Exploring Interactions

INTERACTING IN TOMORROWS SOCIETY

2012-2013

ID4250

Exploring Interactions
INTERACTING IN TOMORROWS SOCIETY
2012-2013

ID4250

Stella Boess Ingrid Mulder

Master Design for Interaction Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering Delft University of Technology

Table of contents
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 0.10 0.11 0.12 0.13 0.14 0.15 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 General information Introduction 5 Project objectives 9 Assignment 9 Overall project theme: interacting in tomorrows society 11 Project approach 13 Individual and group work 17 Third party contact 17 Workshops 19 Support 19 Presentations 21 Design and Research Explorations 21 Deliverables 33 Assessment 35 Reflection on your exploration process 37 Eight golden tips 29 Cycle 1 Ideate Objectives 43 Contents 43 Closure of the cycle 51 Deliverables 51 Assessment 51 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Cycle 2 Iterate Objectives 53 Contents 53 Closure of the cycle 55 Deliverables 55 Assessment 57 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Cycle 3 Demonstrate Objectives 59 Contents 59 Closure of the cycle 61 Deliverables 61 Assessment 61

page 3

0 General information
0.1 Introduction
Exploring Interactions is a design project within the Master Design for Interaction. The project takes twenty weeks and has a study load of 252 hours (9 ECTS). In one semester, you analyse and design for human-product interaction, i.e., the way people use, understand, and experience products and situations. You design an innovative experiential interaction scenario for specific people and situations, exemplified through a product concept, service, environment or any combination of these. Throughout the project, you explore the interplay between people and products: the abilities, concerns and practices of people, and the properties and behaviour of products, within a specified situation or location. You explore the effects of your interventions iteratively, evaluating how they affect the personal and social context in which they will be used. The project offers the opportunity to apply the knowledge that is acquired in the courses Product Understanding, Use and Experience (PUUE), and Context and Conceptualisation (C&C). Practically speaking, the elements of the project are that you formulate a design goal, analyse current interactions, develop an interaction vision, generate starting points for innovative design, and develop and test new product concepts. You apply and develop these elements iteratively throughout the project. The project has three main characteristics: (1) design for interaction; (2) freedom to explore a personal design style; (3) combining research and design skills. (1) design for interaction In this design project you focus primarily on human-product interaction rather than just on products as such. Thats why you formulate a design goal at the start of your project: to specify which human-product interactions you are focusing on. Human-product interaction is the way people use, understand, and experience products. You explore the possibilities of describing both existing interactions and new interactions, i.e. interactions amongst people and between people and the products they use. And you explore how you can apply these descriptions in your design project. To get this focus on interaction, you formulate an interaction vision to serve as a point of reference in your design process. You formulate this vision early on in your project, and you keep developing and optimizing it throughout.

page 5

(2) freedom to explore a personal design style In this project you are free to formulate your own personal design goal. You do not work from a predefined design assignment. This gives you the opportunity to explore and develop your personal design interests. Within the boundaries of the expected deliverables (that are described in this course guide), you experience a lot of freedom to shape your project. The freedom to shape your own project comes with the responsibility for the quality of your work. Although you work on your individual project, you are encouraged to support, stimulate, and challenge each other. To support cooperation, you work together with other students in one studio, and discuss weekly in groups of four to six students; with one of the group members you team up as a project partner. In addition, you present your progress on a regular basis to all students in the same studio, aiming to encourage discussion on your project approach and progress. (3) combining research and design skills In this project you apply and develop your research and design skills. In your project you aim to design for new human-product interactions. You experience the value of research in shaping and pursuing this aim. You develop a design minded research style and a research minded design style. The project is divided into three iterative cycles. In each cycle you engage in research and design activities. The co-occurrence of these activities enables you to develop an explorative combined design and research approach where your insights help your designing and vice versa. You apply different types of design and research methods, i.e. explorative, generative and evaluative methods. You generate prototypes and design models that you use to generate insights for yourself and in in your research activities with people. Getting started This course guide and the accompanying Blackboard website provide information to guide you through the project. You are strongly advised to explore this material at the start of the project, to enable you to steer your own process in it. This course guide provides you with basic project information. On Blackboard you can find up-to-date information about schedules, presentations, and workshops. Blackboard is updated throughout the project. You will also use a progress blog site called Shareworks. In addition to these, a showcase website is available that presents examples of previous project results. The address of this showcase website is published on Blackboard. We hope that you will enjoy the project, and that you will further explore and develop your fascination for design for interaction. In case you have questions or uncertainties please do not hesitate to contact your tutors. Because the course is adjusted each year, we require feedback

page 7

from you about your successes, challenges, uncertainties and questions. If you have comments, suggestions, or questions about the project, please let us know along the way so that we can take them into account. There will also be an evaluation at the end of the project. The information that we receive is used each year to optimise the next edition.

0.2

Project objectives
By the end of the project you should be able to: Formulate clear and inspiring design goals. Gather and communicate existing research insights and the insights you generate, and translate this knowledge into design parameters. Analyse human-product interactions in a specific situation or location using a variety of techniques. Conceptualize the above into new human-product interactions, through concepts for new products, services, environments or combinations of these. Communicate the findings and concepts effectively to other people. Demonstrate a personal style, skills and a view on interaction design.

0.3

Assignment
The assignment for Exploring Interactions is to develop innovative human-product interactions embodied in a design concept. The concept can be either a product, service or environment or any combination of these. Each studio works with an external party, representing a particular societal domain and is from that perspective interested in interactions in tomorrows society. Your resulting concept should contribute to this societal domain (see below, section 0.4). After the introduction lecture you can give your preference for a certain topic. An important aspect of the project is that it has an open start: the design goal is not predefined for you (in terms of, for example, fulfilling a given user need or solving a given user problem). You are free to identify a situation or location of interest to you and to define your personal design goal for

page 9

it, which can be anything as long as it meets the basic design goal requirements (see section 1.2) and is connected to the topic (see below, section 0.4). In your project you will be combining research and design activities iteratively. Once you have formulated your design goal, you acquire insights into current human-product interactions, use these insights to generate an interaction vision, and use this interaction vision to develop a new concept that fits your design goal. To achieve this, you conduct exploratory research and design activities. They enable you to grasp the experiential world of people and to understand their interactions with your evolving design concept in the particular location or situation that you have chosen. Through these activities you also iterate and refine your design goal and interaction vision.

0.4

The overall project theme this year: INTERACTING IN TOMORROWS SOCIETY

In any design process, at least three parties are involved: the intended user(s), the designer(s), and some parties who eventually are interested in the resulting design. In previous editions of Exploring Interactions, that third party was often an assumed party, or a party a student identified and engaged during the students own EI project. This year, we contribute to socially relevant topics within various societal domains. Each studio works on a different topic, with access to stakeholders representing a particular domain. Of course, you can also make your own contacts within the domain. You can find the descriptions of the topics on Blackboard. On the very first day of the course, you indicate your preference for three of the topics. You will be assigned to one of the topics, taken into account the top 3 you indicated. Some of the domain representatives are companies, some are research consortia, and others are interest groups. You can formulate any design goal you want within your assigned topic, as long as it meets the requirements stated in section 1.2. Also see section 1.2 for more in-depth information on how to formulate your design goal. The connection between your design goal and resulting concept and the topic should be this: your project results should be relevant to the domain and enable the stakeholders to understand their own motivations, needs and situation, and those of the other stakeholders in the domain. And your project results should give the stakeholders an understanding of the complexity in their domain, enable them to see things differently than before and give them in-depth stories, scenarios, experiential prototypes and insights for future products, services and environments.

page 11

Choosing your design goal: start on day one of the project You formulate your design goal in the first week of the project. To formulate your design goal, you make a context log of all interactions that arouse your curiosity, within the three topics of your preference, starting on day one of the project. See section 1.2 for more details.

0.5

Project approach
The purpose of the project Exploring Interactions is to support you in learning to conduct your own explorative design process. The project supports you with a rough structure and time planning and with the opportunities of tutor and peer feedback. three cycles Throughout the entire project you proceed through research and design explorations. To help structure your process there are three project cycles with specified deliverables. The three cycles are iterations of each other. In each cycle you start with intentions and questions, you carry out activities to explore these intentions and answer these questions, and you come up with design proposals, which you evaluate. But the character of your explorations changes with each cycle. In the first cycle, Ideate, everything is new for you and energy will be spent on getting oriented. There are guiding course activities in the first cycle to help you establish your own working process. In the second cycle, Iterate, you are more self-sufficient and you explore further and understand the depth of current and new interactions in your chosen situation or location through research and design explorations. In the third cycle, Demonstrate, you refine your design concept and its effect on new interactions, especially in terms of your concepts experiential effect in the situation or location. Cycle 1: IDEATE In this cycle you choose a situation or location to work with and formulate your design goal for it. You explore the interactions that take place in that situation or location. Your explorations result in a view on the current interactions and in initial design inspirations. On the basis of your view on the current interactions, you develop an interaction vision, which is your view on (the qualities or character of ) the interactions you want to facilitate or accomplish with your design. You make a first research and design plan:

you draw up questions about the interactions in your chosen situation or location and determine through which exploration methods you could answer them; you make initial rough designs to test your interaction vision with fellow students and in your chosen situation or location;

page 13

Towards the end of this cycle you decide on a concept direction to work out further, which already contains a number of design ideas. Cycle 2: ITERATE In the second cycle, you use your research and design explorations to deepen and develop your concept direction into a concept. You explore the effects of your design ideas in the situation or location, working towards achieving a fit of your concept with your interaction vision. You use both research and design explorations to deepen and develop your concept further, for example with storyboarding, rough modelling and involving users in exploring your design concepts in their situation or location. These explorations will also help you to check and refine both your design goal and interaction vision. Cycle 3: DEMONSTRATE In the third cycle, you work out your definitive design concept. You again use rough modelling and testing to evaluate your desired interactions. On the basis of these evaluations, you refine and detail your design concept. You produce an experiential prototype. You conduct a final evaluation with potential users, and implement the findings in your design and in recommendations for further work.

Activities 1 Ideate formulate design goal, explore situation, formulate view on current interactions, formulate interaction vision, explore by research and design, formulate initial concept direction with design ideas develop and deepen concept through research and design, make rough evaluation models iteratively

2 Iterate

3 Demonstrate refine concept, develop experiential prototype, test prototype, final presentation

weekly schedule In the first quarter (weeks 1.1-1.9) you have 3 ects scheduled for the project, which amounts to roughly one day per week. In the second quarter (weeks 2.1-2.9) you have 6 ects scheduled for the project, which amounts to roughly two days per week. There is a course-specific time schedule on the EI Blackboard site (additional to the general Blackboad timetable), please make sure to consult it and give it priority in your own schedule. Additionally, throughout the course, information about workshops and lectures is provided by your tutors and on Blackboard.

page 15

Your attendance is required for the lectures, tutor meetings, presentations and many of the workshops. The individual work that is mentioned in the schedule does not require attendance (and can be done at a location and time of your preference, and together with fellow students). Note that the activities in the schedule do not represent all hours that are scheduled for the course. You should take care to plan and carry out your individual course work consistently. The project involves six main types of activities: tutor meetings, presentations, lectures, workshops, buddy/group work, and individual work. Each cycle starts with a kick-off lecture and often a workshop, and closes with a presentation. During each cycle, you discuss your progress in tutor meetings, mostly on Thursday mornings. Your tutor will inform you about the exact time of the meetings. On some Thursday mornings, compulsory studio workshops take place instead of tutor meetings. Tutor meetings and presentations take place in groups in the design studios. Note that for the final presentation of the demonstrate cycle a whole day is scheduled. It is important to prepare for your tutor meetings to get the best out of them for your project. There is no possibility for scheduling additional (individual) meetings with your tutors.

0.6

Individual and group work

You work individually on your personal design goal. However, you also contribute to the projects of other students, and other students will contribute to your project: you have a project partner and the opportunity to collaborate with a subgroup of students from your studio. A discussion group for the tutor meetings consists of four to six students (grouped by the tutors). Your tutor meetings are always with the other members of your studio; sometimes all together during the whole morning, sometimes the studio will be divided into groups meeting in either an early or late morning session. Your project partner is a student from your studio with whom you team up; your project partner is a buddy, who should be a source of support, for example on practical issues, to stimulate creativity, and to provide feedback. This feedback will be required and formalised at some points in the project to encourage you to make use of it.

0.7

Contact with the domain representatives

During the course of your project, meetings with the domain representatives will be organised three times, once in each cycle of the project. The first meeting is during a tutor meeting early on in the first project cycle, Ideate. During this meeting a domain representative introduces the topic

page 17

of their interest, and gives you some background information on the domain. You will informally present your initial thoughts on the topic. The second meeting with the domain representative takes place during the final presentation of the second cycle, Iterate. Here, you present the design and research explorations you have conducted as well as the concept you have developed. The third meeting takes place during the final presentation of the third cycle, Demonstrate, where you present your final work. In general, think of the contact with the domain representatives this way: they are interested in your designers response to the topic of their interest. They are looking for inspiration and your unexpected insights. The challenge for you is to develop something that is relevant to them, without necessarily answering the expectations they have at the beginning. Rather, follow your own topic insights and explorations regarding the societal domain. You may have additional informal contacts with the domain representatives during your project, for example to visit topic related locations or to discuss specific questions. Your tutors will guide you in this and be the contact point for you with the domain representatives.

0.8

Workshops
Several workshops provide you the opportunity to gain experience with a variety of research and design techniques. Some workshops are compulsory, and some are optional. The workshop schedule with times and topics can be found on Blackboard. The set of workshops and workshop schedule is not fixed and may change during the project; so it is important to keep track of announcements on Blackboard for any schedule updates.

0.9

Support
There are two tutors for a studio of approximately twenty students working on one topic. Tutoring is in the form of discussions. Your discussion group will consist of four to six students and a tutor. Your tutors coach you and assess your work throughout the project. Discussions in the weekly meetings are based on your input and progress plans. It is important that you prepare for these meetings by planning what to show to your fellow students and tutors and which questions to ask, and by knowing and being able to show what you intend to do next. Contact information of the tutors is published on blackboard. If necessary, you can use the following information to contact the project coordinators or student assistant.

page 19

Coordinators Stella Boess Ingrid Mulder Student Assistant Marit Coehoorn

phone 2783196 mail s.u.boess@tudelft.nl phone 2785637 mail i.j.mulder@tudelft.nl mail m.coehoorn@tudelft.nl

0.10 Presentations
You conclude each cycle with a short oral presentation supported by visual and other materials. In the short presentation you present the results of your project efforts to the tutors and students in your studio. Check the respective cycles for details.

0.11 Design and Research Explorations

What is meant by design and research explorations? It means that in the project Exploring Interactions, you generally work in two connected ways: you form intentions (such as your design goal and interaction vision), and you create models and representations of your design ideas and concepts that embody these intentions. You evaluate how the intentions work out in your chosen situation or location using specified questions and methods. in parallel, you also raise questions to gain insights about your chosen situation or location. You answer these questions through specified research methods and record those answers explicitly.

While the first set of activities tends to be called design and the second set of activities tends to be called research, you will find that they sometimes overlap in your project. For example, evaluating your designs is also research. And deciding what to evaluate is also design. How are design and research connected? In your Exploring Interactions project, you judge the quality and qualities - of your design ideas according to their effect for people in the situation or location. You seek to grasp the experiential world of people and to understand their interactions

page 21

with your evolving design concept in the particular location or situation that you have chosen (see section 1.2 for tips on choosing). In this project it is vitally important (and often a big learning step) to regard your design ideas as tools for exploration and research: as means rather than as ends. Rather than perfecting your designs in isolation, you expose them early to your fellow students and preferably also to the people in your chosen location or situation. You let your ideas evolve through these explorations by testing them, adapting them, checking them against research results and your interaction vision, and so on. During your project, take your ideas out of your head and into the world as soon and as often as possible. Heres a general structure for design and research explorations: you formulate, consult or update your design goal and interaction vision; you draw up a plan (big or small) with questions about the interactions in your chosen situation or location and determine through which design and research explorations to answer them; you form intentions and make rough models of your designs, you test and evaluate your design goal and interaction vision, either for yourself, or with fellow students or with people in your chosen situation or location; you conduct design and research explorations to evaluate your intentions, discover surprises and answer questions;

you give answers to the questions you raised and make reflections on intentions and insights; you state conclusions and implications and decide on directions to work on further.

In this project you use a progress workbook to plan, conduct and document your explorations. For each cycle, you also make a digitized summary document reporting your design and research explorations. See below, under documenting and reporting, for more detail on the progress workbook and digitized summaries. design and research explorations: planning and conducting them To get started with design and research explorations, you make a plan, in your workbook and digitally for hand-in, and discuss it with your fellow students and your tutors. You can plan and

page 23

conduct some or all of the research together with your project partner or more fellow students and/or share results. All the design and research explorations that you conduct, whether large or small, should be planned at least roughly, documented, and then reported in the formats specified in this section. Plans should be short and concise, and they can change and adapt. They can be for activities of several weeks (e.g. planning and conducting a generative session) or activities of half a day (e.g. evaluating a rough design model with fellow students). A design and research plan should generally be two, max. three A4 pages. Whether big or small, design and research exploration plans should all follow this general structure: Specify design and research goals Here you state why you need to conduct a certain design and research exploration and what you aim to get out of it: your design goal and research goal. For design, you are likely to have intentions (= that contribute to your design goal) rather than questions. For example, intentions might be to generate initial ideas, or make a testable model of your design concept. To achieve some parts of your design goal you need more insights to be able to progress. For those, you formulate a research goal. Pose research questions To reach your research goal, you pose one or more research questions. Please make sure not to confuse research questions (questions you ask yourself, such as: how do people experience a certain activity?) with interview questions (questions that you ask your respondents in an interview session, such as: how did that go for you?). When you answer them you can evaluate whether your research goal is achieved, in other words, whether you got the answers you needed. You can also evaluate whether the answers brought you closer to your design goal. If you base your research questions on particular phenomena (see 1.2 for an explanation of phenomena), you should also mention them in this section. Often you are likely to have several research questions, each focusing on a particular relevant aspect of the research goal. Make sure to discuss why this research goal and these questions are relevant for your design project: how the outcomes will help you in designing and achieving your design goal. Propose design activities To reach your design goal or contribute to your research goal, you plan your design activities. However: while design is often about achieving goals and realising intentions, it is also often spontaneous and includes serendipitous moments and insights. The important thing is to learn to give yourself enough support without blocking yourself through too much or too little planning. It is good to make a plan for design activities, for example to do some scenario drawings, but also good to be prepared to change the plan when your insights progressed, for example when you observed some interactions and you find its quicker to just

page 25

simulate them through enacted and photographed scenes. Some design activities may serve just to generate materials for your research activities e.g. a set of alternative design ideas you sketch in order to evaluate qualities of interaction they elicit. Propose research activities In this section you propose research activities through which you can answer your research questions. For example, interviews, with specified interview questions. Also make explicit which design activities you aim to use in your research and how you gain insights from those. In practice it is recommended not to rely on one research method only, but to combine data obtained from various methods. You can for instance combine participants views with data generated from observations or measurements. To help you conduct useful research explorations, the course Context and Conceptualisation provides an overview of methods. Also check out additional materials on observation and interviewing that are available for you on the Exploring Interactions Blackboard site. Some clinics for advice and troubleshooting on research explorations are available in the first and second cycles of the project. Make use of these available resources to guide you through the research: courses PUUE and Context and Conceptualisation (autumn term) courses Applied Research Techniques, ITD and UXAD (spring term) literature, consultation of specialists tutor meetings

Make a design and research exploration set-up and time plan Make a schedule which activities you need to carry out to progress with your design. Note that these are not tightly prescribed in the project Exploring Interactions. It is therefore essential that you make plans yourself and see how they work out. With new insights, your plan is also likely to change. Make a time planning for your research and design explorations in terms of hours per week and indicate how will you apply specific methods in your specific situation. For each bit of research, plan how many people you intend to involve in your research, where you intend to do the research, how much time you will need to invest in the various parts of your research, and which stimuli (things/environments/ activities etc) you use in your research. These might be (interim) results of your design explorations, for example, initial design sketches or models. design and research explorations: documenting and reporting them In this project you document your explorations by using a progress workbook. You report your explorations with digitized reports. Progress workbook The purpose of the progress workbook is that you learn to observe your own work process and also give this value for yourself. In it, you note and sketch your design explorations, plan and document your research activities, and show (yourself ) how your design ideas are informed by research insights. The way you record your progress will be personal to

page 27

each one of you. No predefined format is required. You are free to document your work in any way you like. From experience we recommend a physical sketchbook (dummy) because it provides continuity, but it does not suit everyone. The tutors are aware that your explorations may be complex at times, take you more or less time than you expected or that you may have pleasant or unpleasant surprises. Exactly these experiences are what you learn to deal with in this project, so they are useful for you to record so that you become aware of them. You use your progress workbook to shape the deliverables of your project. It is therefore important that it reflects the depth and scope of your explorations. In your workbook, you sketch and record thoughts, plans, insights as they occur and as you need them. You also use the workbook in the tutor meetings for discussions. Please note that your explorations in your workbook should also follow the general reporting structure described in this section, but this can be done in a more informal and personal way than the digitized reports, and it accompanies your work chronologically. Document all your visualising, modelling and prototyping activities in the project well, through photographs, movies, written or sketched scenarios etc. This will allow you to present a rich process at the end of each cycle. Digitized reports of research and design explorations For each cycle, you also make a digital summary document reporting the planning and the results of your design and research explorations. With your digital documents, you provide a more explicit documentation and reporting of your design and research explorations that you also use as a basis for public documentation of your project in your final deliverables. This material will be shared with the domain representatives and may be used in further projects arising from the work. Please make sure to make this material also rich in context and visuals, but concise in text. Keep it short. It is to show the logical structure and coherence of your explorations. Scan and include hand-drawn or hand-written materials from your workbook. An exploration report should generally have a maximum word number of 1500 for the main text, excluding appendices (e.g. observation notes). Do include any number of illustrations, make them as experiential as possible (visual, dynamic, multisensory ), and captioning each illustration well. format for reports of design and research explorations In your workbook your plans, results and reports may sometimes overlap in time or end up in different places. Thats why at the end of each cycle you make a digitized design and research exploration report using the following structure: Design and Research goal This section is similar to the design research goal section in the exploration plan. You state the goal of the design and research explorations, and your intentions and research questions (in relation to your selected phenomena). Some or all these may have changed from your original plan.

page 29

Design and Research Activities Whereas in the design and research exploration plan the activities section refers to which activities and methods you considered (thus how you planned) to do things, in this report you now provide an account of how you actually performed the explorations, and what actually happened. Document which design activities you conducted and evaluate how well they helped you gain insights into your goal and chosen situation. It is fine to reflect that activities did not work out as you expected or that activities resulted in unexpected directions. The purpose of this section is to enable others to understand the coherence of your steps, and in terms of the research activities, for other researchers to replicate your research activities. Therefore you should report how many people participated in your study and their relevant characteristics, and also which research methods you used and how. For example, which questions you asked the participants, which materials you handed out and how the data was analysed. Results In this section you report all results of the research activities and design evaluations. The purpose of this section is to give a complete overview of all findings in such a way that you can refer to them in your conclusions section and that you have them available for future reference or inspiration during the design project. For that purpose you should make the data and findings accessible to yourself by structuring them. Note that in Exploring Interactions it is not always necessary to report all raw data (e.g. transcripts of interviews). Generally, summarize interviews and generative sessions and only report the most salient data from them. Make sure to discuss with your tutors what data you report in this section. Analyses that you perform on the data (e.g. theme or content analyses, or statistical analyses) should be reported together with the results in this section. Conclusions In this section you use the research results to answer the research questions and to evaluate design intentions. Also discuss all additional findings that are relevant for your design project (so these can be findings that do not directly answer any of your research questions but still are relevant in the context of your general research goal or design goal). Try to think with a designers point of view about the implications for your designing. Also note down any additional learnings from the study (e.g. did you have unexpected findings, or what did you learn about the validity of your method). Tip: use a clear structure based on this reporting in your presentations as well, always showing how design and research explorations contribute to your design and research outcomes. This enables you to see and evaluate your progress and also present it at the end of your project. Document all your visualising, modelling and prototyping activities in the project well, through photographs, movies, written or sketched scenarios etc.

page 31

0.12 Deliverables
The result of your project is an innovative design concept with well-considered and detailed interactions. The deliverables are: the experiential prototype and additional models; the process workbook; a digitized design and research exploration report; the presentation materials; and a dynamic presentation of your intended interaction. The tutors use these deliverables to assess the quality of the work. You will be informed by the tutors and on Blackboard where you can hand in (or store) your deliverables. The quality of the research and design explorations will be assessed on the basis of your workbook including 2D and 3D appendices (e.g. models) and your exploration report. So be sure to hand in everything that you produce. Experiential prototype An important deliverable is an experiential prototype of the products, services or systems you designed. The final assessment will be mainly based on the presentation materials, your dynamic presentations of the interaction you intend, and the experiential prototype. Progress Workbook Throughout the project you document your activities in a progress workbook. It is a working document that stays between you and your tutor. Your tutor evaluates it with you to support you in understanding your work process. The workbook can be supplemented by any number of appendices, be it 2D or 3D: interim models, additional materials. Most of these will fit in the box that you receive at the start of the project, but dont restrict yourself to that size. Digitized design and research exploration report Following the format given in section 0.11, you assemble this report from your reports from all three cycles. This report serves to make your process explicit, your learnings transferable and the coherence of your design and research exploration steps traceable. The report is part of the deliverables that will be shared with the domain representatives in order to use your project results or plan further steps. Presentation materials In each cycle you report and present your results. Your oral presentation should typically take ca. 4 minutes. Support it with presentation materials and show the logical progress and the richness of your exploration work and results. The presentation format is up to you, as long as your presentation conveys the dynamics of the interactions you have been exploring. Communicate the interactions you intend and their experiential qualities. You might do this through short movies showing events and qualities of interaction in abstract or direct ways, written or drawn

page 33

scenario stories, or improvisations and role plays. Please note that your tutors may set particular requirements for you.

0.13 Assessment
Concurrent monitoring In the tutor meetings you receive feedback on the progress and quality of your project from your tutors and your fellow students in your studio. The feedback of the tutors depends on your ability to informally present your ongoing activities and plans. Feedback on the quality of your work will also come from your fellow students in the discussions that follow the presentations at the closure of the cycles. You should also make sure to work regularly together with your project partner to receive and give each other feedback. Cycle assessment After the first two cycles the tutors will provide you with a basic progress advice with the use a colour code. The colour will be green, orange, or red: green You are on track; all required deliverables have been produced and presented. You are advised to keep up the good work. orange Some of the required explorations / deliverables are missing or of insufficient quality. For the next cycle you are advised to change your approach and/or invest more effort in order to get back on track. red Your project is not showing substantial progress; main explorations / deliverables are missing. You are advised to discontinue your project and to make a new start next year. This advice is not binding. The first two cycle assessments will not be used for, or necessarily influence, the final project assessment. Receiving an orange code does not necessarily imply that you will have a low grade. Likewise, a green code does not guarantee a high grade. However, if your project progress is generally below the project requirements this may affect your final grade. Final assessment The final assessment is based on your deliverables, the quality of presentations, and attitude during meetings, presentations, and discussions. The assessment is guided by the following criteria.

page 35

quality of the design and interactions fit of the design and interaction vision with the design goal variety, originality, potential, coherence and relevance of design and research explorations newness, convincingness and appropriateness of interactions and experience of the final design concept aesthetic quality of the final design general feasibility of the final design concept (technology, cost) quality of the research mastery of research method(s) design relevance of analyses and conclusions quality in the process feasibility and appropriateness of the design goal, interventions, research goal and research questions quality, variety and appropriateness of design and research exploration method(s) coherence between research and design exploration steps approach of an investigative designer (small research along the way, iterative modelling) process management general attitude during the project (initiative, collaboration, awareness) quality of presentations communication of results in presentation materials, aesthetics of the presentation materials communication of results in oral presentation, oral presentation style professional impression of the experiential prototype (appearance, interaction/experience) quality of your communication of the dynamic and experiential qualities of interaction with the final design

0.14 Reflection on your exploration process

An important learning goal of this project is that you get to know your own approach and process. Some of you are very structured workers, some, more spontaneous, and many of you will find they come up against obstacles such as not knowing what to do next, or even fearing the next step. This project gives you the room to observe your own way of working and to discover your own best

page 37

map of possibilities

ways. In your work process in EI you may sometimes feel stuck, and this may occur more so than in other design projects you may have done so far. One reason for this is that it seems so unclear in which direction you should go, what to choose to do next. Another reason could be that you think there is one right direction but you just cannot figure out what it is. In fact, this project is about finding your way, not about following a straight path, and there is not one right end result of EI. If you try to follow a straight path you will not discover much. You can only have a rich exploration if you explore and find pots of gold in unexpected places: if you follow your own unpredictable exploration road map. You are still developing your skills and knowledge, which naturally sometimes leads to dips in confidence and motivation. Together with high ambitions - and many of you are ambitious - this can lead to feelings of being stuck. If you acknowledge these experiences and understand them, this can in turn help you to cope with them. This map of possibilities shows that you can find various ways to cope with such situations, and weve heard from EI students that these are the kinds of things they have done in them. You may have moments of creating new possibilities, finding or inventing new things - those are originating moments. But even these may be a form of being stuck: if you do only that, and never take stock. At other moments you are thinking over what you have, inventorising where you stand - those are cultivating moments. Both can contribute to your progress. You may be working on your project or you may even be doing something else to take your mind off it or to get new inspiration. These activities can also contribute to your understanding of where you are and where you want to go. The challenge to you is to find some way at each moment of taking a next step, and discover where it leads you. And to sometimes just stop and understand where you stand.

0.15 Eight golden tips

On the basis of our experiences with Exploring Interactions we have formulated eight informal golden tips for a successful project: 1 interaction Your focus in this project is on the user-product interaction; the way people use, understand, and experience products. This requires you to formulate an interaction vision. Make sure to do this in an early stage of the project. The sooner you produce an interaction vision, the more valuable it will prove to be. It will serve as a point of reference, and at the same time develop and become more salient during your project.

page 39

exploration road map

2 situation/location In order to be able to explore interactions in sufficient depth, you need to establish a good relationship with a specific situation or location. Consider aspects such as longterm access, openness of professions, and seasons. For example, as the project takes place in autumn and winter, it is not wise to focus on summer activities. 3 personality As you define your own design project, you have the freedom to adopt a personal style and view on design. Make sure you use that possibility. Explore who you are as a designer and where your interests, strengths and challenges lie. There is pleasure to be found in discovering design possibilities and in tackling uncertainties. 4 exploration Be aware that your final design is not the only outcome. Your explorations during the project are equally important. Learn to live with, and try to embrace the uncertainties with which you will sometimes be confronted. Learn to trust your design competence and open it up to iterations with fellow students and people in your chosen location or situation. Explore, especially when not sure which direction to choose. 5 coherence In this project, you explore by means of several research and several design iterations. Build each next step on the previous one, even if youre not always quite sure where that leads you. In that way there will be coherence between all your research and your design activities. In the end, the value of each step is measured by the relation of this step with those that precede and those that follow it. 6 responsibility The freedom to define your own design project comes with the responsibility to be in control of your explorations. Each cycle this course guide gives some quality criteria. But you are expected to use your personal standards as a designer to evaluate the quality of your own work. Working together with other students can be very helpful in this, too. 7 communication Make sure to prepare each meeting by planning what to show and what to ask and by being able to indicate what you intend to do next. Your fellow students and tutors will respond to the work, discuss progress, and help you where possible. Note that you are expected to show a proactive attitude and own initiative. The amount of feedback is directly related to the amount of input you bring to the meeting. 8 attitude This project is about exploring - the assessment of your project will therefore not only be based on your deliverables, like workbooks, research reports, and final design, but also on your intermediate presentations, and on your commitment and explorative attitude demonstrated throughout the project.

page 41

1 Cycle 1 IDEATE
1.1 Objectives
In the first cycle you formulate an authentic and stimulating design goal (starting on day one!). The design goal is your starting point for first design explorations and explorative fieldwork. This fieldwork can include visiting your location or event, connecting with the people who are involved, observing and/or interviewing them, and evaluating initial interventions with them. Your explorations result in a view on the current interactions and an interaction vision. This interaction vision is supported by design explorations that illustrate the design potential of your design goal and demonstrate your concept direction and initial ideas within it. The first cycle contains several studio-based workshops to introduce you to the way of working. These are compulsory to attend, like the lectures and tutor meetings. Regard the first cycle as a guided version of the way you work in all three cycles.

1.2

Contents
formulating a design goal, starting from day one In the first week of the project you decide on the focus of your project by formulating a first version of your design goal. What is a design goal? A design goal is a statement that specifies the effect that you want to achieve with your design concept. This means that the goal does not generally indicate what the design will be. Rather, your design goal makes explicit which effect you want to achieve with your design concept for the people in that situation or location. The design concept that you develop in this project should have an effect on the interactions in your chosen situation or location. What benefit will people have from it? Will it stimulate or introduce new behaviour or experiences? How will it influence the interactions that people have in the situation or location? On the design goal sheet you are given and asked to hand in, you indicate your ideas about the research and design potential. Then you discuss your design goal and proposed situation in your first and second tutor meeting.

page 43

The goal should include three main characteristics: it should identify (1) the user(s) that will interact with your design, (2) the situation and/or location in which the interaction will take place, and (3) the effect for the user(s) that you intend to generate with your design. To be able to formulate an inspiring goal, you should follow your personal curiosity in relation to the topic. To help you get started, get a workbook (see section 0.12) and make a context log of all interactions connected to your topic that arouse your curiosity, starting on day one of the project. Making a context log means writing/sketching/recording what you see happening. On the project introduction (Friday in the GPS week you dont know yet which of the topics you will be working on, so have a look at all topics and then focus on your assigned topic from project day two (i.e., Monday September 10th) onwards. How to find interactions related to your topic? You might encounter or even provoke these interactions yourself, or hear about them from other people, or read about, or see them in the media. What interactions make you wonder, make you curious? You can ask all kinds of questions about these interactions, like: do you know why these interactions take place? Do you understand the qualities of these interactions? Why are they as they are? What is the duration of the interactions that you see? What is the sequence of events? What is the beginning and end of an interaction you see? Do you believe these interactions can be or should be different? And so on. The design goal you formulate from project day two (Monday) should be stimulating for you as a designer and reflect your personal design skills. It should fit the topic, and it should inspire and stimulate you for the whole semester. As you learn more about your topic, you can adapt your design goal to reflect your learnings. Your design goal will probably develop during the project because of the insights that you gain through your research and design explorations. In this initial cycle it is important that the goal provides you with starting points to explore. Some tips for identifying an interesting design goal: think of a situation that is familiar or of personal interest to you within the topic; look at the newspapers and other media and see where and how the topic is featured in news items; imagine how the topic plays a role while going through your personal daily interactions, and observe how the topic may play a role in the interactions of other people you meet during the day; visit a location or situation that is relevant to the topic; speak with people of whom you know they may have some relation to the topic; brainstorm with fellow students or other people on problems or opportunities related to the topic;

page 45

dont be afraid of the obvious and close-by. A design goal does not have to be wildly unusual, hard to contact or far away. On the contrary: make it as easy for yourself as possible. Your sports team? People at a local market? Your neighbours and their dog? Your uncles job?

exploring interactions In the first cycle you explore the chosen situation. You conduct research explorations by often visiting the situation or location and by observing, experiencing or otherwise getting close to the interactions in the situation. Record your observations and experiences so that you can present an initial view on the current interactions, for example in terms of characteristics, qualities and appropriateness. See below for a description of what a view on current interactions is. You also make design explorations by sketching ways to intervene in your chosen situation or location. Do this individually or in a brainstorm with fellow students. If you cannot figure out how to start, refer to the How tos section in part 2.2 of the Delft Design Guide. Express your ideas as efficiently as possible through rough sketching, rough model making, and test them by enacting the interactions they elicit.The function of these research and design explorations is to discover in what ways the design goal can inspire you, to let you form an interaction vision, and to give you initial design ideas for your concept direction. For example, would you reach your design goal through a spatial design? Through an interface, physical products, or an activity that people can do? How would your design affect the interactions and their qualities? Which temporal portion of interactions might they affect? For an example of envisioning and presenting temporal sequences, image-google experience journey. Explore your design ideas through sketches, rough models, and scenarios of intended and observed interactions. This exploration is something you continue to do throughout the project. view on current interactions Through your research in this cycle, you present your view on the current interactions in your chosen situation or location. Your view on current interactions is an account of the interactions that currently take place in the situation that is specified in your design goal: what happens and what are the qualities and characteristics of what happens. This can be about interactions among people, people with surroundings, products, and so on. Consider which temporal sequences are of interest to you.

page 47

Design goal Design goal

Strengthen community feeling by giving neighbors a trigger for personal contact. The interaction should be natural, effortless, open and lively. It should feel like a moment of serendipity: an unexpected but fortunate discovery of a shared interest or experience. I want to support 16- to 18-year-olds in getting insight into their personal talents and interests, to enhance the fruitfulness of their (life changing) decisions. Being so engaged with something because of curiosity, that you lose track of time.

Interaction vision Design goal

Interaction vision Design goal

Create a calm atmosphere for passengers in the silent coup of the train. This will be achieved by the interaction qualities collaborative and awareness. Create more awareness of the benefits of healthy food. This way healthy doesnt stay an empty word, but gets concrete. The satisfaction of making good choices. Like going out for a run: good for your health and you feel proud of doing it: It feels good to take care of myself

Interaction vision Design goal

To create a holistic experience, includes family, which reduces anxiety and the need for sedation. Elicit what is important to teens: control, social relatedness & fantasy.

Interaction vision

Design goal
To create something that supports the becoming father during the pregnancy Give men the feeling as if they are making something which holds their baby just like they do.

Interaction vision

Interaction vision

Design goal
Providing a temporary shift within the city for working people to get an engaging moment. A sudden shift of environment or perspective; from irritating noise to comfortable/ reassuring sounds.

Interaction vision

interaction vision Your interaction vision represents the intended qualities and characteristics of the interaction with your new design. This should be authentic, stimulating, and fit the theme and your design goal. You can use words, images, sounds, actions, models - anything that helps you to communicate the nature of the current interaction and your intended interaction. In the first cycle there is a workshop about developing an interaction vision. phenomena for research In order to be able to design for appropriate interactions, you need to become thoroughly familiar with your chosen situation or location. During your project you will progressively deepen these insights. You can use your initial research explorations to formulate phenomena of particular interest to you. Phenomena are things that happen: occurrences or observable events. Examples of phenomena in the natural world are: the motion of the planets, the behaviour of animals, changes in the weather, shifts in landforms. Examples of phenomena in Exploring Interactions are: the emotional state of people in the particular situation; the influence of body posture on the tone of verbal interaction; the characteristics of products and their involvement in particular interactions. Many phenomena are temporal, and either have identifiable stages and beginnings and ends or they flow. It helps if you choose a temporal focus, even if a phenomenon might extend beyond it. For example, in interactions in a shop, you might be particularly interested in the phenomenon of the arriving and leaving experience - maybe because they dont seem to match, or because they seem to elicit many emotions. Then you look at this phenomenon in terms of space use, time sequence, and peoples actual experiences. Make an overview of phenomena that are you find interesting and relevant for the current interactions. design and research explorations and planning In this cycle you draw up plans for more structured research and design explorations of your chosen situation or location, and discuss these with your fellow students in your discussion group or studio. Team up with fellow students on your exploration plans and start conducting them (see section 0.11 for information about research and design exploration planning). Discuss these plans with your tutor(s) as well. Your design and research explorations will continue in the second and third cycle. initial contact with relevant stakeholders: domain representatives. There is one informal meeting with the domain representatives during this cycle, as part of a tutor meeting. This is a getting to know meeting in which you exchange starting points with them: they

page 49

present their domain, and you present your explorations and design goal. You can make use of these contacts to arrange research and design explorations, but also find your own.

1.3

Closure of the cycle

For the final tutor meeting of this cycle each student prepares a set of presentation materials. They should report your design and research explorations, and they should present your design concept. You use your presentation materials to support a short oral presentation. Please devote attention to the communication and aesthetics of these materials. Your tutors will inform you about the presentation schedule. The presentation should include:

your design goal your working title your view on the current (interactions in the) situation or location your interaction vision your design and research explorations goals, activities, phenomena and initial results your concept direction and initial design idea(s) your plan for further design and research explorations

1.4

Deliverables
You hand in your presentation materials and your workbook and 2D/3D appendices as well as your first digitized design and research exploration report. You should additionally include an A4 with a reflection on the workshops that you have attended and their usefulness for your project.

1.5

Assessment
In the first tutor meeting of the second cycle we briefly look back on your work in the first cycle, both on your progress and the quality of your work. quality criteria feasibility and appropriateness (in terms of design potential) of the design goal quality of the design and research explorations (plan, approach, depth, appropriateness) quality of view on current interaction newness, convincingness and appropriateness of the interaction vision quality of design ideas and concept direction (authenticity, potential, appropriateness) communication and aesthetics of the presentation materials and oral presentation style

page 51

2 Cycle 2 ITERATE
2.1 Objectives
In the second cycle you perform additional research explorations, to deepen your insights into the current interactions, to further develop your interaction vision, and to generate and test a design concept. You build rough models to enable you to test and further develop interactions that people will have with your design. You evaluate these models through testing (preferably with people in your chosen situation or location). On the basis of the results of such studies, you redesign and/or further develop the concept to a detailed level. At the end of this cycle you will have further developed your interaction vision and developed a detailed design concept with attention to the following six aspects: interaction, experience, appearance, expression, technology, and materials. You should also have a general idea of the technical and commercial or societal feasibility of your design concept.

2.2

Contents
design and research explorations and reporting You deepen and/or continue your design and research explorations in this cycle. See the information given in section 0.11 on all design and research explorations reporting in this project. You should make sure that you carry out and report your explorations in this cycle in a way that is useful for your concept development. concept development Throughout the second cycle you develop a concept in rough form. The concept should be based on your interaction vision. Insights from research should be used as input. You deepen and develop the design concept through iterative modelling and evaluation. By, for example, making quick design models and playing out the intended interactions, the emerging design can be evaluated and adjusted. This way of working is essential for access to the user experience and for the successful development of novel interactions. You can make physical models from e.g. paper or styrene-foam, and/or virtual (on-screen) simulations. Use any form, material and technique that will enable you to test the effect of your design concepts on interactions. In your design process,

page 53

try to go back and forth between sketching, modelling and trying out how you and other people interact with the design models.

2.3

Closure of the cycle

You prepare a second set of presentation materials. They should report your design goal, design and research explorations, interacton vision and design concept. The main emphasis should be on gained exploration insights and how you used them. You use your presentation materials to support a short oral presentation. Please devote attention to the communication and aesthetics of these materials. Your tutors will inform you about the presentation schedule. The presentation should include:

the design goal and working title your design and research explorations: design goal, research goal, activities and methods, relevant results and conclusions for your design concept. Use text, visuals and dynamic forms (making sure to stay within the allocated time). interaction vision rough design models, with which the envisioned interactions should be demonstrated during the presentation the detailed product concept with general attention the following six aspects: interaction, experience, appearance, aesthetic expression, technology, and materials.

2.4

Deliverables
At the end of the cycle, you hand in your presentation materials, workbook, rough design models and any additional materials you have generated, and a digitized design and research exploration report. You should additionally include an A4 with a reflection on the workshops that you have attended and their usefulness for your project.

page 55

2.5

Assessment
In the first tutor meeting of the third cycle, your tutors briefly look back on your work in the second cycle, both on your progress and the quality of your work. quality criteria coherence of design goal, intentions, research goal, research questions, research methods and design interventions

quality of reflection on your initial view on interactions and how it developed through your explorations feasibility and appropriateness (e.g. usefulness for concept development) of the design and research explorations fit of the design concept with the design goal appropriateness of the design models: they should represent the interaction vision (and/or various aspects of it which have been tried out with different models) and be suited to design and research explorations application of the knowledge gained by trying out the interactions as part of the design process attention paid to the aspects: interaction, experience, appearance, aesthetic expression, technology, and materials communication and aesthetics of the presentation materials, oral presentation style and communicative qualities of any additional materials.

page 57

3 Cycle 3 DEMONSTRATE
3.1 Objectives
In this phase you finalize your design with an experiential prototype. With this prototype you will be able to present your design concept, and also to briefly evaluate the designed interactions by letting people try out the prototype in an actual use situation or with a simulated set-up. Realise the time required to finalize your project well: after the first week you should have a detailed idea of your design. You use the remaining time of cycle three for prototyping, evaluation, and presentation, and detailing of your experiential prototype. Note that the schedule of this cycle includes two weeks of holidays.

3.2

Contents
experiential prototype The prototype serves two purposes: presentation and evaluation. The prototype not only represents the appearance of your design, but, as importantly, it represents those characteristics that play a role in the intended interactions (e.g. eliciting behaviour from people through dynamics, behaviour, sound). Early on in the cycle you make a plan for the model making to discuss with your tutor. If you plan to use the machines in the PMB-workshop, be sure to discuss your plan with one of the people of the workshop as well. You are expected to spend around 40 hours for making the experiential prototype (and/or dynamic representations of it or including it), which means that we expect it to make a professional impression. evaluation The evaluation of a new design is the main focus of the other project in the first year of this master (ID4256 Project Usability and User eXperience Assessment in Design). However, your Exploring Interactions project would not be complete without some indication of the effect of your design, preferably in the real world. To conclude this project, you should conduct a small study in which you put the final design and prototype into a (close to) natural situation to see how people interact with it. With these observations you assess the quality of your design and intended interaction.

page 59

research reporting Towards the end of this cycle you collect the research from the first and second cycle and the small evaluation studies you have been doing throughout the project in a design and research exploration report. Each study or piece of research should roughly follow the outline given in Section 0.11.

3.3

Closure of the cycle

At the final presentation you summarize your main milestones of the design and research explorations conducted in the three cycles of your project, and you demonstrate and motivate the interactions with your final experiential prototype. Prepare a last set of presentation materials. You use these to support a short individual presentation of ca. 8 minutes, followed by discussion. The presentation should include:

your design goal and interaction vision the title of your project the final design and prototype (make sure you concisely describe your final design) a dynamic presentation of the intended interactions the results of the evaluation study

3.4

Deliverables
You hand in your presentation materials, your workbook, your research and design exploration report that includes the results of your final evaluation study, and your detailed final design and experiential prototype. Also include in the digital deliverables an A4 assessment of the workshops you attended and a course evaluation. Towards the end of the project a set of instructions for digital deliverables is published on Blackboard.

3.5

Assessment
The final assessment is based on the deliverables and criteria that are outlined at the beginning of this course guide (0.12 and 0.13).

page 61