My reflection on the Interactive Design Process IntroductionI found out allot trough out this model well first and foremost what interaction design is. I found this very interesting as I didn’t realise how much this is linked to most things in our everyday life. I learned how interaction designers look at something, how they see things in a different light they look at every detail, they try to incorporate everyday interactions into a device, a computer system. They try to integrate something you don’t think about as you’re doing it such like walking or driving a car this can be seen in such things like the mouse, you don’t think about moving the mouse, you move to mouse instantly to what you want to select.

Choosing our topicFrom my experience through this design process I found to be very interesting. Although I was adamant about getting into a group for a project as I usually find it easier to work on my own. But from the start of this process I was proved wrong. From the word go I instantly got on with my group and when it came to choosing a topic although hard I felt it very helpful that we could just bounce ideas off each other. The fact that we weren’t given too much time to pick what area we would like to cover was helpful and prepares us for later on because as we learned afterwards this is what it’s like in the real world you can’t just pick an easy topic or something you like to do you will never be given that much a wide topic. I also felt that by picking a certain topic like this was minimising what a person could do but it worked out for the best in the end as I learned there are so many problems to do with waste in event I can’t imagine focusing on the environmental problem and I found it is important to have some direction and focus.

After looking into a few environmental issues we felt that ‘waste free events’ was a unique topic and it was the best idea out of all of ours. I was happy to go with this as at least I have been to allot of events and most of the people I know have gone to event. Plus living on the collage we were sure that this is a problem and is also very apparent in all collages in fact anywhere that hold events.

Research We then had to do allot of research to pin point different problems. Again I was learning all the time. At the start I was more incline to just come up with ideas straight away but I shortly caught on that this is not the way to go about it after learning about the design process of all designers I found the most critical part of everything is research. If research isn’t done correctly it will lead you on a trip to nowhere. Even if you think it’s a brilliant idea this means noting if you haven’t looked into what other people need and what other people want. I found this was very trough for the simple reason that from when we were given the environmental topic I immediately was thinking of final products but when we came up with our final scenarios and prototype I saw it really didn’t compare to what I was thinking and I was away of the mark.

The next stage was getting the ideo method cards. These were very helpfully as firstly it gave me a sense of what interaction designers go trough and how there are so many different ways to go about it. Thankfully we were only given a selected amount from the idea cards. Out of this as a group we picked the most appropriate ones. Firstly we looked through all of them a narrowed it down to the ones in which we could actually carry out. After discussing with our group we selected the most appropriate ones and the ones in which we felt we would gather the most information from. Again these were all very unfamiliar to me as I was not used to any research.

Ideo method card

We then talked through each research method and we planned who was going to do what and who actually had the best opportunity to get information for example Killian knew a band member and was able to get an interview with him. With the rest of the methods we mainly did it together in groups. Once we had collected all the research we got together and defused it all we took at look at what problems people and organisers see if any. We also had a look to see the main problems. We also took at look at what kind of posters are out there and wanted to see what attract people to the posters. We then had a look at the solutions to each problem and we worked these solutions into certain ideas we had.

Developing our ideasWe then started talking about the ideas in which we had. We each had a certain few ideas in mind from our research and we evaluated and gave each other feedback. We also shared our idea with the class and our lecturer. I found this very helpful as we learned what we could do to improve our idea and what the problems with our ideas were. It also helped me open my mind up more as I started out with very simple and basic ideas but toward the end I started thinking about more of the details. As we continued on we taught it best to take our discussed idea and just come up with more details on and how it would work. For our idea with a desktop notice board I found it harder to actually explain how this would work it was all in my head so I felt it was a better idea to draw my idea and properly show what was going on in my head.

This was not necessary for everyone but as I have learned this is a very good way of getting ideas as when you put them all on paper it is much clearer and it gives you some sense weather the idea is going to work. I was also happy to find out allot of interaction designer do this especially in groups as you might be able to see this idea perfectly but I have learned once it’s out of your head it will make or break an idea because if you can’t put this down on paper you know you will struggle to bring this idea to life.

Desktop Notice board:

Once we had our final few ideas out there, there was some trouble picking out the best idea as each one of use felt our idea was the best. But we then figured out we all had to compromise we decided to incorporate some of everyone’s ideas into the final project like my interface but the rest of the groups concepts were all joined. We also took a look at the brief so we said we wanted something fun that would involve allot of interaction with the user.

StoryboardWe then continued onto the storyboard after we had or scenario figured out and developed. After looking at a few different types of storyboards we got together and developed our final scenario. We then talked about what was the best way to do it. We knew this was important because this would set us up for the video prototype. I felt the design of the robot was the hardest part but the other people in my group had a good image of what it already looked like so we looked at the design and just added some details to it. I learned that a story board is very important in the deign process. A storyboard must be clear, it is the first representative of your idea and if the storyboard doesn’t communicate the right idea it won’t be able to go any further. So in the end we decide to have a more animated story board to communicate a fun concept but we also wanted to show our design of the robot and how exactly this would work. After much discussion and drawing it we decided that another teammate would do the final drawing as it was an obvious decision as they were the best at drawing this prototype.

Video PrototypeThe next step in the design process was the video prototype I was looking forward to this part sense the start as I enjoyed the thought of film making and it was always something I wanted to try although very stressfully it felt well worth it once we had it finished, all our research had paid off and came together. From learning about the design process I knew this was a very important part of the project so we looked at many different ways of doing it from freeze frame videos to animations and ones that used actual actors. For this video we took the original design from the story board and started making our prototypes from cardboard. We also had to discuse where and when we would do this. We then decied to create an interface for the video I felt it a good idea to do this was trough multiple slides in power point to give the effect and how this scenario would work.

While shooting this video we felt it hard to keep in time as we would always run out of time and it looked different on the video. It was also hard to do the freeze frame shots as it was hard to get a background the exact same so we had to wait so knowbody would pass as they would show up in one frame and disappear in the other. So we had to get the proper illusion of movement. As we continued on this design process we figured out that we had alot of trouble when it cane to eiditing firstly getting the video type in the right video format. We then used the simply windows movie maker as this is simple to use and is available in most computers. Although a few problems arose I felt that this experience was allot of fun and especially gave a sense of how hard it is to design an actual product and represent it the way you want.

Power Point slides for out interface