Sampling the real world Gunnar Stevens Human Computer Interaction University of Siegen, Germany #3b

Agenda ‣ Scribble sketching ‣ Sampling with camera ‣ Collecting images and clippings ‣ Physical collections 2

Scribble sketching ‣ Scribbling ‣ Drawing very quickly ‣ Less attention to the detail ‣ Very low fidelity ‣ Scribbling sketching ‣ Focusing on the essence of the idea to capture ‣ Sacrificing all other details 3

Capturing ideas in existing systems ‣ Exercise 1.Look at the screen shot 2.Create a scribble in 30 sec that captures a primary idea (e.g. the structural layout) 4

Capturing ideas in existing systems ‣ What details should included? ‣ What details should abstracted? ‣ What should left out? 5

Crude reminders ‣ A beauty of scribble sketches is that one could create them anywhere, anytime to have crude reminders of ideas that could come anywhere, anytime ‣ Example ‣ Scribble sketch of a futuristic control room created while watching Avatar ‣ Many lines are on the wrong place ‣ Yet, good enough to remind the idea later 6

Practicing scribble sketching ‣ Method 1 ‣ Choose an applications, look on it and try to capture the essence of one idea of the application in 30 sec. Repeat this with other ideas of the same applications and with other applications ‣ Method 2 ‣ Search on YouTube or other places examples of innovative interfaces. Watch them and scribble as many ideas that capture your interest without pausing the video ‣ ‣ Method 3 ‣ Redo Method 2, but without looking on the paper (trick: don’t move your hand around) 7

PHOTO SAMPLING Sampling the real world 8

Sampling the real world Becoming a hunter and gatherer ‣ Creating an repository that inform and inspire design ‣ Using (digital) cameras to capture the world around you ‣ Capturing trigger moments ‣ Capturing what you notice ‣ the positive and the negative ‣ could be anything – a color, an action, a sound, a mood … ‣ could be anywhere – going to work, sitting a bar, … 9

Sampling objects that irritates Why sampling irritating stuff ‣ Part of becoming a good designer, is to become a good design critic ‣ Identify inspiring design – and could explain the what and why ‣ Identify inadequate design– and could explain the what and why ‣ Find irritating design and try to explain, sensitize you to spot on the world from a designer view 10

Sampling objects that irritates Elevator Open and Close Button 11

Sampling objects that irritates Automatic door opener 12

Sampling objects that irritates Self-Serve Department Store Checkout 13

Sampling objects that irritates Self-Serve Department Store Checkout 14

Sampling objects that irritates Self-Serve Department Store Checkout 15

Sampling compelling designs ‣ Take pictures, notes, etc. of design of what you will be found great pieces of work ‣ Explain the what and the why ‣ Getting more consciousness about ‣ possible strategies to solve a problem ‣ your own taste and style 16

Sampling compelling designs Magic power cord connector 17

Sampling compelling designs Most visited pages 18 Why only for the Google Chrome, not for example for the MS File explorer?

Sampling things that inspires ‣ Take pictures of objects and situations that tweaked your mind in some way 19

Sampling things that inspires ‣ Enrich one of your photo samples by taking the idea and find 20 samples that follow the idea 20 A guess of the trigger idea could be?

Sampling things that inspires ‣ Taken the camera and ask a question with it. 21 e.g., how to use fog as material to design light?

Summery ‣ Lessons learned 1.Photo sampling can provide a rich source of ideas 2.Some of these hold clues about what to avoid, other gives inspiration, or clues to solve a problem 3.Photo sampling is a good practice for observing the world around us ‣ Tips ‣ Make Photo-Sampling to a habit ‣ Take 20 photos a day for the next week that capture designs and situations that irritate you, inspire you, or just pique your interest ‣ Make a found design blog ‣ A good strategy to make the habit sustainable is to create a blog shows off photos (or sketches) of found things. ‣ Make a choose from your quantity oriented sampling and turn it to quality ‣ Train your design critique, add the what and the why 22

You are a hunter – pay attention to the world around you Both the positive and the negative are useful You are a gatherer – collecting what you find will enrich your sketching process You do not have to be sure – if something made you notice: collect it 23

Developing your collection ‣ If your collection is growing, you also need to develop a habits about how you store your collections ‣ Common ways for storing collections ‣ On the computer ‣ In shoe box or physical folders ‣ In a Sketchbook or Scrapbook 24

Developing your collection On the computer ‣ Since today almost images are digital, the computer seems to be the natural place to store them ‣ Yet, some drawbacks ‣ Easy to store, easy to forget ‣ Simple file folders does not support annotations ‣ Using digital sketchbooks like MS One note 25

Developing your collection In Shoe Boxes or Physical File Folders ‣ Make a printed copies the images in a shoe box ‣ Some features ‣ Maintain a loosely organized, medium sized collection ‣ Printing copies is typically accompanied with the task of reduction ‣ Quick and easy way to store image collections ‣ Yet, less quick and easy way to access them 26

Developing your collection In Sketchbooks or Scrapbooks ‣ Collect images in the sketchbook or maintain a separate scrapbooks as visual journals of the found images ‣ Cut out exactly the part of the image that interests you ‣ Paste it into the book ‣ Add graphical and textual annotations if needed ‣ where the images come from ‣ what and why is the interesting issue ‣ which part you like/dislike ‣ Draw/write directly on the image if needed ‣ Include any thoughts/ideas you have 27

Developing your collection In Sketchbooks or Scrapbooks ‣ Try to add to it daily to make it to a visual journal ‣ Beneficial features ‣ The simple act of printing, cutting and pasting often involves a deeper study of the image, including exactly why you would like to look at it again ‣ Any annotations – no matter how simple – will be very rewarding in the future ‣ Reviewing images is easy, especially if it is part of the sketchbook you carrying with you 28

Sketchbooks as visual journals Examples of collections 29 Page contains an image showing three colored rectangles atop of the photo. The designer use it to captures the idea by layering translucently colored information, where annotations are included in the layers

Sketchbooks as visual journals Examples of collections 30 Further use the annotated layering idea to sketch the problem-solution pair she working on

Sketchbooks as visual journals Examples of collections 31 Paste of two screenshots of a data flow visualization. For the person, these images inspired a new research project

Sketchbooks as visual journals Examples of collections 32 Assembling of images from the body of related research work Annotations highlight important aspects of these images

Sketchbooks as visual journals Examples of collections 33 Scans from a book Note: While scans ensures a high reproduction quality, for the sketching purpose often digital camera pictures are sufficient

Summery ‣ Lessons learned ‣ Hunting and gathering is a continual activity ‣ Any image you encounter in your work and/or leisure activities are of possible interest ‣ Develop your own collection and organization habit ‣ You know it works, if it encourage you to constantly hunt and gather materials, and if you review those materials regulary ‣ Collection references ‣ Usability bloopers.html bloopers.html ‣ Information aesthetics – where form follows data infosthetics.com infosthetics.com ‣ Visual complexity

COLLECTING PHYSICAL STUFF Toyboxes and physical collections 35

Hunting and gathering physical objects ‣ The world and our embodied experience, full of inspirational physical objects having ‣ shape, ‣ form, ‣ texture ‣ Collect physical objects, ‣ Work out new ideas ‣ Re-work existing ones ‣ Provides a context to inform and enrich design ‣ Deconstruct objects into component parts ‣ to understand, how the work together ‣ Reassemble them in new ways ‣ To explore design possibilities ‣ Physical objects ‣ could serves as sketches to demonstrate ideas and concepts ‣ could be label and annotated analogue to drawing and photo sampling 36

Collecting objects as idea triggers Design inspiration 37

Collecting objects to build with Favorite kindergarten supplies 38

Collecting objects to build with Office supplies 39

Collecting objects to build with Electronic components for making computer-controllable hardware 40

Collecting objects to build with Tools for making physical things 41

Collecting objects to build with Reuse and recycle 42

Cardbox box 43 Similar to shoe boxes: quick and easy to store difficult to access

Desk drawer 44 Provide more opportunities to organize objects Yet, difficult to transport the whole or parts of the collection (e.g. to bring objects into a meeting) Non-visibility of non-used objects creates the danger to forgot them

More durable container makes your externalized memory more robust 45

Tool cabinet 46

Visual display cabinets 47

Next Class Topics ‣ Next Topic ‣ Ideation techniques ‣ Exercises ‣ 3 sketches by next ‣ Be continued: Apply the 10 plus 10 method within your group to your design project 48