fall semester 1: experience prototyping

The fall semester started intensively right away: our first class was called "experience prototyping" and focused on learning different prototyping tools. It was divided in five one-week courses with different themes and techniques to explore on. Starting with video-prototyping, continuing with explorations on human-interface-devices (e.g. game-controllers), letting devices talk to the internet it ended with a week of working on the Microsoft Kinect and gestural interaction. I will put more detailed descriptions on my homepage, but here are some of the results:



Above you can watch an experimental video we (Daniel Jansson, Alexis Morin and myself) shot in the first week, using a GoPro cam. Our idea was to collect some perspectives machines could have on humans, reversing the point of view we are used to.



The second week we (Siri Johansson, Shivanjali Tomar and myself) created a small game in Processsing, with the help of an awesome small tool called Kaliber, two of our classmates created. It uses PlayStation Move controller and creates a physical social gaming experience.



In week three we (Adam Henriksson and myself) built a "Random Motion Machine". The machine consists of a platform that travels over a Makerslide driven by a stepper motor. The connected arms are connected through bearings all creating random motion. Different combinations of speed, movement intervals and length of arms creates different expression of the light cloud. The motor is driven by an Arduino and controlled in Processing. 



Week four was about creating physical interactions, that are controlled by standard protocols. In the first, 48 hour task we (Alexis Morin, Miha Feus and myself) created two boxes that did some breathing-effect. One box contained two fans blowing in reverse direction that took turns depending on an standardized input protocol (In our case a distance sensor). All groups in our class created an input and and output device which communicated with the same standard protocol, so in the end we could exchange all devices and combine different input and outputs.

( video still in progress )

The second task took 72 hours and was about creating a device that is controlled by some API using Breakout.js and the Firmata protocol. We (Shivanjali and myself) chose to work with the twitter API. We built a device that translate a tweets into a physical movement (using Arduino) and shows the time passed since the tweet. By using a service like IFTTT you can use the device for many different things. One idea is to be reminded of events, or seeing if somebody sent you a message.

( video still in progress )

In the fifth and last week of the Experience Prototyping course, we had the chance to freely work with any technology and learn about something we could choose on our own. We (Lynn Bui, Harry Clayton Cook and myself) chose to play around with the XBox Kinect. We coded a small application that enabled up to four people to "paint" with motion detection. We looked into the Processing libraries for Kinect and learned basic code needed to use it for prototyping.

summer break

The term ended with a great degree exhibition and party in the beginning of June.

Umeå gets very quiet during summer, as almost all students leave for their families and do not return before autumn. Jassi and me decided to spend some more time in northern Sweden as we don't know when we will be able to spend an subpolar summer again :)

We were in Umeå for the rest of the Euro-Cup and midsummer, which is really a special day not least for the lack of darkness during night. People go crazy here.

I took the opportunity to go for a hiking trip with my family, which was great, even though the mosquitos up here are pretty thirsty when it gets warmer. A net in front of your face and a bottle of "Mygga" is definitely recommendable.

We went to Skuleskogen National Park, which is located around 150km south of Umeå. Even though it is a pretty small area it is stunningly beautiful and offers pretty impressive sights. (This sounds like from a tourist ad)

I spent most of the summer in Germany (Berlin, Cologne and Munich) visiting family and friends. I also did some freelance work for Axiros, an IT company based in Munich. They offer hardware and software solutions for businesses and enterprises to manage networks and large amount of terminal devices. My task was creating UI / usability concepts for database and search-engine applications.

Jassi and me returned to Umeå end of August. In the meantime, the night returned and you could sleep without hanging another bed sheet in front of the window. We drove with the car from Munich to Stockholm and had stopovers in Hamburg, Copenhagen and Malmö. That way you realize how far north we actually are. In times of air travel i totally lost my feeling for larger distances.

planet eyeth

The last project we finished before the summer-break was a service-design project about language learning.

My team ended up doing a service which functions as a hub for people concerned with the topic of deafness or hardness-of-hearing. The service is build upon social local networks, which facilitate information sharing within Deaf communities. It supports the existing, rich culture with tools which connects hearing, deaf and hard-of-hearing people on a local level. By providing a web- and a mobile app, it makes it easier for people to get in contact and take first steps in this diverse world.

This video shows some of the impressions of the meetings that do already exist and our service makes more people aware of.



One result of our project was a detailed blueprint and ideas how a mobile and a web touchpoint could work and look like.

As the project was sponsored by Microsoft, we took the chance to look into the styleguides of WindowsPhone applications.

To see more details on the project, pleas check back on my portfolio this summer :)

2 great tools for mac

I started to use two tools which dramatically increased my productivity. That's a good thing to work with so many different people, there is almost no day you do not learn something - even if it is only a super simple tool.

#1 - "TotalFinder" - It simply adds Tabs to the Mac OS finder and makes it a lot more convenient to use multiple finder windows..or tabs..whatever. It also adds a Dual-window feature to the finder, something I really like about working with Windows 7.

#2 - "iAWriter" - A tool to create text. Not more, not less. And that's exactly what I love about it - no danger of procrastinating in choosing fonts or playing around with grids and layout. Just text.

Language as participation

As we are pretty busy with our current project I don't really get round to write on my blog. Still I wanted to share some insights from our current process. We are doing a service-design project on the topic of "Language as participation"

We spent the first two weeks doing intense design-ethnography. The whole class conducted interviews around the topic of language learning. Our interviewees were students, immigrants, refugees, teachers, language and dialect specialists..Our focus was to find out about how learning works in everyday life's situations and encounters. We mapped out our interviewees "journeys" of learning or teaching foreign languages (mostly Swedish) and started to analyse the material in a number of synthesis sessions.

In a two-day workshop we draw conclusions by creating posters on which we mapped the most important themes in language learning. For instance, cross-generational learning plays a big role in a lot of people's life's: It happens as soon as kids, their parents and maybe their grandparents speak different languages natively and by that learn from each other. Sometimes there are two native languages (from mother and father) plus their shared language (often English) plus an additional language of the country the family lives in involved.

After splitting up in smaller groups of two - three students, we started to think about focus areas. I teamed up with my classmates Adam (Swedish) and Jules (Dutch) as we shared the interest in the different learning channels. There are different types of learners: auditive, visual, kinesthetic and tactile learners. Most people learn the most effective by having an individual mix of learning methods, probably with a focus on one of them. That's when we started to ask ourselves what would happen if you take away the access to one learning channel? If born deaf the auditive channel is very limited or even not available. We started to look into the topic of Sign-language and decided to focus on it for the rest of the project.

In one more week we explored a lot about the topic, read a lot of articles, papers and stories from deaf people as well as relatives and experts.

We prepared a workshop with our class, our tutors and teachers to get ideas from people who have no or only little knowledge about the topic and approach it completely un-biased.

Yesterday we started a number of interviews with people who are in touch with Sign-language: educators, speech therapists, interpreters, users of Sign-languages. It is an extremely interesting but very challenging topic at the same time. For now, we have no idea what we could come up with, as there is still a lot to learn and to narrow down. One thing we decided though: We will do a service for parents who rear a deaf kid and have to learn Sign-language because of that.