EXPERIENTIAL PROTOTYPING: EXAMINING THE DESIGN PROCESS, NARRATIVE AND WORKING MODELS
 
 
A RESEARCH PRELUDE
My foray into this research was a project developed in response to the emerging technological infrastructure of the New Ecology of Systems. Designing for these ecologies is a much different way of problem solving than what designers are normally trained to do. These complex systems consist of devices, software, databases, interfaces and a whole slew of interactions based on social patterns and people's behaviors, turning the way we approach design into a delicate balance of experience, interaction, and form. Designing for these systems requires a more sophisticated approach to design that understands social interactions, networking, integrated systems, communication and potential experiences within a social context, simultaneously. In response, I wrote a (mini)festo stating that the New Ecology of Systems requires a change in the way we think. "Flat to Fat" it reads and takes the form of a book. As it is read, interaction with the book turns the flat pages into three-dimensional form. Much like the added dimensionality of layered thinking that these new ecologies have inspired, the flat book folds into a flower making it a communication technique that combines narrative with interaction, and suggests new ways of thinking through the transition of flat to three-dimensional form.

The next step in the research was to examine the design process of mutliple disciplines to analyze the process of ideation and prototyping. I visited a number of form makers to discussed methods of design for the new ecologies of systems.

 

  
  EXAMINING THE DESIGN PROCESS

A VISIT WITH FORM MAKERS + A DESIGN PROCESS ANALYSIS
A transportation designer, industrial designers, and a sponsorship by Sun Microsystems.

The first design process I researched into was transportation design. It involves products that fit into larger systems and infrustructures; economic, social, and political. Rich (get his last name), a transportation designer, explained that within his practice, a visual representation of the social context of potential users provides clues into the demographics such as what type of jeans they wear, what the objects are that they surround themselves with, and what the overall lifestyle is. It is called a "lifestyle vibe". It provides clues that help determine the approach to form. For example, if the character wears Diesel Jeans or Gap Jeans can determine whether or not the product should look and feel like something that is treasured or if it should be a cuddly companion. In his practice, concept cars are a type of Experiential Prototype that provide tangible clues to inspire forms for production. The concept car is a "blue sky" combination of form, function, and overall experience all wrapped up in a tangible object that can be felt, interacted with and experienced. The form is a result of research into the desires of the people and their context that the device is designed for. The use of the concept car in the design process runs parallel to Experiential Prototyping for interactive systems where it becomes a tool that is a tangible manifestation of research into the demographic of the people who will be using the system. The tool provides the ability to experience the overall system and is then used to inspire form and interfaces within the design team.

How can this use of the concept car be adapted as a method to design for new ecology of systems?

Next, I met with Industrial designers to talk about the process of ideation and how variations of Experiential Prototyping can help make system design more efficient. The first example comes from a meeting I had with a footwear design company. They were in the middle of prototyping a new training system that involved an intelligent shoe, a wrist band, and other devices. We walked down to the model shop where they had assigned three people to sand and refine hard models of each device. While looking at the hard models, I couldn't help but wonder what the experience of the system as a whole would be. Prior to spending the resources to design and develop hard models the prototype could benefit from an evaluation of the experience since each device is part of an ecology of a system.

But how does one begin to analyze an experience?

The next meeting I set up was with an industrial designer who designs hard products. In our meeting, I brought with me a creative brief (design a mobile device within a system), a scenario of an experience and a piece of clay. I then performed the behavioral patterns and interaction needs for each character in context of the overall system by acting it out. The industrial designer I was meeting with grabbed thumbtacks and started squishing them into the clay to indicate where buttons should appear. At one point, my theater-like scenario called for some type of scrolling mechanism. He cut the bottom of a dixie cup and stuck it on the clay to indicate a thumb-based wheel dial.

The concept of using a story-based "activity space" as a technique for ideation constructed a momentary contextualized space in which to examine and experiment with the emerging design system. With the process, we were able to quickly materialize and examine our ideas to discriminate among those design features/functions that were viable within the social context or context of the story. In this case, it led to the addition of a wheel dial on the device resulting from how the device fits into the larger system.

In this case, the story informed the design. Nevertheless, how can the use of story and activity spaces be applied to more complex systems beyond examining form factors toward the experience of the system itself?

Another example of using activity spaces to design systems comes from my participation in a class Sponsored by Sun Microsystems. Sun gave the class new technology that they have developed over the last year, called SunSpots, and told the class to invent uses, situations, interactions, and systems based on the technology. The SunSpots expand the concept of a computing directly into our material world. They are wireless, can be networked, fit in the palm of your hand, and include a kitchen sink of sensors that can help support visions of new interactions within our physical world.

The most effective approach that the designers in the class used were the ones that wrote stories, visualized them, and acted them out in an immersive and experiential way. In some cases, there was no technology involved. Rather, they successfully simulated the potential interactions that the system required before spending the resources to prototype the devices. The demonstrations were extremely effective by being fast, inexpensive and generating dialogue among the team to improve the concept. This put the emphasis on the experience, social patterns and needs of the users rather than the technology itself. It created a dialogue and inspired other ideas within the context of the story that led to potentially deeper and more meaningful interactions within the architecture of the system.

 

  
 
EXAMINING NARRATIVE
After talking with various designers, I examined the use of narrative to inspire solutions for complex and interactive systems within a collaborative design team a little closer. The creative brief I started with was to design a personal communication device as part of a system that enhanced the shopping experience. I began by writing a story about 4 characters whose lives intertwined as they spent the day on Melrose Avenue. They shopped, ate, listened to music, and connected with each other using ubiquitous devices and ambient displays embedded in their clothing and in their environment.

In writing the story, I am making a set of assumptions based on data that I would be collected through ethnographic and user research. Their personas would then be based on the results of the research.

Using the vernacular of comic books and graphic novels, the story is told purely through graphics, with a written story hiding inside the French-folded pages for hints. I then removed any reference to a specific device or display and replaced it with a circular symbol. This put emphasis on the experience that the characters were having within the context of the story rather than the devices themselves. It created “Blank Spaces” for innovation.

It was turned into an inventions kit and sent to a multi-disciplinary design team that I put together to see what this technique inspired in them. The team included product, interaction and media designers, engineers, and even writers.

The experiment resulted in a variety of solutions, all of which overlapped in some way. Collectively, we designed a system based on a personal device that acted as a hub to the environment within the context of the story. The designers said that this technique helped provide the context to design within since the system had the potential of inlcuding an infinite amount of variables. It allowed for the designers to focus on specific features within the system yet left enough room for innovation. The “blank spaces” were key to the success of this experiment.

The key here was to provide a specific context to design within, while leaving enough wiggle-room for surprises and innovation within a multi-disciplinary design team. It was a great exercise and provided some interesting results. One thing that is very intriguing is that more than half of the responses came back with a similar solution to a hand-held device. 100% of the responses focused on personal mobile devices, which was a surprising trend. Another success was that all the disciplines I sent the book to came back with similar responses, which was what I was hoping for. The engineers and writers "invented" similar devices as the interaction and experience designers. All and all, this was a successful approach to getting multi-disciplines on the same page and working toward a similar goal for complex technology-driven product/system design. The Storybook Inventions experiment resulted in a complex system and a product communicated through traditional graphic communication techniques, i.e. a poster that visualized the system and a hard model of the product.

Nevertheless, the experiment resulted in a hard model prototype. This limited the ability to evaluate the viability of our solution as it fits within the larger framework of the system. I wanted to pick it up and experience some of the features in an interactive way to evaluate the viability of our solution. So I the next step was to examine working models using sensors, electronics, and tangible interfaces as ways to "sketch" interactions within larger systems.

  
 
EXAMINING WORKING MODELS
The next examination is with working models that describe a larger system. This project is an interactive installation for multiple Guitar Center locations. The concept covers the entire façade of the store and allows passer-bys to strum a chord by walking past a series of six “strings” or pluck a note by touching one of the “strings”. Each façade is networked between the different locations and allows for people in different locations to play and compose music together.

To demonstrate this, I used materials, cement, lights and acrylic tubing embedded with sensors and electronics to build a working interactive model. I coupled it with an interactive demo to highlight all the features of the system.

The working model provided just enough of the experience, quickly and efficiently, before the final system had been fully resolved. This not only helped to demonstrate the system, but it allowed for an evaluation of how people used it, making it the first instantiation of Experiential Prototype.

  
 
THE NEED FOR A NEW DESIGN METHOD: Experiential Prototyping
When designing new ecologies of systems that encorporate technology, products, and service software, it is necessary to involve additional disciplines in the design process such as engineering, sociology, ethnographic researchers, and experience designers to name a few. Collaboration between these disciplines is key for designing successful solutions. This need for collaboration requires a new design practice to help design teams in the ideation, evaluation, and communication phases of the design process. Experiential Prototyping is one method that is inserted between the design brief and prototyping of the design process. The method guides collaborative teams in concept phases through storytelling and activity spaces and builds an experiential and tangible scenario used for evaluation and communication of our complicated technology-driven world.
  
 
 
 
© 2005. Jennifer Darmour, Media Design MFA Candidate