#193 Designing Interactions: A Review of Sorts

My writing for my dissertation was done in a somewhat unorthodox manner and one which I know my adviser will not be too chuffed about to say the least, but I think it works. Instead of going straight into reading books and taking time to read through numerous ones before I put pen to paper, or in the case nowadays, fingers to keyboard, I took my proposal, which was already aiming straight and true in the direction that I was wanting to write about, took parts of it, and in a way, expanded them. Alongside, I would use all the internet based references found in the proposal along with others that I had bookmarked along the way, and wrote what I could call a first draft. Six thousand plus words in about a week, or if it is compressed into time of writing, about four days.

Now that the first draft is written using about fifty percent of the material I was hoping to use (alongside a rudimentary email based interview with a lecturer on Automotive design at Coventry University) I have started to read all the physical material that I hope to fully cement details and information in my writing. For most of the books, it is not the first time I have read them. For my proposal drafts, I read certain chapters of books in order to harvest the information I needed there and then, and it was more often than not, information regarding to the topic I was reading. Now, when I am going through the books again, I am reading it all, cover to cover, even if the information is not directly related to what I am writing about.

The first book that I have fully completed, and made basic notes about/from, is Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge. It is not an easy book to start with either at almost eight hundred pages. It is a retrospective of interacting with computers from the early days of Douglas Engelbart working at the Stanford Research Institute where he invented the computer mouse, leading through the process in the eighties of the creation of the subject of Interaction Design, right up until modern day technology and beyond. It details many different designers and showcases a lot of varied pieces of work that have in one way or another influenced the face of interaction design and even design in general.

Whilst there were small mentions about vehicles scattered throughout the book, the parts which I found most interesting were in the early chapters of the book. The early days of humans interacting with machines. It was in these chapters that I ended up making most notes about. The notes were, I should point out, basically a page number, where on the page the piece of information was that I found interesting, and a quick note to jog my memory when I look through them. Even though these chapters do not relate directly to what I am writing about, or even relate at all, I can make comparisons. Comparisons using examples that people can relate to themselves was a hint that I was told would help make my final dissertation stand out against everyone else’s.

One of the chapters I found least influential as I read through the book, and this came as a surprise to me, as I was very tempted to skip this chapter completely was about the future interactions, or to give it the name in the book: Futures and Alternative Nows. I couldn’t really connect to the information that was written on the page. Some of the designers interviewed spoke about projects that I couldn’t find interesting even if I tried, and I am being honest there. Even though I know who they are, as in I have had exposure to some of their work previously, I couldn’t help fell that their work was, in my opinion, going in a direction that I didn’t believe in. I am saying this even though they were not designers who design products to go on sale, but instead, designers who produce things for the purpose of being in an exhibition and to get people thinking.

Reading this book highlights many problems that are wrong with so many products today in terms of user interfaces or physical design as a result. It lets you wonder what the future will be like without obviously pointing out that computers will be squeezed into everything. The thought crossed my mind many times as I read this, that the Product Design course I am on really should be an Interaction Design course or dare I say it, an electronics course. Looking back over my previous three years, it is clear that an emphasis has been on electronics and less about design. You will get marked down for electronics not working and not so much marked up for justifying design decisions made along the way.

To end on a positive, I feel that reading this book will evidently help me in my final year on my main project as well as my dissertation, not only by providing some insightful information about different products, their history and problems encountered, but just the sheer amount of knowledge it provides. It isn’t an encyclopaedia type book, or glossary so it isn’t quite one that you could just have on your shelf and look up when needed but it is useful nonetheless.

#69 Flown the Nest (Wood’s Electric Aviary)

The time has come to do a review of the main project of 2nd years second semester, the interaction design project where we had to produce a product which either created or reacted to music. This is what was said about it at the time:

Wood’s Electric Aviary is the team name for our Interaction Design module group. Funny name? You might think so, but many an hour went into that name, which originally was just Electric Aviary, only to have Wood’s added later on. The objective is to create a marvellous music generating or reacting product. Something different. Something fun. Something interactive.

It will take alot of work to get to the final product. Lots of coding, wiring, soldering, modelling, photographing and really having fun. Mr Tibbles, Miss McClean and Mr Wood are ready to take on this project, and produce the best that we can offer.

Our work blog is on Tumblr and we shall endeavour to update it as much as possible throughout the process, concepts, prototypes and the final product. The group also has a twitter account which will keep you up to date with all the goings on in between posts on the blog.

That was then, and this is now. The project has now finished and proved to be relatively successful for Wood’s Electric Aviary. It gained the highest grade for it out of all the groups. If you didn’t follow the Electric Aviary blog, you would have missed what was made, but I shall cover it in this review.

Quite early on in the project, once the 100 ideas sketchbook was produced, it was decided as a group that the direction we would pursue was to combine a guitar and a bird box, and the idea changed very little from initial sketch to the final product.

An actual guitar was dismantled for parts, many hours were spent on the electronics of the bird box and the final shape was decided as we worked instead of doing sketches for it.

Looking at the electronics of the bird box first, it may seem like a simple operation, but what was involved with the coding and the hardware pushed brains to the limit and caused quite a lot of stress. A proximity sensor was used to detect when a bird entered or left the box, and depending on the distance, a servo strummed the strings. On the floor of the box was 4 buttons, and when the bird hopped about on the inside of their new home and stood on one of the buttons, it would activate solenoids which would strike the strings and give the impression of them being plucked. However, once the final thing was put together, the solenoids which had worked extremely well in various prototypes did not work sufficiently, so were omitted, the wires were cut. The servo on the other hand had not worked so well in early prototypes but it worked beautifully in the final product.

Over the course of the project, the electronics proved nothing but problematic, and at one point, they failed completely and took a number of weeks to get working properly once again. Luckily they worked as planned when they were inserted into the bird box which was a huge relief as they had not been tested for distance from the strings or how they would sound inside the box before hand. Sighs of relief were heard from all around.

Moving on to the box itself, we were left with 2 options for what it would look like. Either a traditional looking bird box, or something much more abstract. The abstract route was chosen as it would have given us a bit greater freedom and we could have made it much more acoustically sound for use with the strings inside so it would be heard.

A curvaceous shape was chosen which led to a problem of how to produce it. Discussions with a technician gave a few options, one of which we chose to adopt. It involved cutting shapes out of plywood and gluing them together, it led to a gorgeous finish which added to the mysteriousness of the product. A handle was incorporated into the design so it could be hung from a tree or transported easily. A hinged front allowing easy access to change the batteries and maintenance. As a joke or novelty move, the inside of the box was covered in wallpaper. It really was a high class home for the bird population.

Once the work was carried out, it was time to make a press release for it and also a video for it. They were easy to do compared to the rest of the project and turned out well. To see the press release please visit the Electric Aviary tumblr blog. The video is shown below:

Overall, the project proved to be massively stressful in many respects, but hugely fun in others. If given the choice to do it again, I’m not really sure what we would change. Yes there are a number of small changes which would have been made easily, but there doesn’t seem to be any big changes. A lot of effort was put into it, and that was shown with the mark it was given, but it does seem like some of the ideas we could have used were stifled by those running the course. There were numerous times where we were well ahead of schedule, making important decisions when we were told to slow down and change what we were doing despite it being arguably right for what we were doing. It wasn’t just our group though, all the groups were affected by this and it led to the deadline being extended by over a month which was out of order. It is times like these where it gives you doubts about whether or not you are doing the right thing. Miscommunication is a horrible thing to work with.

But to end it on a much more cheery note, what do you think of what we produced and if it were actually to be made, even in small numbers, would you buy one?

#32 Wood’s Electric Aviary

It’s February. We are now starting our third week back at University, and things are looking quite lively, in all three modules, which is a change if you read my thoughts on last year. A post about the design studies module will be written in due course when we have actually started doing the project, and if I feel the need to, I might post one about the Structural Design and Manufacture module, but trying to do only one post a week might mean, those posts take up positions which I could have filled with something else.

What am I writing about this time if it is not about Design Studies or Structural Manufacture and Design, easy, the one I haven’t mentioned yet, the Interaction Design module. Our project is to produce something which ‘creates a meaningful interaction between a digital in put and an analogue output or vice versa’ or to putting it in another, simpler form, indirectly making sounds/music. This will likely be explained a bit better as the project goes on and I show what we are working on.

For the first proper time in the Product Design course (excluding Design Studies and any of the engineering modules), we are working in groups. In part this is because of the sheer amount of technical knowledge required to do the circuit building and programming, but it is probably also because of the amount of work we have to do. Having luckily been put into a group where I had worked with the other two before, one in Design Studies on the Aphasia project, and the other in Software Applications, we were able to hit the ground running as we get along quite well with each other, unlike some of the other groups where from the very start, tensions have been very high.

Thinking of a team name was the next priority on the cards. Many an hour was put into the creation of the name, with my idea of being called the All Day Electric Breakfast being shot down several times. In the end we decided on Electric Aviary, only to be changed the next day to Wood’s Electric Aviary.

A number of insights have been thought of, and now the ideas have started to flow, albeit at a trickle just now until things really kick off. Due to a part of the project being in regards to programming, as the final product will expected to have some sort of programme in it, otherwise it is not really Interaction Design, development is ongoing with this too. Having moved quickly on from the simple code of making an LED flash to selecting different sequences with a potentiometer. An MP3 player was made, and got to work (very basically I should add), there were no functions for volume, pausing, playing stopping etc, but a slight bit of coding later and a track could be selected using the potentiometer. The latest development here, is with a distance sensor and LDR’s. Getting a sound to play when someone walked past. This was rudimentary prototyping for one of our ideas, and so far, it seems to be working. (I may post a video of it in operation later)

Before I give away too much information about what our group is up to, since I’m sure that there are people from the other groups leaving this, I’ll leave it at that. But quickly, what do you get when you cross 1980′s computing with one of the most popular Albums of the 1970′s? A cross between the ZX Spectrum and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon? Electric Aviary, that’s what.

note: the logo and design are still a work in progress…

For more information about Wood’s Electric Aviary, see the sidebar link where there is a descriptor of the project and a link to the groups blog and Twitter (both updated often)