PComp Week 01: Readings about Interaction

References

  1. Crawford, The Art of Interactive Design, chapters 1 and 2
  2. Bret Victor, A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design

1. How would you define physical interaction?

My definition of physical interaction: interaction is the communication between two processors (either human or computer) that all have input and output channels, and at least one of the channel should be physical. Like in this picture:

FullSizeRender

2. What makes for good physical interaction?

A good interactivity should, by definition, not miss any of the links and processing ability in this picture. If there is a bad listener/speaker, either human or computer, then at least one of the links will break and their conversation won’t continue. If one of them can’t process or speak or listen at all, they cannot even setup a conversation, or at most, like a man reading a book, there can only be one-way communication. Besides, the interaction should be physical, meaning that activities like people watching and listening, are not physical at all.

And that’s not enough a good physical interactivity. A good interactivity between two processors should be efficient, therefore they should have proper level of listening and speaking that match each other, and both of them should be efficient thinker. Say a person is typing on a computer like what I’m doing now, a good interactivity is based on that I have good eyes and an efficient typing skills, while the computer has a good keyboard and a good screen, and we can well understand each other and both perform our work efficiently.

3.  Are there works from others that you would say are good examples of digital technology that are not interactive?

Looking at the picture above, it is easy to find some digital things that are not interactive.

  • Digital things lack of input channel: traffic light and pedestrians, screen and user.
  • Digital things lack of output channel: keyboard and user, microphone and user.
  • Digital things lack of processor (straight-forward processing): air-conditioner and user. (I should say that it barely think about us at all >_< how cold they are! Why they don’t understand and be a little nicer…)

Visual Language Week 01: Analysis of a Poster Design

poster_design_culture_by_cheren89This is a poster about design culture.

Hierarchy:

  1. The most visible text in this poster is the word Now. Along with it are some smaller white description of the location of the event.
  2. Then comes the title design culture. Along with it are some tiny green words repeatedly saying “design culture” and function as decoration.
  3. The third visually important are the four green names just below the title. Along with them are some tiny white descriptions about them, on top of each name there is a time of event, while below a name there is probably the place a person comes from.
  4. The visually least important are the four detailed descriptions about the four lecturers at the bottom of this poster.

Pros: I think the design is cool because it divides the space with some slanted lines. And it adds some details to each of the four hierarchies, making it more varied and visually interesting.

Cons: The hierarchy could be better. In my point of view, I think the importance of the title should be greater than the word “Now”. And time should be more important than the place where those lectures from, but it’s actually hard to find than the place of this event. Besides, there is some redundancy in the design because the names of the four lectures are stated twice, which in my point of view can create some confusion about the information at first glance, such as you want to find the time of event and look at the bottom because there are lecturers, and thinking they should cover everything about the lecturers and lectures, but found nothing there.

Grid:

grids

  1. Design culTure noW on the letters D, T and W.
  2. Design Culture Now horizontals
  3. The space between four names align with part of the letters of Design and Culture.
  4. Partial 4th dividings at the bottom

Color Pallete

palleteThere is actually only one tune – green, combined with gray scales. There are three variations of grayscales: dark grey, light grey and white. And there are two variations of green: light green and a slight darker green.

Typefaces

NOW

Arial Black

ESIGN

Gill Sans Light from Monotype Gill Sans

location

Sowhat maybe a kind of rounded font like Arial Rounded

Name

The result says it’s FF Zwo OT Bold Italic, but not exactly.

 

ICM week 01 – seven petal flower

I love the number seven, I love stars, I love symmetric patterns.

flowerIMG_1130Symmetry is all about calculation, though. I went through the references and found what I need to do things quick and need. Just started from the logo of p5 and more angles, and I played so high.Screen Shot 2015-09-08 at 1.17.13 PMThen I thought about the seven-petal flower that I used to draw in my childhood, I was so eager to draw it out and found that closed curves can be filled as well, so cool.IMG_1129 2With a little calculation, it turned out to be good, but still a little disappointing.Screen Shot 2015-09-08 at 9.36.24 PMA little stray-away, though 😛Screen Shot 2015-09-08 at 9.20.14 PMAlmost there.Screen Shot 2015-09-08 at 9.46.27 PMFinish.Screen Shot 2015-09-08 at 10.10.19 PM

Portal to see it online

Screen Shot 2015-09-09 at 9.23.39 AM

Another version replacing bezier() with arc()

 

PComp Week 01: iFriend

iFriend

This is the great prototype that we made at PComp week 1.

How can distant friends hug each other? We designed iFriend to realize this dream!

At first, we want to make a touchable hologram of a distant friend. But soon the question appeared: How can you hug a hologram? At best you can see his/her face and body, but we expect MORE than this 😛

So it came to our mind a real avatar to represent you to your distant friend. It is named iFriend!

Yep.

IMG_1092

It is a big white soft robot like Baymax, that you can hug and send your hug to your friend. On iFriend’s head there’s a big screen for you to see your friend’s face and make it more emotional. To recognize your gestures and transmit it to your distant friend, we have two cameras on iFriend’s head, and additional cameras can be added on the wall of a room to improve precision, too. Some more sensors can be added to the robot to send more information like how hard you hug, how warm your hug is, etc.

Designers: To be completed!