Design Criticism

Experience Prototyping Assignment I502: Prototyping for HCI Jeffrey Bardzell, Ph.D. Spring 2009

Overview For this final assignment, each group will put together a video prototype of a single interactive installation/exhibit at a museum. The installation should be both educational and entertaining, and (of course!) it must be universally accessible.

Process In I502 we have focused on new approaches and lenses for HCI, which provide alternative ways of conceptualizing knowledge and discovery than the rationalist tradition with which most of us are more familiar. These alternative approaches should help us conceive design problems in a different way than we may be initially inclined. For this class (and I suppose grad school in general), process is more valuable than product, so I’d like to specify several components of the process that I would like each team to complete (not necessarily in the following order). •

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Specify the Installation Concept. The group shall come up with a concept for a museum installation. The exact topic is up to the group, and imagine that the budget is between $10,000 and $30,000 (just a ballpark—don’t obsess with numbers or create a budget!). Feel free to explore the links provided in the Inspirations section (below) to get you started, or make up something from scratch. o Tip: The main effort of this assignment will be expended on experience prototyping (including bodystorming and informance, as appropriate) and then devising a video prototype. Therefore, keep your installation concept small and focused; do not kill yourselves by coming up with something super ambitious. Experience disability. You’ve read about it, but for this assignment, I want every member of this class to experience disability. o For each person in the group, group members shall devise a “disability activity” in which one person assumes a disability for one hour. It may also help to come up with a mini-history for this person: her or his age, cause of disability (skiing accident, or deaf since birth, etc), and whatever else seems useful. A second person will facilitate, providing the person with a disability with a series of activities for that hour, also ensuring safety of the person with a disability. A third person will take notes (liberally assisted by the other two, as appropriate).

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o Each person should play each role at least once. o Each person should have a different disability, and at least two (preferably three) categories of disability should be represented: visual, audible, motor, and cognitive. o Once complete, the group shall get together and synthesize the notes, spelling out the major insights and discoveries learned from the experiments. Use metaphor liberally and self-consciously to enable you to express what you experienced when you had a disability. Wax poetic. We have talked about how critical theory (or philosophy) can be a part of a design criticism that leads to design insights. I want you to practice this “critical creativity” in this assignment; that is, I want to see bold experimentalism and free-wheeling imagination. o Metaphors. As a group, brainstorm to come up with many metaphors for interfaces for your design, understanding that the interface(s) need to be universally accessible and provide roughly equivalent (though not necessarily identical) experiences for all who use it. o Cyborgs. Information systems (even museum installations) join together the human and the machine; in doing so, each has to be reconfigured to operate with the other. Think explicitly about how your design might change or reconfigure its human users. Prototype and film. Using whatever materials you deem appropriate (poster board, boxes, paper, magic markers—whatever), prototype your museum installation. Film people using it in such a way that those watching the film will understand the following: o Most groups have someone in them who owns a DV camera; however, some groups do not (we have done our best to create groups accordingly). If your group does not have a camera owner, make arrangements to get a camera ASAP—the main library rents them, and classmates may be willing to lend them, so make your arrangements ASAP! o Your prototype should go through at least two iterations o What visitors will learn when they use this installation o Why this installation is universally accessible o What additional resources (e.g., facilitators, extra space, lifts), if any, will be needed to accommodate a visitor with a disability o For the adventurous, you may use machinima instead of digital video to visualize/prototype the museum piece (you should still use traditional video to record and show your disability experience prototype). Machinima is probably harder, so be sure you know what you are getting into before you try it. But if you are up for the challenge (and want an excuse to get into it), then I encourage all to consider this option—it is so cutting edge it is not even yet on the cutting edge! Prepare the video prototype. Edit the video prototype. o Keep the total production under 8 total minutes. o Rough and somewhat amateur productions are perfectly sufficient for our

needs here; iMovie and other consumer-level equivalents are more than sufficient o Add titles, captions, voice-overs or any other additional features needed to explain or clarify video contents; alternatively, prepare a script that is keyed to the video so someone could explain it to the museum board as it plays. Of course, any combination of these is also acceptable.

Deliverables The true deliverables for this assignment are insight and creative ideas. • • •

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Deliver the video (including script, if appropriate). It must be 8 minutes and 00 seconds or shorter! Use the medium of video to convey your design process—particularly in terms of how the disability portion influenced your final outcome Hand in paper documentation detailing other activities. o These may include journals or scans of journals o These are informal—please do NOT bother to type them up or make them grammatically polished o These should reveal what you did for your experience disability activity as well as what you learned from it o These should reveal your team’s process of thinking through metaphors A 500 word (more or less, but not a lot more or less) individual reflection on your experience prototyping experience. Use very specific examples from your particular disability prototype that lead to your individual insights rather than talking in general terms. These insights do not need to be reflected in your museum prototype directly. This individual reflection is intended to help us understand your design process so we can evaluate your work better. Group will present video in class. Total presentation must be 10 minutes or less.

Grading and Due Date Class presentations (works-in-progress) will be Tuesday and Thursday, April 28 and 30 Final project portfolios are due by Tuesday, May 5st All group members will receive the same grade.

Inspirations Exploratorium (San Francisco, CA) http://www.exploratorium.edu http://www.geocities.com/sfphototour/exploratorium.html Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (Washington, DC) http://www.nasm.si.edu/

Shedd Aquarium (Chicago, IL) http://www.sheddaquarium.org/