For the preparation for my final project, I did some further research on some previous projects I know about, and also made some reflections on the midterm project I did, based on the suggestions provided by my professor.
The first research is called “MugShots” done by MIT media lab. This project, according to the description provided on the website, “enables visual communication though everyday objects.” It serves different functions through the display embedded in a coffee mug. The second one is called “Long Distance Pillows” published on the “Lasing The Distance” website. The pillow detects the heartrate of a couple when they are sleeping and conveys the rhythm of it to each other. Both of the projects are attractive to me because they implement their design into daily routines, for example, coffee drinking and sleeping. The process of transforming daily activities into information and signals that triggers the whole interactive process is really interesting to me. These are the things that I lack in my midterm project. I think in my work, I will try more to simplify my idea, and focus more on how to combine the artifact with daily routines, to make it more humane and interactive.
As for what contributes to a successful interactive experience, I think first of all, what matters is that there shall be a complete process of receiving, processing and conveying. These components are necessary for an interactive process. I think a good interactive experience would go even further beyond that, which contains two or more subjects involved in it. For example, in the Mugshots, the mug could not only display other users’ sticker and status, but also send yours to the other users. The Long Distance Pillows are also equipped with this kind of feature, in which the couples could feel and react to each other’s heartbeat. Secondly, as what Ernest Edmonds mentions in his article “Art, Interaction and Engagement”, there is a language and a logic in the process of making art. In other words, the form of the design and the logic that we follow, matters really much. We need to consider what is the most proper form of our design, and through what logic should we gradually accomplish a complete project, for example, the Mugshots project chooses to use mug as the carrier rather than other objects. These are all important issues we should be considering carefully when we design our project.