Our team worked on a futuristic living room concept based on the persona of Jason: a married twenty-something Taiwanese male, living alone - and away from his wife Janice - while studying in Copenhagen. We discussed and considered technologies that could potentially be available in 20-years to help address Jason’s needs and desires. The living room was designed to help Jason better manage his long-distance relationship, provide ready outlets to his strong technological and gaming interests, and promote his social life in a new city.
Some of the main features of the room were: an interactive window with different widgets designed to the users needs; networked virtual reality video games; and a memory couch that received impressions of people who sat on it and could re-generate those impressions to create the same vibe at a later date using familiar music or lighting.
Although our concepts were somewhat futuristic (and maybe unrealistic) the exercise was fantastic as it allowed us to create full-scale prototypes that we could narrate and walk through, rather than just talking about. It allowed us to see where changes could be made, what ideas were unrealistic and triggered new thinking and ideas around what technology could be used to implement the ideas. Making the cartoon house was a great way to tell a story and explain personas.
Over the course of the week we learnt about different models of interaction design and using notation and metaphors within interaction design. These areas we strongly reiterated by a series of rapid exercises to teach us how to put the theory into practice. Some of the exercises included; using flow diagrams, storyboards and state diagrams to map out user experiences, interactions from physical objects, creating mental models of systems and creating metaphors for different environments. These were very quick exercises that involved a lot of post-its and some quick thinking! All of which have been used in projects since.