The Persuasion Project

The last mini-project is inspired by the work of B.J. Fogg and his colleagues at Berkeley. This in turn draws on the work of Robert Cialdini, whose work is always of interest to students, as it is so relevant to ordinary everyday life. Apparently he's the most cited social psychologist in the world. But then he would tell us that,wouldn't he? That's social validation at work :-)

We looked at IBIS-like design rationale systems as a way so structuring the design thinking for this project. These have been an interest every since James Goodlet and I worked on the SussexIBIS system many many years ago.

Tomorrow we're going to do some quick and dirty acceptability evaluation, using the Microsoft Product Reaction Card method, developed by Benedek and Miner.

Back in Austria

We started the second section of the course today, with four excellent presentations of the ideas the students had been developing with the Ubiquitous Computing theme. More details later.

Mini-project 2

The second mini-project involved generating ideas for adding interactivity to children's toys. We talked a bit about whether children shouldn't just be left alone to simply play with real physical objects without being assailed by computing technology. I think we're all in favour of the simple option, but the students were willing to suspend their disbelief and developed some creative ideas about different sorts of toys, which they described in an "elevator pitch" style.

The inspiration for this brief comes from the work at ETH Zurich on an augmented medieval castle, the AKC project, which uses PlayMobil figures and buildings to create genuinely interesting interactivity. The project is described here. AKC seems to have been the starting point for an interesting project, Designing Tangibles for Learning, at the London Knowledge Lab.

On our way

We're now in Day Two of the actual course, with 16 students of Computer Science and Information Management. We've been working on the Info@home project, which invites students to develop solutions to the information and communication challengess of modern households.

What's the course about?

This is a version of my favourite module at the University of Brighton, where it's taught to students on the Digital Media Development degree, using the university's Creativity Centre. It's inspired by a course that used to be taught by Terry Winograd at Stanford University's Institute of Design, whose newsletter is here.

The official details:
Current Topics in Interactive Systems: Creative Design for Mobile Applications and Services
Aims
The aim of this course is to give students practice in the processes involved in designing novel interactive systems, particularly mobile, wearable and context-aware systems, and to introduce them to new developments in design methodology. Working on small-scale group projects in intensive mode, students will experience a range of techniques for creative idea generation, evaluation, prototyping and presentation, in the context of ubiquitous computing. NOTE: there is no requirement for development or implementation of working systems in this course.

Topics

• design methods
• creative requirements gathering, e.g. observation
• creative design techniques, e.g. brainstorming, synectics, goal-oriented approaches, theory-led design
• design rationale
• rapid prototyping
• representation in design, e.g. posters, drama, formal presentations
• design patterns
• communication in design process
• ubiquitous computing
• context awareness and adaptivity
• persuasive systems

Learning Objectives
By the end of the module the students should be able to:

• describe a range of methods used in interaction design
• frame design problems and discover solutions
• reason about potential solutions in a structured way
• present design ideas employing a range of methods
• defend design decisions to peers and teachers
• have an informed opinion on the current debates in the area

Methodology
This is an activity-based course with a minimum of lecturing. We will introduce basic design skills such as brain-storming, synectics and quick mock-ups, together with more focused interaction design methods such as dramatic scenarios and rapid prototyping. Some approaches will be introduced via short workshop exercises. However, the bulk of the course will be spent on group design projects to which students will apply the methods they have learned, presenting their resulting designs to their peers in a range of presentation formats.

Assessment
An individual piece of coursework in two parts: 1) a reflective record of the course and b) an individual project with reflective report

The course will involve students in four practical design exercises. Students will be required to keep a log of their work on these projects throughout the course and 50% of their grade will be based on the quantity and diversity of ideas captured in this log. The remaining 50% of the assessment will be based on an agreed project of their own devising.

What's this?

This is a bit of an experiment to see how useful a shared space might be in planning, running and participating in my module on creative design, to be run for computing students at the University of Klagenfurt this Spring. I'll put up information about the course and invite students to comment. As the course has two parts, one in April, the other in May, leaving several weeks when I'll be in the UK and the students in Austria, it should be a useful way of keeping in touch.