So, designer community relies very much on sketching their concept and developing it. Personally as a designer, i also agree with it. Sketching elaborates your thinking, helps you to visualize your concept and improve upon it. But if we talk specifically about interaction design, there is another term which is perhaps much more important than a normal sketching, is “sketching hardware/sketching electronics”. If we see projects/case studies, interaction design deals very much with the technology (or my opinion is, interaction design can not be imagined without technology). In recent years, prototyping/sketching hardware/sketching electronics has become a very important part of interaction design process. For interaction designers, i feel sketching hardware is essential to prototype concept and evaluate it. It is said that “thinking too much can be more damaging than building too much”. If we see companies like IDEO, Frog Design, Droog Design etc. they have specifically hired people for prototyping, which is very much essential to learn for interaction design students also. Recently i read an article on core77 about sketching hardware, which is worth sharing here.

image courtesy: mediamatic lab, amsterdam

Imagine yourself in a completely unknown place and you are looking for someone to meet. You take out your mobile phone, start GPS.. but GPS does not work because of not being into open place. Then you start your browser, wait for network to select, type in “google maps.com” but unfortunately network signal is weak, that option is also gone. Imagine the same situation becoming worst, when your phone does not even have GPS/internet facility to run google maps, what to do..where to go?

Here we are.. “2D barcode based information and navigation system”

Not only navigation but also information system using 2D barcode (like QR code, semacode, maxicode etc) designed and prototyped by Keyur Sorathia(Interaction Designer) & Dhairya Dand(Computer Science Expert). A research project exploring new possibilities on contextual navigation & information using almost any camera mobile phone and with just 50 paise print out.

Here, the scenario tries to explain every aspect of it, still we are mentioning some important points needs to be considered.

If we explain the process in simple steps:

start reader >> triggers your camera >> automatically fetches the data & shows on mobile screen

Some more points that are not mentioned in the scenario:

• Technology is designed in such a way that, unlimited data can be stored and displayed
• Detailed contextual information is displayed which never happens in GPS / google maps
• Information can be displayed using all media of videos, images and text.
• The system can be placed and used in any place
• It requires only step interaction to call, send SMS, view website & mail

Currently we have a low fidelity prototype using Nokia N95 and looking forward to make a working prototype using other mobile phones.

Waiting for the comments

Though earlier i had posted some images of future search in my other blog “design for day after tomorrow“, but i thought i will post some ideas here also. Interesting ideas have been presented and i am really looking for to see that in near future.

Hope you will like it. Cheers!!

Since a long i was thinking to launch my website, which finally happened. I have launched my website www.towardsbetterinteraction.com showing some of my work, my interest areas, my hobbies, about my activities of what i am reading, which project i am looking at, my del.icio.us and my social network. Currently it is still in construction, but most of the part is working.

It would be interesting to see your feedback and some sugesstions.

Bill Moggridge received lifetime achievement award this year on 10th National Design Awards. I have not been to all his work, but i appreciate some of his work specially first laptop computer and for sure which interaction designer have not read Designing Interactions.

“Bill Moggridge is a co-founder of IDEO, a global design consultancy, creating impact through design. A Royal Designer for Industry, Moggridge designed the world’s first laptop computer. He pioneered interaction design and is one of the first people to integrate human factors into the design of software and hardware. He has been a trustee of the Design Museum; visiting professor in interaction design at the Royal College of Art in London, lecturer in Design at the London Business School and a member of the Steering Committee for the Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, Italy. He is currently consulting associate professor in the design program at Stanford University. His book, DVD and Web site “Designing Interactions” tell the story of how interaction design is transforming our daily lives. “

During my masters, course focused on several interesting design domains like designing for the quality of experience, physical computing, interactive installation & new modes of interaction. I was looking at some projects i did during my masters, so thought it would be good idea to show project name “come fly with us” which i did with Shadi Lahham & Soey.

It is a bunch of several car & bike games which were focused on new ways to interact. A gesture based game allowed people to move their cares & bikes on right side by moving right & left side by moving left. As more you jump, the car or bike gets accelerated. In addition to this, google earth was also installed which helped to navigate through google earth in an interactive way. TO move right on google earth, widen up your right hand, to zoom in-move it down, to zoom out-move it up. Similar way for left side.

Comments please!!

As a part of mediamatic RFID hackers camp, RFID photobooth was created during Picnic conference. The photo booth team consisted of Timo Arnall, Anne Helmond, Jorn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen. The idea was to create something that brought people together both in a physical activity and in an online social network.

“A photo booth that encourages people to take photos of themselves with others. By waving multiple tags over a touchpoint inside the booth, a photo is taken, a connection is made and pictures are added to the Picnic website”

A large white box was constructed, with a picnic-themed grassy interior that allowed up to about 10 people to have their photo taken at once. Inside there was an RFID reader, a camera and a screen that would show what was being recorded, as well as showing a countdown for picture taking. Outside a large LCD screen showed recent and random pictures from the booth, encouraging participation. By touching your tag to a reader outside, you could see pictures of yourself.

Photos from the booth were also uploaded to Flickr and tagged with the people’s first name (see for example all the photos taken of me and the tag cloud of the names and IDs of people who used the booth most). This realtime Flickr stream appeared on the outside of the booth, where people stood around watching their recent creations, as well as seeing random photos where they or their friends appeared.

Students of interaction design from IDC-IIT Bombay are currently working on the theme of preservation. One of the group has taken the topic of “preserving Indianness”. They have come up some interesting points (can be seen in the image below) and specially the way the mindmap is drawn. Another group is working on “preserving first love”, again an interesting topic to work on.

Unfortunately they do not have a blog/website where they can showcase their brainstroming, mindmaping, ideas etc.

Currently i am working on a project of developing mobile application on “sharing” in conjunction with IIT Bombay & Nokia. We have developed a prototype of designed application which i am sharing with you. The application is focused on

1. location sharing

2. media content sharing (like images, videos & music)

3. activity sharing – share what you do.

through a complete new interface of phonebook. The idea is to share above mentioned contents to your phonebook contacts. These contents are accessed through a 3D phonebook which is shown below. This application is a touch screen application.

Above images show developed 3D phonebook and my contacts. User can rotate the phonebook and customize it according to her priority. For example, user wants frequent call list to show first, she can customize it. In the images, ever horizontal circle represents a group of contacts & user can view the contact list through alphabetical order also through “option” menu.

When i tap on any contact, application shows me different option (top & then clockwise)

1. message    2. address    3.email     4.call     5. share     6. my access    7.more

Message, address, email & call are understood.

Share:

“Share” helps user to share her media contents with any contact. user can share music, images & videos to specific contact or with the entire group of contact.

My Access:

“My Access” is a complete new feature we have introduce. Here, user can go inside any contact and pick up some content. For example, i can go to any contact, go inside his phonebook/music/video etc. and take desired content if contact allows.

More:

“More” helps user to see more information about the contact. Similar way, if user taps twice on the image, application gives more information about the contact. like first name, last name, mobile number, job title, company, birthdate and many more.

Location Sharing:

Location sharing helps user to see her contact’s real time location & permenant address if the contact permits. User can directly chat to the contact from this application itself. It also shows different routes from user’s location to contact location.

Media Sharing:

User can share her media contents like images, videos and music with either individual contact or a contact group. The second screen shows the list of songs which can be shared. Here user can play the song and then share it if she wants as shown in the interface.

Activity Sharing:

User can share about her activity to all his contacts & groups. Activity shared by user is seen when someone calls her. (shown in the image below). These kind of sharing create a new topic of conversation.

here: “palash is in party mood”

Context aware application:

One important thing this application has is “context aware system”. It helps users to understand the context and act accordingly. For example, if some contact is in a meeting and puts his phone on “meeting” mode, system tells caller about his meeting. On the other hand, when contact becomes free, system notifies user that ” your contact is now free and you can call him.”

Like the above image, system tells user that “Megha is free now, call her”. User can directly tap on the message, which calls her.

There might be some changes in some interfaces. I am looking for some feedback from you guys. Cheers!!

Though i came across this project quite sometime back, but worth mentioning it on my blog. As my interest always tends towards new modes of interaction, this is again something of that sort.

“Siftables aims to enable people to interact with information and media in physical, natural ways that approach interactions with physical objects in our everyday lives. Siftables are independent, compact devices with sensing, graphical display, and wireless communication capabilities. They can be physically manipulated as a group to interact with digital information and media. Siftables can be used to implement any number of gestural interaction languages and HCI applications.”

You can view the video here.

Siftables is developed by David Merrill & Jeevan Kalanithi.