Week 3.

Intro

The focus for this week is design for human behaviour as an input. The group looked further into the principles of interaction designs. We researched arduino projects on youtube that were in our line of interest. This helped with the initial ideation process for our first project. We thought about the things we had seen and what aspects we liked and disliked.

As a group and as individuals we noticed a change in our approach to designing with technology in mind. We no longer think that we need to try cramming as many technological features into a device as possible. products need to remain simple within the capabilities of the user group. The device may have a million features but the user may only use one because it is simple and familiar. We want to make the user feel like what is going on inside a product is not magic but a simple well thought out setup.

Model Workshop   

The team brainstormed and completing arduino tasks to promote further ideation of our final design outcome. Through brainstorming we came up of more design concepts such as an interactive game that used infrared signaling with two people playing, a skateboard that lights up in the direction the board is turning, a guitar that lights up in a visual display according to the music being played, a luggage protecting device, a children's interactive toy and a visual display on the back of a runner that allowed a crowd to see how hard they were running. We then tried visualising what components to use for each product and then tried testing them out. We found varying degrees of success with each product as we didn't have codes to make each device work.

The group collaborated with the tutors to work on new ideas and rectify design faults in the existing designs. We tried to develop new designs based on testing out different inputs and outputs such as temperature sensors, motors, accelerometers and pressure sensors.

Development

The group developed a concept further during the week. We decided to further the concept of the visual display on an athletes back. We decided to explore the option of a motion detector and an accelerometer. The accelerometer proved to be more appropriate for reading the input of running motion better than a motion sensor. We also wanted to change the device to something more portable and something that could be used as a personal device as well as a device that gave feedback to others.