Research Project 1: Future You
This project impressed me when the first time I saw it online. I think it’s successful because not only it is highly interactive, but it creates a long term engagement with the users as the reflection evolves over time with more sophisticated and sensitive movements. And it’s also straightfoward in use. Users stand in front of it, see it moves in reflect of themselves, and thet know how it works.
Research Project 2: Liguid Midi
I think this is very innovative. They focus on the sense of listening combining with a user interface on textile. People can control sound and music when interacting with the piece of fabric. They explore a different possibility of using experience.
From the beginning of the semester, we have defined what interaction is. “Interaction is a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think and speak”, according to Chris Crawford in his book “The Art of interactive design : a euphonious and illuminating guide to building successful software” (5). During an interaction, there should be a communication between at least two subjects.
As we made through our way to Group Project and Midterm Project, I realize that a successful interactive design is intuitive in using. When users first meet it, they can make sense of it little by little, like infant does, when interacting with it. Ernest Edmonds explained in his article that it is our intuition to “find patterns” to make sense of the environment. We are born with the ability and habit to ask ourselves “If I do this and that, will the world do some particular other thing?”, as Edmonds continues. Thus in a spontaneous interaction, there is no need for complicated instructions, and users can start engaging with the communication naturally. A very good example is the project above “Future You”. Participants can easily figure out if they move, the character on the screen moves too. And they figure out that it is their reflection.
Another thing I found inspiring in Edmonds’s article is the long-term engagement in interaction art. Instead of a short time reaction to attract users, the interactive experience evolves as time goes by. What we did in the class project focus more on the present feeling. A successful design like “Future You”, the movement and shape develop over time that prolongs the engagement of the participants, because they can see the change in complexity of the reflection when they stay for another few minutes.
Works Cited
Crawford, Chris. “What Exactly Is Interactivity.” The Art of interactive design : a euphonious and illuminating guide to building successful software, No Starch Press, 2003, pp. 1-7.
Edmonds, Ernest. “Art, Interaction and Engagement.” The art of interaction : what HCI can learn from interactive art, Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2018.
“Liquid MIDI: paper goes electronic to create unique controls and sounds.” Designboom, 20 July 2015, https://www.designboom.com/technology/ejtech-liquid-midi-07-20-2015/.
“Universal Everything Creates Interactive Digital Installation for Barbican.” Dexigner, 24 May 2019, https://www.dexigner.com/news/32131.
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