Designing Interactive Spaces Workshop
A one week course combining interactive spaces, prototyping, and mixed reality by Pierluigi Dalla Rosa and Joshua Walton.
Combining interactive spaces, prototyping, and mixed reality, student will explore how our spaces will fuse the digital and physical. In this course we will explore how to craft meaningful interactive spaces through practical, hands-on prototyping and scenario building. We will introduce and explore concepts from the design of internet connected objects to the worlds of virtual and mixed reality. An emphasis will be placed on rapidly prototyping and exploring these designs.
Each day we see and interact with a variety of screens. From handheld mobile devices to large-scale digital displays, our current technologies utilize screens to provide flat views and interfaces into a vast world of digital materials. However, there is a change happening as these digital technologies transition into the objects and environments around us. Interfaces are moving from a world of ‘magic paper’ to a world of objects and environments.
“Computing is not about computers any more. It is about living”
— Nicholas Negroponte
We live in an amazing time where digital technology is beginning to take many different physical forms, with a rise in new interactions and sensorial experiences. But how will these new connected physical-digital spaces impact our lives? What do we expect out of space as we do with the rest of our digital artifacts? As these technologies become ubiquitous how do we shape them to be meaningful parts of our lives?
From this perspective we see our physical world becoming infused with the digital, but the opposite is also happening. Virtual and Mixed Reality offers a new take on these questions by letting us embed digital objects with properties from the physical world such as location, scale, and persistence in the world. How do these technologies work to create and augment environments?
In this course, we will explore how to craft meaningful connected spaces through practical, hands-on prototyping and scenario building. We will introduce and explore concepts from the design of internet connected objects to the worlds of virtual and mixed reality. An emphasis will be placed on rapid prototyping and exploring these designs. Together we will explore a number of quick exercises to better understand these technologies.
With the learned knowledge of prototyping techniques, affordances, physical materials and digital tools, participants will build a working physical prototype to communicate their final idea. They will learn how to use immersive storytelling rather than screen-based presentations to demonstrate the experiences.
This course lasts five days from approximately 9am to 6pm, including lunch and breaks.
CIID Site for the Course:
http://ciid.dk/education/summer-school/ciid-summer-school-copenhagen-2018/workshops/designing-interactive-spaces-2/
Process Tumblr for the Course:
https://designinginteractivespaces.tumblr.com/
Facebook Group for the Course:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/277107006391166/
Day One:
Day one covers the logistics of the course and begins the plan for what will happen at the end of the week in terms of showing the prototype projects to other courses or visiting guests.
Kick-off Session for the Course:
Tell us a bit about yourself... who are you?, where you are from?, what interests you / what you do?
What would you like to get from the course?
Describe an environment you have experienced that you love or made a meaningful impact on you.
Day Two:
An Introduction to Programming for Interactive Spaces. We covered a brief introduction to using Processing and connecting it to the Makey Makey. We then introduced Tramontana and used mobile phones as sensors and actuators.
An introduction to the User Experience (UX) design for Interactive Spaces. We also introduced the brief for the course.
The United Nations has worked in collaboration with many countries to develop and share the Sustainable Development Goals - the world’s to-do list to end poverty, reduce inequalities and tackle climate change. But how can one person understand or be involved in the changes put forth by the SDGs? Your project is to create an interactive installation which helps someone understand, embody, or experience an aspect of the SDGs. Over the next week we will transform the space using techniques from the course to create interactive installations. On Friday, the exhibit will open. We will work in groups of 3-5 work through the process from concept to delivery of the idea. In this exhibit we are looking to create interactive spaces that create experiences that not only tell visitors about the SDGs but allow them to feel them and learn through experiencing an interaction.
What creates an immersive interactive space? See more in this presentation. An excerpt here...
Introduction to Immersion:
Sensory-Motoric Immersion (Tactical)
Sensory-Motoric immersion is experienced when performing tactile operations that involve skill. Players feel "in the zone" while perfecting actions that result in success.
Cognitive Immersion (Strategic)
Cognitive immersion is more cerebral, and is associated with mental challenge. Chess players experience strategic immersion when choosing a correct solution among a broad array of possibilities.
Emotional Immersion (Narrative)
Emotional immersion occurs when players become invested in a story, and is similar to what is experienced while reading a book or watching a movie.
Spatial Immersion (Presence)
Spatial immersion occurs when a player feels the simulated world is perceptually convincing. The player feels that he or she is really "there" and that a simulated world looks and feels "real"
Day Three:
We started the day with moving from the concept phase to a design development phase by having each group present a set of ideas. Once a concept was selected we did a bodystorming exercise to express our ideas. We then went over three other concepts within the design of interactive spaces...
Using mobile devices as inputs and outputs
Projection Mapping
Tracking people in spaces using LibreTSPSWP
HoloLens Demos
Day Four:
Design Production Day! This is a day where we externalize the design into the space through the creation of media, objects, sound, light, and interaction.
Day Five:
Exhibit Day! On Day 5 we setup and displayed our projects from the week.
Final Day Overview
Visitor Reactions to the Installations
WATevER
Dump it Right
Oasis
Sustainable Goals in Daily Routines
Building Blocks
Say Hi to Simon
Location
UN City
Marmorvej 51,
2100
København / Copenhagen, Denmark
Learning expectations:
- Using your hands – learning to make physical prototypes of all scales, starting at the analogue level, and working up to integrating digital components
- How to use analogue and digital tools to create interactive experiences
- Deepen prototyping skills and develop an understanding of how and when to use each technique
- Learning basic methodology to create an experience through user journeys, research, prototyping, user testing, body/brainstorming, workshopping, etc
- Learn practical idea generation and critical thinking methods
- How to create & use physical affordances, and how to design for action
- Learning basic methodology to create an experience through user journeys, research, prototyping, user testing, body/brainstorming, workshopping, etc
- Experience and develop a vocabulary for Virtual and Mixed Reality interaction design
- Develop an ability to find and expand insights related to interactive environments
- Prototyping communication skills – learning how to create and use prototypes, and when (fidelity vs. content, contextual use)
Processing Resources: