Studio 1
IxD 310
This course examines the specific field of Interaction Design; its
history, human-centered design principles, and screen-based interaction patterns. Students learn how to
design the behavior of interactive digital interfaces and gain an understanding of how design decisions
impact a user's experience and the overall success of a product. Students analyze historical examples,
contemporary user interfaces, and their own designs. Students also learn how to design, justify, and
articulate using human-centered design principles and screen-based interaction patterns.
Professor
Nicole Chan
Timeline
August 31 – December 15, 2020
Role
UX Research and Design
Tools
Illustrator, Adobe XD, After Effects,
Google Slides
Final Presentation
Our final presentation for Go Griffith encompasses the key insights from our research, our concept
ideation, a vision video,
and a more polished iteration of the prototype. We incorporated feedback from various stages of testing to
try and improve
the experience and refine the features to match the user's needs. Probably the most impactful feedback
that we received from
testers was that they would like to have an app like Go Griffith for all the places they go during COVID.
Please see the Vision Video below for an overview of the concept.
Download Prototype
Presentation
Go Griffith Prototype
High Fidelity Prototype
After feedback from our low fidelity prototype and data visualization
surveys, we implemented feedback into a higher fidelity and more flushed out
interactive prototype. We received a great deal of positive feedback for the
app concept with most critical comments regarding confusion of surround the
meaning of the metrics we were trying to provide. With this version, we aimed
for more visual clarity and explicit detail regarding crowd density information.
See the video walkthrough below for a more complete overview.
Download Prototype
Presentation
In the two weeks after our midterm presentation, we got to work ideating on our
prototype. We started with a concept poster to answer provide the essential framework
for our solution. While we had and idea the who and the what, this brought up the
quesiton of how it might fail and what specifically did we want to test.
Specifically, we realized we wanted to better understand what types of crowd density
visualizations make the most sense to people. In addition to our medium fidelty
prototype, we ideated on a variety of ways to represent data from camera footage to
data points to AR and 3D simulations. We incorporated these images into our prototype
presentation with the intent of performing a guided survey with our classmates.
Download
Visualization Survey
This process greatly highlighted how easy it can be to misinterpret information. Even within
our team discussions we realized we had different understandings about how the
visualizations worked. We resolved this by reducing the amount of visuals in question
and including context with each image.
Griffith Park Presentation Reflection
As a team we felt our research and concept presentation had a solid
narrative with a clearly defined problem and solution. After we presented,
it was clear there were concerns about privacy surrounding the type of
data our solution intended to gather and share. This caught us by surprise
and we realized that perhaps how we presented our concept was not clear.
We showed images of smart camera data with the intent to translate it into
shareable metrics. The images may have conveyed the notion that we intended to
share the visual camera data on our app.
Additional feedback surrounded some of our additional feature ideas such as an
on-site kiosk. We were advised to keep our idea focused and also be considerate of
shared touchable interfaces during COVID.
In all, we felt that we needed to have a more solid understanding of the type of
data we would collect and how to be protective of personal privacy in creating
our solution.
For our midterm presentation, we developed personas and journey maps to inform our
concept ideation. Each team memeber offered unique solution ideas and together we
edited them into one cohesive idea. The core of our concept is a real time crowd density
tool. By providing people with more relatable ways to pre-visualize an outdoor space
before they go, we hoped to give them a sense of control and in turn mitigate the stress
surrounding the experience.
After taking a deeper dive into researching Griffith Park, we sought out additional
interviews, sent out surveys, and posted on social media forums. Our goal was to
understand the experience that a person has planning a trip to Griffith Park, how they
felt during their visit, and to find areas for improvement. Our biggest takeaway was
that everyone has a unique and personal metric for feeling safe and is creating their
own strategy and process for finding the right time or way to visit outdoor spaces like
Griffith Park.
Our design challenge for this class centered around transportation
and mobility in a post COVID Los Angeles. The brief tasked us "to create
an interactive system that solves transportation and mobility issues
within a city center. It must be based on research, where you find an
example of a system that suffers from a severe design issue that your
team will help solve."
After scouting various locations throughout Los Angles, my teammates
Cianna, Joey, Ruben and I narrowed in on Griffith Park. We wanted to focus
on and outdoor location as we felt the availability of these places
during COVID is crucial yet they are likely overlooked with regards to
regulation and policy.
We performed and documented onsite observation and interviews to gain a
better understanding of current obstacles to further narrow down our
project focus.
User Interface Design
Anticipation
We examined the principle of anticipation in user interface design. Designer Bruce
Tognazzini
defines the principle as bringing the user "all the information needed for each step of the process".
Anticipation
in design also considers cognitive load and decision fatigue. Reducing the mental effort needed to
complete tasks
and eliminating extraneous choices can make for a more seamless and satisfying experience.
We looked at older interfaces such as
MS-DOS which could have benefited from incorporating anticipation to newer examples such as Amazon's
automated messaging
assistant which uses AI to swiftly handle user input. Current technology is rapidly evolving how we use
anticipation
in interface design to predict our needs before we even reach for our device. Could this mean that one day
we will be
designing interactions without interfaces?
Download Full
Presentation
IxD History
Grace Hopper
Grace Hopper was pioneer in computer programming. One of the very first
computer programmers, Grace was essential in the development of the earliest computer languages and
was a driving force for technological innovation. Her attitude towards sharing information paved the
way for the open source movement and she served as a role model for breaking gender stereotypes in the
field of computing.
Download Full Presentation
"Good ideas are always crazy until they're not."
Larry Page
CEO, Google
Reflections
This class gave me insight into the history of Interaction Design as well as a glimpse into it's future.
The core
experience centered around our mobility project in which I was the team lead. Student group work is never
easy, especially
during a pandemic. In some ways, being so virtually connected made it easier to come together to work, but
the not actually
seeing some of my teammates faces for a majority of the process did make social connection more
challenging.
With regard to Go Griffith, we knew our concept was a reach in terms of the types of technology we were
suggesting and the
possible constraints of the stakeholders. That said, we knew it was possible and wanted to take this
opportunity to push
for future solutions. My experience in school has helped me with moonshot thinking and gotten me out of my
box of only
practical solutions. Sometimes, reaching for the stars will at least help you get a moon rock.
