Week 6 Start of Part 2 - Group collaboration

MILESTONE:

Forming a new group with the goal of developing a interaction design solution to the following design problem: Connecting and feeling social presence across a distance through tangible interactions.
In our first group meeting we developed a schedule, and brainstormed new tangible, interaction designs. Furthermore we evaluated our concepts, with good and bad qualities, and also tried combining our ideas. Then we wrote down a draft for our initial design brief.

Design brief objectives:

- Metaphors, totem
- Connecting people
- Public
- Connecting environment (physical)
- Waiting rooms? Hotel lobbies? cities/sister cities?
- Fun/explore/getting engaged
- Passive/active
- Shadow of another person?
- After image
- Representations?

Brief:

Our project is dealing with the public sphere and considers split environments; to create social cohesion and provide a sense of a presence of others. It includes ludic design elements that allow both passive and active input to give the users a sense of a society’s presence. The user gains a presence of many people, a community. We are considering the metaphors of footprint and afterimage. 

Objectives:

-          Create social cohesion

-          Allow users to gain sense of social connectedness

-          Counteract the loss of sense of place occurring in urban spaces

-          Counteract the dehumanising effects high density cities

-          Activate spaces by tangible interaction

-          Complement users’ experiences without forced participation

-          Connect users of specific public environment based on location in city. 

We were informed that our design brief was not specific enough, so here is our attempt to clarify any confusion and explain our initial design thoughts further.

We aim to design a tangible installation, encouraging the public to approach the product, through an inspiring and engaging design. We wish to focus on interactive and responsive features, allowing the user to have a positive experience in the area of social awareness in a public space. One idea was that a 'twin installation' will be placed in a sister city, connecting people across a distance.

Focus of our design:
Public totem/interactive art/installation considerations:
- Symbolism
- Aesthetic
- Obtrusive
- Metaphors, international?
- State

What could our installation possibly sense?

Passive/active
- Word
- Position
- Activity
- Motion
- Scent
- Light
- Heat
- Weather
- Day light
- Sounds
- Amount
- Measure
- Sequence
- Presence 

 Motives to interact with a product, specifically a public installation:

- Make an impact
- Curiousity
- Learn
- Teach
- Explore
- Feel/Emphatise
- Sympathy
- Entertainment
- Connectivity
- Closeness
- Support
- Distraction
- Experience
- Relate, understand
- Information
- Share/help
- Speak/express
- Develop
- Establish
- Remember
- Leave mark
- Collaborate
- Grow
- Build
- Destroy
- See/invision
- 


Things to learn:

- Song
- Dance
- Words/languages
- Music
- Signs
- Art
- Symbols
- General knowledge
- Trivia
- Social skills
- Games
- Logic
- Theories
- Philosophy/science/geography etc..


-> Use interactive sounds in design. E.g. motivating/encouraging sounds - Push me!
-> Lights, patterns, shapes, changes in general...
-> Don't use icons in design!

Emotional design:
- Validation
- Communicate
- Feel connected
- Presence of loved ones
- Eliminate/dampen loneliness
- Emotion + response to emotion


Activity!
Encourage active engagement and interaction through tangible product design
-> Can't be imposed action, must be related to what you're doing or wishing to, so it does not become a chore or dreaded task.
-> Must be acceptable for society and for personal use.


Behaviour
consider all users, contexts, needs, changes, internal influences, external resources and influences culture and personalities.


Here are a few images of public art/installations and tangible art:

Week 5 After Concept presentation

MILESTONE:

After the presentation I wrote down this task/scenario analysis to make it a bit clearer what applications my final design would be suitable for, and how it solves the tasks at hand. The Themes go vertically, the Task, subtask, scenario etc. is in the same order for each theme.

Week 5 Final concept and models

The following are the final sketches for the design development and a few pictures of the model making process.

Week 5 Researching technology

Milestone:
To assess the viability of my scent based design with regards to functionality and technology I had to do a lot of background research. I found several options that might work with the design, still allowing the dimensioning to remain as I intended it to be. By using a heating element similar to the ones used in electric cigarette's, the scent can be based on heating up oils or gels. As an alternative I could use heating coils, but this has to be tested and investigated further as the product will be placed on the users skin. Bluetooth is the best alternative for the wireless transmission as it is inexpensive, can be packaged in a compact manner and is automatic. The wireless range is about 10 meters, which should be sufficient for reaching sensors that are in the same room. 



The 'Sixth Scent' bracelet will have heating elements in the core, aiding the release of the scented oil. Electric cigarettes sometimes use ultrasonics to produce an inhaling mist through vaporizing a glycerine liquid into an aerosol mist. This is done in a similar way to a nebulizer or humidifier. Ultrasonics is also a trade term coined by the Ultrasonic Manufacturers Association and used by its successor, the Ultrasonic Industry Association, to refer to the use of high-intensity acoustic energy to change materials. This mechanism would need to be tested as there is no available research relevant to my project indicating whether this will work well with the scented gels. I would also like the heat-function to be strong enough to be noticeable on the skin of the user. If this technology is not feasible, the use of micro coil heating elements might be an option, but as I am finding it hard to find information about specific power-requirements this needs to be investigated further. The bracelet will operate through batteries, and whether these will be sufficient needs to be calculated. Here is a link to a website with information regarding micro heating coils (image underneath). http://www.rotfil.com/en/product.asp?idprod=37. This page has information regarding electric cigarettes.

One of the sensors can be used to detect differences in temperature. This sensor can be used on the outside of a water boiler for example. When the water has reached boiling temperature the sensor will communicate with the 'Sixth Scent' bracelet through bluetooth and let theuser know the water is done. This is a useful application for consumers that might be blind/def or both.  Here is a link to a site about heat-detecting components: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/devices.asp?category_id=172&family_id=705&subfamily_id=2267

 http://www.analog.com/en/index.html

The second sensor will have a built in microphone, to detect changes in the environment, e.g. when a dishwasher is finished. The sensor will communicate with the bracelet in the same way as the other sensors. A wireless microphone, as the name implies, is a microphone without a physical cable connecting it directly to the sound recording or amplifying equipment with which it is associated. Also known as a radio microphone, it has a small, battery-powered radio transmitter in the microphone body, which transmits the audio signal from the microphone by radio waves to a nearby receiver unit, which recovers the audio. Wireless microphones are widely used in the entertainment industry, television broadcasting, and public speaking to allow public speakers, interviewers, performers, and entertainers to move about freely while using a microphone to amplify their voices.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/search.php?terms=microphone

Bluetooth is essentially a networking standard that works at two levels:

• It provides agreement at the physical level -- Bluetooth is a radio-frequency standard.
• It provides agreement at the protocol level, where products have to agree on when bits are sent, how many will be sent at a time, and how the parties in a conversation can be sure that the message received is the same as the message sent. 
• The big draws of Bluetooth are that it is wireless, inexpensive and automatic. There are other ways to get around using wires, including infrared communication. Infrared (IR) refers to light waves of a lower frequency than human eyes can receive and interpret. Infrared is used in most television remote control systems. Infrared communications are fairly reliable and don't cost very much to build into a device, but there are a couple of drawbacks. First, infrared is a "line of sight" technology. For example, you have to point the remote control at the television or DVD player to make things happen. The second drawback is that infrared is almost always a "one to one" technology. You can send data between your desktop computer and your laptop computer, but not your laptop computer and your PDA at the same time.
•  One of the ways Bluetooth devices avoid interfering with other systems is by sending out very weak signals of about 1 milliwatt. By comparison, the most powerful cell phones can transmit a signal of 3 watts. The low power limits the range of a Bluetooth device to about 10 meters (32 feet), cutting the chances of interference between your computer system and your portable telephone or television. Even with the low power, Bluetooth doesn't require line of sight between communicating devices. The walls in your house won't stop a Bluetooth signal, making the standard useful for controlling several devices in different rooms. 
• Bluetooth can connect up to eight devices simultaneously. With all of those devices in the same 10-meter (32-foot) radius, you might think they'd interfere with one another, but it's unlikely. Bluetooth uses a technique called spread-spectrum frequency hopping that makes it rare for more than one device to be transmitting on the same frequency at the same time. In this technique, a device will use 79 individual, randomly chosen frequencies within a designated range, changing from one to another on a regular basis. In the case of Bluetooth, the transmitters change frequencies 1,600 times every second, meaning that more devices can make full use of a limited slice of the radio spectrum.
• When Bluetooth-capable devices come within range of one another, an electronic conversation takes place to determine whether they have data to share or whether one needs to control the other. The user doesn't have to press a button or give a command -- the electronic conversation happens automatically. Once the conversation has occurred, the devices -- whether they're part of a computer system or a stereo -- form a network. Bluetooth systems create a personal-area network (PAN), or piconet, that may fill a room or may encompass no more distance than that between the cell phone on a belt-clip and the headset on your head. Once a piconet is established, the members randomly hop frequencies in unison so they stay in touch with one another and avoid other piconets that may be operating in the same room. Let's check out an example of a Bluetooth-connected system.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/bluetooth2.htm

Week 4 Concept sketches and explanation

Summary of Concept changes
Sixth Scent
Bracelet, with built in sound level meter that also recognizes certain sounds by comunicating with sensors placed in strategic locations. When the sensors picks up on a specific sound they talk to the bracelet that releases fragrance. The bracelet can produce three different scents, each meaning something different.

Scenarios:
E.g. one sensor can be placed near the door bell, and if someone rings the bell, the bracelet releases a small dose of fragrance in to the air. This is very useful for users that are def or def and blind. There are aids made to let def users know the doorbell is ringing, but this is then done through vibration. However this bracelet doesn't have to be directly on the user. Creates a pleasant information system.
The bracelet can also be linked to your computer, letting the user know they've got mail, without being intruding.
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Concept change:
The bracelet contains of three small, pressurized canisters with fragrances. Several combinations of scents can be released. The bracelet also has a Bluetooth chip, batteries and a vibrating component.
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Concept change:

The bracelet contains of four compartments with fragranced gel. Underneath there is a heating element that heats up the gels and releases them when notified by the sensors, through Bluetooth. Furthermore there are batteries and a elastic band holding the structure together around the users wrist. The gels can easily be replaced with refills. The user may chose own scents according to preferences.