ART385 Innovation and Society
Prof. Axel Roesler / Division of Design / UW School of Art
Yong Rhee and Nathan Auer / Microsoft

Context

Microsoft provides project partnership around the theme “Get Connected, Stay Connected”for the 2011Microsoft Design Expo. The Design Expo is a Microsoft Research forum where the top graduate interaction design programs showcase their prototype interaction design ideas. Design Expo showcases exceptional design process and ideas from schools around the world.  As part of a semester long course, students are asked to form interdisciplinary teams of 2-4 students, consider people’s real needs and respond with a user experience prototype, and narrative that explains their thinking.

A representative team from each school will be selected to attend and be featured in a presentation at the 2010 Microsoft Faculty Summit July 18-19, 2011 in Redmond, Washington.

The Design Expo creates a forum for spotlighting design, encouraging “out of the box” thinking, by exploring students’ visions for the future of computing as well as honing their presentation skills and engaging with students from other design teams from around the world to see how they approached this year’s theme.  Students often form lasting relationships with other students and this informal network has persisted from Design Expos over the years.

The Design Challenge:  Get Connected, Stay Connected

The 2011 design challenge “Get Connected, Stay Connected” explores the promise of real time data transmission and seamless connectivity.

With the proliferation of mobile devices, cameras and other sensors combined with cloud computing and pervasive connectivity, the technologies exist to greatly simplify the ability to get connected and stay connected.  How can we design for experiences that leverage these technologies to create new opportunities to engage with others in ever more meaningful ways?

This is a broad challenge – you should consider the the larger system of communications, collaborations, and emerging behaviors, but in your design we’d like you to specifically look at software that addresses fluidity in experience, sensor data integration, and natural interaction. Think beyond the software – how is the interactive experience integrated in everyday behaviors? How would it impact daily practices and lead to new behaviors, networks, communities, knowledge, etc ?

For current project updates from the the six UW IxD teams, visit the project blogs:

Time

Community

Social Phone

Connect to Yourself

Unconnected vs. Connected

Cartesian

ART 381 Case Studies In Interaction Design
A survey of interactive products, systems, interfaces and technology (software and hardware), constraints and trajectories for future developments and how these frame Interaction Design and production. Workflow, planning and organization of prototyping in Interaction Design.


ART 383 Fundamentals Of Interaction Design
Key concepts of Interaction Design: Representation, explanations, expectations, conceptual models, feedback, and affordances. Investigates the relationship between representations, new visualization technologies, dynamic/animated content, and interaction patterns. Interaction Design process and methods.


ART 384 Information Visualization For Interaction Designers
Information visualization concepts and principles for interactive information systems, interactive instructions, and animated information graphics. Interaction concepts and patterns, representation, and interpretation strategies for sequential and time-based information.


ART 385 Design Innovation And Society
Impact of interaction design and interactive product/systems on everyday life, expert domains, and knowledge. Case study analyses of innovation and theoretical frameworks and critical discourse in the relationship between design, technology, and society.


ART 386 Visual Storytelling
Narrative, storyboarding, scenario development and visual, sequential, and interactive presentation of stories as vehicle for design communication and scenario development. Overview of workflow, organization, and production of visual storytelling. Narrative and character development, imaging, editing and design visualization for video prototyping of interaction design concepts.


ART 387 Physical Interaction Design
Quarter long intermediate IxD studio, project focus. Exploration of interactions mediated by interfaces, physical products, and environments. Design development of innovative interactions and novel interactive technologies and their integration into existing practices and future directions for interaction. Experimental focus.

ART 481 Field Studies: Design Research Techniques
Contextual research, observation techniques, and evaluation of design. Overview of the human-centered, participatory and collaborative design process. Focus on connecting insight from research with design ideation. Emphasis on methods for identifying prospective user populations, studying actual use and associated expectations, explanations, and needs of users as basis for design. Field research, data collection, evaluation, and presentation of research process and findings.


ART 483 Advanced Projects In Interaction Design
Quarter long design project addressing a complex, openly defined Interaction Design challenge in an everyday setting/consumer project/system context. Design process entails formulation of design scope, contextual research, observations of use, conceptual models, scenario development, conceptual design, prototyping, and evaluation, and design documentation conducted in interdisciplinary design teams.


ART 485 Senior/Degree Project In Interaction Design
A quarter long individual (or small team), advanced Interaction Design project. Students identify and develop a design project of their choice to demonstrate command of a repertoire of interaction design skills and knowledge that meet the criteria expected for graduation.


ART 488 Professional Practice
Portfolio and Interview preparation workshop.

ART483/484 – Projects in Interaction Design, Winter Quarter 2010
Prof. Axel Roesler / Division of Design / UW School of Art, Division of Design
Yong Rhee & Sander Viegers / Microsoft Office

Microsoft provided a forum around the theme “Service meets Social” to showcase exceptional design process and ideas. As part of a quarter long course, students from five invited international Interaction Design programs (Carnegie Mellon, Art Center College, NYU Tisch School, Universidad Iberoamericano Mexico City, Central St. Martins College of the Arts, and University of Washington / IxD) were asked to form interdisciplinary teams of 4-6 students to design a user experience prototype, encouraging out-of-the-box-thinking, and engaging with students from other design teams from around the world in exploring implications of digital and physical worlds as these intersect where service meets social.

Interaction Design ART483 students Andrew Battenburg, Minnie Bredow, Tim Damon, Sophie Milliotte, Jon Sandler, and Tanya Test presented their project ‘OpenDoor’ at the Microsoft Faculty Summit in Redmond yesterday.

Watch part 1 of the OpenDoor presentation
Watch the OpenDoor video prototype
Watch part 2 of the OpenDoor presentation

OpenDoor design process documentation (PDF)

OpenDoor is a mobile application that enables neighbors to share their resources. Our goal for individuals is to provide each member of the community with free goods and services. At the collective level, our aim is to develop sustainable local communities.

Rather than a large database of goods and services, the design relies on common interests: people who share a common interest will be more likely to need the same goods and services. As a community-driven service, OpenDoor focuses on the social by emphasizing direct relationships and face-to-face communication between neighbors.

Trust is established by constraints in location: A new member can only register in one neighborhood – this home base defines the proximity in which prospective exchanges can be posted and searched. OpenDoor participants build their profile by defining their interests and needs. When an OpenDoor participant looks for a good or service, the system will show the profiles of the neighbors that are most likely to have what they are looking for. OpenDoor participants send a direct request to these neighbors through the system. If the neighbors agree to meet, OpenDoor will automatically put them in contact over the phone.

OpenDoor participants can specify if their search is a regular inquiry or an immediate need, depending on the situation in which they are in. When there is an exchange between OpenDoor neighbors, their real world meeting is exemplified as a physical interaction that is the bump between their phones so that the exchange is documented like a receipt: both the lender and the borrower can track what needs to be returned when and to whom. In summary/big picture review, the system provides statistics on how much the user and their community saved thanks to OpenDoor.

ART383 – Fundamentals of Interaction Design, Autumn Quarter 2009

Prof. Axel Roesler
In collaboration with Intel Labs Seattle

During an intensive five week project, five student teams conducted an iterative user-centered design process to explore future applications for the projection of interfaces on any surface suitable for display and interaction in the home of the future.

Design techniques ranged from contextual inquiry, ideation, and storyboarding, to concept visualizations and video protypes. Each design team was comprised of students from the Division of Design’s Interaction Design program and the HCI concentration in Human Centered Design and Engineering, the iSchool, Computer Science and Engineering, and students from other UW HCI-oriented majors.

The resulting five projects envision the embedding of community networks into the home, a search, interaction across walls, lifestyle coaching, and interactive cooking.

Watch videos of each of the five team presentations via the links provided at the end of each project description below:

Real Ideal is a life consultant that utilizes wall and floor space in the house to display ambient cues relating to a person’s current task or goal. We utilized Intel’s Bonfire technology to create a system that provided “reflections through projections”, highlighting and annotating parts of the house and everyday life that could be improved or changed. This lead to the creation a life consultant that was helpful and constructive without being intrusive or obnoxious. By taking areas where action is typically invisible and visualizing it, mundane or incomprehensible tasks such as water consumption become engaging and interactive. This idea of visualization can be applied in all of the areas of life from health, to finances, to calendars and scheduling, helping to streamline life’s obligations, increase productivity and achieve goals.

Watch a video of the Real Ideal presentation
Real Ideal PDF documentation

Drew Bregel (Human Computer Interaction & Design)
Lauren Cascio (Design Studies)
Rachel Choung (Biology)
Patrick Douglas (Informatics)
Shweta Grampurohit (Interaction Design)
Kaisha Hom (Visual Communication Design)
Jeremy Juel (Visual Communication Design)
Nate Landess (Interaction Design)

Mprint is based around the idea of an objects physical history. It makes use of these histories by visualizung a solution to an all too common problem: Losing things!

Mprint captures and leaves a residue underneath every object on designated surfaces. These residues are an indication that any particular object has occupied that space. Object residues become the entry point into Mprint’s interface which can locate a lost object and take snapshots of surfaces so that meaningful layouts and spatial relationships can be saved and recalled later.

Watch a video of the Mprint presentation
Mprint PDF presentation

Daniel Frum (Geography)
Hannah Getachew (Human Centered Design and Engineering)
Imri Larsen (Industrial Design)
Ben Mabry (Industrial Design)
Kristofer Martin (Interaction Design)
Daniya Ulgen (Design Studies)

Spaces envisions entire walls as displays that provide interactions with images, stories, and facilitate communications by merging spaces that are otherwise separated by walls.

Users can remove visual occlusion caused by the walls around them by making the wall transparent. Multiple users can paste a room from each of their respective houses together, share a conversation and exchange media such as created environments or artwork, etc. Users can add objects to the wall display by gestural interaction – for example, they can ‘throw’ a slide or image on the wall, and the image will be come a part of the display. Objects could leap from the pages of the book onto the wall display, providing engagement and immersive experience.

Spaces tracks location and movement of users in the home environment and automatically adjusts settings such as color, texture, implied size of rooms, and lighting to provide the most utility for a task. Audio spatialization technology merged with ambient visual display can match the display of a performance or communication partner in the distance much closer to what would be a direct experience.

Watch a video of the Spaces presentation
Spaces PDF documentation

Elizabeth Abrahanson (Interdisciplinary Visual Arts)
Kristen Bales (Industrial Design)
Aron Chavez (Interdisciplinary Visual Arts)
Tim Damon (Design Studies)
MikeJohnson (Interdisciplinary Visual Arts)
Sean Ren (Computer Science)

Wall[ace] is a social networking interface that represents friends and community as avatars that live as projections on the walls of the home environment. Wall[ace] is operated by natural language and gesture recognition and can be controlled from almost any
location in the home. The ambient interface facilitates real interactions with friends in one’s social network by projecting their avatars in context with their activities / one’s own activities

Wall[ace] redefines the home with a simple command, changing it from a place of separation and privacy into a social arena. With Wall[ace] activated, the feeling of being at home will be characterized by the following: The social network will occupy the user’s ambient space at home. User’s can have a constant feeling of presence. User’s can share live experiences

Watch a video of the Wall[ace] presentation
Wall[ace] PDF documentation

Daren Chaisy (Human Centered Design and Engineering)
Leslie Ferguson (Design Studies and Computer Science)
Craig Kochis (Informatics)
Jon Sandler (Interdisciplinary Visual Arts)
Jacob Warren (Human Centered Design and Engineering)

Foodie is envisioned as an interactive coach that makes cooking easier. Currently, many people cook with their laptop in the kitchen. Without prior cooking experience some terminology within the recipe can be confusing. A new cook may not know the difference between mincing and chopping an onion. Timing is an issue. A recipe may list the ingredients needed and in which order to use them but it does not tell you if multiple parts of the recipe need to be made at the same time.

An interactive, distributed display system projects information located in context with the cooking task and in proximity to counter workspace, pans, and pots – synchronized with the progress of cooking. A laptop is no longer needed in the kitchen. Video tutorials projected onto the kitchen counter right next to the task at hand provide further explanation for the inexperienced cook step-by step. An overview of timing is provided to help the cook manage their time well.

Watch a video of the Foodie presentation
Foodie PDF presentation

Derek Chan (Visual Communication Design)
Annaliese Chapa (Industrial Design)
Lindsay Haggman (Human Centered Design and Engineering
Joshua Ng (Informatics)
Jamilia Popov (Human Centered Design and Engineering)
Calder Thami (Human Centered Design and Engineering)

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.

 

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

Emu: Learning with Cell Phones
(Emu PDF)
(UW / Microsoft Design Expo 2008)

Leslie Ferguson
Anthony Shelley
Simon Bond
Geoff Thilo

Best Product Concept Award at the Microsoft Faculty Summit 2008 in Redmond

Interaction Design
ART484: Projects in Interaction Design, Spring Quarter 2008
Microsoft Design Expo 2007: Learning and Education
Sponsored by Microsoft Research

Cell phone based application that helps teenagers to conserve cell phone minutes. A credit point system awards phone upgrades; a website provides information on responsible cell phone use. Learning resource management of phone minutes provides teenagers with valuable insight for future financial planning.

MediLog – Medical Dialog Mapping
(Medilog PDF)
(UW / Microsoft Design Expo 2007 PDF)

Luke Woods
Aaron Piazza
Louise Foster

IDEA Bronze Award Winner 2008
Industrial Designers Society of American / Business Week

Interaction Design
ART484: Projects in Interaction Design, Spring Quarter 2007
Microsoft Design Expo 2008: Health and Wellness
Sponsored by Microsoft Research

A hardware/interaction concept for recording and annotating the dialog between doctor and patient.