3-days Interaction Design Reflections

What is form and how do you develop sensitivity and expressive capacity of form in relation to interaction?

A-) Exploration of Interaction Form 

Introduction :

In this three-day assignment I defined personal goal for myself to balance craft and practice element of design profession as well as fresh up my academical knowledge while practicing coding skill which I acquired from the first semester.

Additionally, I wanted to explore one the my new interest to discover project that I can conduct experiment during this semester. I tried to improve my understanding of definition of form and what is the meaning of aesthetic in IxD to achieve this I focus on physical, temporal and interaction gestalt. I stated this project relying on my industrial design background, I drafted certain narrative for myself I am developing artifact for story involves these key words ( Toy+Home context+emotional development+ behavioral disabilities ). Since this was short term practice I didn’t define my frame and the problem more specifically then my keywords. As usual, I focused my knowledge in gestalt and semantics to accelerate development this artifact. 

Digging Into my late-night thought about IxD/Form

Now let’s articulate about my topic I studied this workshop exploring attention to cuddling. My starting point for this expression was platonic love. I desired to explore what it means to express love without lust and passion. During my quick research I discovered act of cuddling is one of the purest expressions of love and intimacy. I wanted to showcase behavioral pattern to invite someone to cuddle with the artifact by using indicator and intensity level. During this experiment I follow direct approach of Interaction Design to evolve emotional attachment to the artifact and motivate user to perform the actions ramification to the artifact.

Some the learnings are becoming part of my design sensibility in IxD such as creation of tangible experience to obtain embodiment felling. 

After constructing my thought with sketching, I decided to create abstract representation of CMF attributes of product I was envisioning. As quickly as possible I organized and conducted material experiments with fabric material and silicone material. I was intrigued by softness and transparency of silicone material and characteristics properties of fabric material. How it allows designer to take away coldness of technology and fabric material was exceling choose because it is metaphor fur of the animal, it is semantically inviting to touch cuddle and wrap around yourself ( Imagine warm blanket from your childhood which you always carry it around yourself) . Moreover, we can rely on fabric capacities to transform heat. I replaced heat sensor under the fabric material to experiment inherent feedback with heat/touch indicator …

Due to limited time period, I defined my vison for the physical form quickly base on the key sketches form concept develop stage.( Which wasn’t longer than 4 hour ?? )

 To demonstrate my ideas I wanted to construct quick mockup which was abstract form the key sketch the key idea is that, I am going to use this mockup and probs to invite people into conversation to discuss what is the meaning form in interaction design how we can achieve dynamic form.

 I would say organic, flued, funky and playful words can describe the form from the perspective of industrial design, but we are interaction designer and we go beyond these definitions. This is one for the intriguing factor for me to learn in this program.

I explore certain body posture positions to express various behavior and personality of artifact.  I quickly realize that I should observe animal/human behaver (How dog pose right before they want to jump on your lap? How might your partner approach you when they are sitting next to you). Also, from academical materials, I learned meaning of dynamic design in IxD which is included consideration of involving behavior of  the product going beyond orthodox industrial design approach.

I manipulated body attuites of animals and partners to imply certain interactions. Also, I followed well know gestalt regulations and guidelines to obtain the form which is not off putting for user. Now, Let go explore more what is form for me in IXD!

 For me , Ixd professional constructed on two main pillars which are  interaction and communication . These factors evolve to design experience between user and product. As a designers, we should create concept which involves tactile sensation and embodiment feeling while considering norm surrounding, keeping in inclusive design mentality and UN sustainability goals in mind .

In this project, I aimed to achieve limitless action possibilities, additionally I have gotten vast inspiration from anthropomorphism and zoomorphic to explore various notion of interaction design. I have slight obsession with feed forward and inherited feedback, I didn’t had the to mature this interaction sequence so far, but I wanted to achieve enriching dynamic between feed forward and inherited feedback. To obtain high level aesthetics in interaction design. 

Sneak peek into my progress

I especially gotten inspiration from ring box and coffee machine example presented in Exploring Relationships Between Interaction Attributes and Experience additionally in the same article they presented vocabulary to articulate from in interaction design I especially find this section useful for my future projects. I wanted to create form which can be defined as slow I aimed to motivate user to invest time into artifact to develop relationship between product and artifact. For the various attitude I aimed to create fast form. I tried to corporate fluent and organic form where there are freedom of several experiences for various possibilities in different context and story. For me, diverging is great word to express form study I conducted during this workshop. Additionally, I aimed to achieve spatial proximity while giving opportunities for direct interactions. Of course, I focused on mapping of interaction specifically dynamic and modality and expression rest of the subtitle pushed to side because of limited time. I tried to combine various modalities; haptic/behavers/light/vibration/heat. I translated between various modalities to showcase different indicator and produces various inherited feedback. For example, combination of vibration and heat to showcase you paid enough attention to artifact if user ignore this and spend time with artifact which is not consensual. User will experience expression I define as go away which is combination behavior pattern (head moment) and red light. Last but not least, Designing Behaviors in Interaction: Using Aesthetic Experience as Mechanism for Design hugely beneficial article for me to learn about what is form and aesthetic qualities in IXD. I would suggest using this article during design studies.

Secondly, I defined form I explored during this workshop positive/peaceful/inviting. I wanted to obtain form which creates curiosity on user to develop meaningful connection. 

If I go into more details with behavior, with Servo motor I wanted to express behavior pattern with numerous level intensity and situations. First series focus on creating awareness about existence of the artifact which indicate I am here and alive messages in really shuttle way. The way head moves and if you don’t pay attention to the artifact afterwards the tail start moving after while moment of head become bit more fast paced tail move up and down to express attitude which is more passive aggressive. In second level, white light will start and demonstrate various indicator to catch user attention and when person comes close to artifact head start following user in really slowly (I call this puppy eye combo) way. Moreover, if you don’t touch the artifact the red alert will go on to create some kind of disturbance in the environment. In situation like this user have to pick up the second module and cuddle to it while stocking fabric material to calm down the artifact the head indicator we show you payed enough attention to product and you had enough cuddling time with the product . About of cuddling time depends on your relationship quality with artifact. I wanted to create artifact which motivate user to have and maintain mature relationship with someone. There are also negative behavior which I describe as eye rolling moment, go away expression and leave me alone … I had some much laughter while developing and improving these behaviors more I had great fun time while I was making this behavior with coding which is one of the new skillets I learned in the course. Unfortunately because of limited time I didn’t have time to conduct user test. It is significant that how we perceive behavior of artifact and what kind of relationship we develop with it . I would love to continue these behavior using performative design methods and embodiment design thinking such SOMA methodologies. 

Too see more of my work : https://mehmeterenozyoldash.squarespace.com/