and Wellness’, ‘Learning and Education’, and ‘The Future of Work’ have recently laid the framework for a cutting edge exploration of new interactive technologies and their potential for implementation in new products. Students are familiarized with participatory design techniques, contextual inquiry, and generative design research to conduct user-centered design that results in useful, understandable, and usable products. Past collaborations include the invited participation in the Microsoft Design Expo 2007, 2008, and 2009.

An additional introduction class at the sophomore level (ART212, SP quarter) introduces design sophomore students to Human-Computer Interaction/Design. This class covers basics such as fundamentals of user research in design, scenario development, storytelling, usability evaluation, and techniques such as audio and video recording and editing and animation

The design of interactive systems poses new types of challenges for designers. In the course of the interaction design sequence, students are introduced to the opportunities for designing interactions. They learn how to identify design problems in interactive devices, systems, and services. They learn how to respond to these design challenges by a) applying observation techniques to understand interactions in context, b) develop conceptual models and representations (stories, scenarios, mock-ups and prototypes) to assess the perspectives of prospective users (understand their understanding) in the course of a participatory design process to develop interactions that are useful, understandable, and useful.

Link to pdf of poster

post.it.nodes

Post.it.nodes is an interactive system that aims to bring flow to work by bringing the relevant relationships between people, tasks and documents to the surface, thus enabling the users to center their interactions around people and goals, rather than devices and software applications. post.it.nodes was envisioned with significant inspiration from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s proposed psychological concept of flow.  

“the relative rarity of flow experiences is due, by definition, to the fact that in everyday life the opportunities for action are seldom evenly matched with our abilities to act.” 

Jenny Kam (Industrial Design)
Kris Martin (Interaction Design)
Kayan Atesci (iSchool)
Drew Bregel (HCI/Design)
Milam Lynn (Math)

flow presentation
flow documentation

Carbon

Carbon is a concept mapping tool that aids creatives during the initial ideation stage of a project. Carbon combines the simplicity of analog mediums with the flexibility of digital mediums. Carbon was designed with emphasis placed on taking a minimal approach and to carefuly  maintain the simplicity of the application. Along with the product we made a website focused on teaching practitioners how each feature works. This takes the form of a Flash tutorial video in which the functions of Carbon are shown with mouse and key commands highlighted.

Drew Hamlin (Visual Communication Design)
Joey Flynn (Visual Communication Design)
Simon Bond (Visual Communication Design)

carbon presentation
carbon documentation

more projects…

Microsoft has provided a forum around the theme “The Future of Work” to showcase exceptional design process and ideas.  As part of a quarter long course, students were asked to design a user experience prototype, from which a selected project will be featured in a presentation at the 2009 Microsoft Faculty Summit July 12-14, 2008 in Redmond, Washington. The Design Expo creates a forum for encouraging “out of the box” thinking, by exploring students’ visions for the future of computing. 

The 2009 design challenge explores new ways of working. Today, fewer and fewer people have jobs that involve going to an office, working fulltime, for five or more years in the same company, with a team that also works in their hallway; yet many of our productivity tools and processes were designed when this was not yet the norm. How can our tools and services support new ways of working?  This includes: many different economic and cultural contexts, mobile and migrant workers, and part-time, micro-financed work. This design challenge can help with many aspects of “getting stuff done” from finding collaborators, to achieving results, building reputation, and helping others. 

Participating design programs this year are: Art Center, Product Design, Pasadena, CA; Carnegie Mellon, School of Design, Pittsburgh, PA; Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China; Dundee, Innovative Product Design & Interactive Media Design, UK; Universidad Iberoameriana, Mexico City, Mexico; New York University, Interactive Telecommunications Program; and University of Washington, Division of Design.

More information can be found on the course blog

Prof. Axel Roesler / Division of Design / UW School of Art, roesler@u.washington.edu

Georg Petschnigg / Microsoft Pioneer Studios, georgp@microsoft.com

Tuesdays + Thursdays 2:30-5:20, Art Building Room 236

This class is open to all UW HCI related majors, graduate and advanced undergraduate.

Context

Microsoft is providing a forum around the theme “The Future of Work” to showcase exceptional design process and ideas. As part of a quarter long course, students are asked to design a user experience prototype, from which a selected project will be featured in a presentation at the 2009 Microsoft Faculty Summit July 12-14, 2008 in Redmond, Washington. The Design Expo creates a forum for encouraging “out of the box” thinking, by exploring students’ visions for the future of computing. Participating design programs this year are: Art Center, Product Design, Pasadena, CA; Carnegie Mellon, School of Design, Pittsburgh, PA; Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China; Dundee, Innovative Product Design & Interactive Media Design, UK; Universidad Iberoameriana, Mexico City, Mexico; New York University, Interactive Telecommunications Program; and University of Washington, Division of Design.

Design Topic

The 2009 design challenge explores new ways of working. Today, fewer and fewer people have jobs that involve going to an office, working fulltime, for five or more years in the same company, with a team that also works in their hallway; yet many of our productivity tools and processes were designed when this was not yet the norm. How can our tools and services support new ways of working? This includes: many different economic and cultural contexts, mobile and migrant workers, and part-time, micro-financed work. This design challenge can help with many aspects of “getting stuff done” from finding collaborators, to achieving results, building reputation, and helping others.

Although new ways of working is a broad, universal topic, projects will be designed for the needs of a particular user group in a particular situation or culture. Users groups may include: youth, elderly, office workers, different economic situations, a particular type of job (health, education, social services, computer industry, etc.) different roles (employer, worker, customer, collaborator, student), etc.

Process

Students will develop and communicate their design by first studying the situation / context and describing the local culture and work environment. This will lead to an exploration of possible design responses (through scenarios, concepts, illustrations, and interface simulations/prototypes), and thinking beyond traditional software, to such solutions like lightweight user interfaces for inputting (entering) and outputting (disseminating information) which integrate with everyday life.

Students will work on the theme in small interdisciplinary teams (2-6) during the spring 2009 quarter. Students will research a design problem, define a scenario, ideate design solutions, select one idea to prototype, and study the impact on real users.

Previous Design Expo projects can be viewed here:

Design Expo 2007:

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/events/fs2007/presentations/14707/lecture.htm

Design Expo Presentations 2008 (scroll down to the Design Expo in the agenda)

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/events/fs2008/agenda_tue.aspx

*Video streaming requires Internet Explorer; does not work in Safari

More information may be found on the course blog