University of Washington IxD 483 students Neil Rhoades (IxD), Adam Rule (HCDE), Katie Suskin (IxD), and Hanne Trafnik (ID) received the Best Presentation Award for their project APT at the Microsoft Design Expo 2012 last week in Redmond. The Microsoft Design Expo is an annual showcase of cutting edge Interaction Design work from invited international top tier Interaction Design programs.

APT was this year’s selected project from the University of Washington Interaction Design program responding to the design challenge ‘Information is in my World’.

APT is a new mobile application paradigm that facilitates the contextual and proximity-based distribution of mobile content. APT was developed during Winter Quarter 2012 in the IxD senior studio ‘Advanced Projects in Interaction Design’ (ART483). Instructor: Prof. Axel Roesler / Microsoft Liason: Nathan Auer.

Watch a HD version of the APT presentation here.

The seven design programs that participated in the MS Design Expo 2012 were the Royal College of Art (London, UK), Umea Universitet Institute of Design (Umea, Sweden) Carnegie Mellon University, School of Design (Pittsburgh, PA), Delft University of Technology, School of Design (Delft, the Netherlands), Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial (Rio De Janeiro, Brazil), Tsinghua University (Beijing, China), and University of Washington, School of Art, Division of Design (Seattle, WA). Students from each school presented their projects as part of the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit on July 18, 2012.

Origin was presented at this year’s Microsoft Design Expo in Redmond, July 18-19 as the UW IxD project responding to the design challenge ‘Get Connected, Stay Connected’

Origin is a file management system that tags your data the way your brain does.

In recognition of the shortcomings of current file management systems, Origin seeks to improve the way in which data is tagged, making its operation far more organic (or brain-like) than any typical system. By tagging data with contextual markers, it delivers users what they want, when they want it, without degrading opportunities to search for other data. Origin connects you with your files—it is a file management system that tags your data using contextual markers. Watch a video of the Origin presentation here.

Origin was developed in ART385 – Design and Society during Winter Quarter 2011 by

Vu Chu

Jason Wong

This year’s design expo class was offered at the junior level in a studio class of 23 students. In five teams the class developed very different projects that address the theme of the expo – Get Connected, Stay Connected. The design process encompassed all stages of design development from the identification of common practices, salient needs, uncharted terrain and interesting design opportunities, followed by field observation, data analysis, ideation, conceptual design in many variations, and user experience prototyping. Rather than giving the class a specific design topic in the context of the design expo theme, It was important to us that the student teams each identified a design space where their experience in the team would make an interesting contribution. We started with a white sheet of paper and ended with video prototypes of each envisioned experience design that showcases interesting user experience scenarios that not only include the product or interface that would anchor the design, but also portrayed the context into which the design would be fielded and how it potentially could shape novel activities and engagements.

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)

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.

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.

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.