Project description and deliveries HS 2018

Goal:

The goal is the systematic, creative exploration of sound and its importance for the design of interactions and affordances.

This is done by reinterpreting your white cube as a "smart object" within the given constraints  and working on defined creative hypotheses in a small "design research" process.

  • The design drafts and experimental prototypes are used for gaining of insights into tonal potentials of meaning and “Affordances” through the use of Wizard-of-Oz” prototypes.
  • In the second week you will keep experimenting with user studies to further develop your sonic concepts and at the same time start building a functional prototype with sensors and sound feedback. 
  • A special focus is on design methods that understand sound as a means and material of interaction design.
  • The continuous valuation of design hypotheses with small “User Studies” und Feldversuchen. Because there are barely any rules about Sonic Interaction Design, but a lot of space for experiments and design research that we want to explore.

in short:

  • To understand the influence of sound on the interaction with an object.
  • To understand the influence of sound on the perception of an object and its affordances.
  • To discuss and deepen the meaning of concrete design variants in this regard.

Milestones:

The milestones are marked Pink  in the course overview. There are two types of milestones:

  1. Mockup & questions: Definition of the mockup, scope and objectives, as well as the question related to the investigation, and the examination tool.
  2. Investigations: Execution and evaluation of the experiments, reflection and next steps.

 Final presentation:

The final presentation is structured as follows:

  1. Demo: Demonstrate your final version of the concept / object to the group. The functionally implemented elements can be combined with Wizard-Of-Oz Mockup elements if necessary.
  2. Presentation: Make a short (10min) presentation about the development of your concept. What did you lern? What went well? How would you proceed?

Abgaben:

Please hand in your final results until Friday the 18.01.2019 17h  see → Project Documentation

1. Video

On the one hand, the donation consists of a short (maximum 1min) video describing the problem behind your project ("problem"), presenting the interaction with your object ("solution"), and briefly discussing the most important insights from the experiments. 

The video should be created with your mockup prototypes, as easily staged as possible. Here "faking" (using sound design to replace not properly working functions) is explicitly allowed.


Hint:

Since you also do user tests during the prototyping phase, we would recommend you to record them on video to be able to process this material later for the presentation.

2. Written documentation

The written documentation will be done in your blogs. Links to Projectblogs 2018

Keep your blog up to date with your daily process (including sound snippets, short videos and photos). We also base our mentoring on the blogs.

Please also export your documentation as pdf and also upload it to the filer (for archiving).

3. Sounds, mockup project files and code

  • The used sound assets
  • Mulab project (all sounds embedded, standalone file)
  • Any scripts and technical drawings

4. Photos / Videos

Please take all resulting photos on the filer in original quality as well. To save some disc space: don't upload your raw videos or compress them accordingly (4mb/s max)

Evaluation criteria: 

  1. Use of sounds as a means of perceptual design / interaction design and the corresponding development through user studies / field trials. (40%)
  2. Quality of the mockup demos and the sounds used in them (40%)
  3. Designing (including content) of the distribution video and the documentation including presentation of your findings from the design research process. (20%)
  4. Personal engagement during the course.Einsatz der Klänge als Mittel der Wahrnehmungsgestaltung / Interaktionsgestaltung und die entsprechende Entwicklung mittels User Studies / Feldversuchen. (40%)

Also see → Grading Scale and Evaluation Criteria