Week 6.

This week was  all about producing different concept bombs. Most of the concepts produced where either very unusual or extremely similar to those presented in the last presentation. However this was a positive thing because it enabled us to start with a wide variety of ideas and possibilities.  After the concepts were produced we discussed further exploration as a group. This task was quite difficult as we were asked as a group to pick one concept to move forward with before then end of the class.

Iain's Concept Bombs:

Rafe's Concept Bombs:

My Concept Bombs:

After much disscusion we found that the best concept to choose would be the one with the most potential and open possibilities. This way of producing ideas was new to us but once the tutors came to use and explained a few things it help with our development of the concept

The concept that we decided to move forward with belonged to Rafe. It was a toaster with a screen that could help you communicate with another person in another house via there toaster. Even though we found we weren't aloud to have screens or visual displays we found that this concept gave us the best option for further development. We passed around some more ideas to try and make this concept work. We first looked at writing a message on the toaster and then burning the message into the receiving ends toast. We also thought about measuring moods for different people or statistics on who is using what jam or peanut butter on there toast.

The design needed more interaction and metaphors. The use of metaphors make objects more user friendly as they become approachable and highly usable an help users relate them them to other objects or things. When using a metaphor it is neccissary to:
-Use the metaphor to find hidden characteristics of the content
-Fit the metaphor to the content and not the other way around
-Be aware of cultural and contextual properties of metaphor- Choose metaphors that scale appropriately
We then tried drawing up some of the concept designs we had discussed.