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.

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.

Pollenteering: Facilitating Volunteering Activities
(Pollenteering PDF)
(UW / Microsoft Design Expo 2007 PDF)

Kristofer Martin
Matt Carthum
Jaclyn Knapp
Brian Smith
Zachary Krane

Selected for presentation at Microsoft Faculty Summit 2007 in Redmond

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

Mobile device-based messenging application to share information about volunteering events within communities; facilitates social networks that form around volunteering events. Information spreads via proximity based open blue tooth connection in public spaces. Information kiosks form anchor points at community centers.