We were asked to find five objects that represented each element of our senses. These are the ones I found in my room:
Sight
A gift from a friend; when you look inside the hole at different angles, the light reflecting on the crystals change.
Smell
Scented cones (smells like roses).
Touch
A pva piece of blog that hardened when I accidentily spilt it on my table. It feels really smooth and sharp around the edges.
Taste
Sound
Friday tutorial: 15-07-11
Brought three interactive objects that I could find in my room to the tutorial for analysis.
My fan:
A recorder:
One of those lights from the police people:
From the analysis of the objects, found that these objects involved two or more senses: The fan had visuals, sounds and indirect contact with skin when used for example. Looking at other objects around our tutorial group, I recall quite a few of them interacted with more than one sense and that we had to consider why did this. Why they designed the objects in such a way to interact with our senses.
Tuesday tutorial: 19-07-11
Morphological box generating ideas:
Brain storm to generate more ideas:
[three] Concepts for the interactive object (sensation).
Friday tutorial: 22-07-11
Selected the smell concept (number three) and tested it out. Turns out that the idea may be too complex for such an intricate sense. The sense of smell is about distinguishing what you know, and having smells that smell similar (roses and flowers) are too confusing. In the maze, the route, once the starting was found (also too complex) was easily found and the sense of smell was no longer required. This defeated the purpose of the sense of smell.
The idea of experimenting with our sense of smell was later abandoned because on reflection, it wasn't really going anywhere and I needed something more concrete; an idea that I could work with and improve on so I filled out the morphological box completely (which had been a working progress) to get more. One concept stuck in my mind.
Before Monday Lecture: 15-07-11
--->Part A: Project proposal
Detailed, self-explanatory storyboard on A3 paper.
Written description of plan to do, how you are going to do it, what type of experience should the user get and why it is going to be exciting for the user.
Instruction
Without lifting the cover of the paper, put hand (preferably the non-writing one if you are left-handed) underneath the sheet to feel the shapes. The four templates are separated and marked by the black lines and numbers.
Tuesday tutorial: 19-07-11
Morphological box generating ideas:
Brain storm to generate more ideas:
[three] Concepts for the interactive object (sensation).
Friday tutorial: 22-07-11
Selected the smell concept (number three) and tested it out. Turns out that the idea may be too complex for such an intricate sense. The sense of smell is about distinguishing what you know, and having smells that smell similar (roses and flowers) are too confusing. In the maze, the route, once the starting was found (also too complex) was easily found and the sense of smell was no longer required. This defeated the purpose of the sense of smell.
The idea of experimenting with our sense of smell was later abandoned because on reflection, it wasn't really going anywhere and I needed something more concrete; an idea that I could work with and improve on so I filled out the morphological box completely (which had been a working progress) to get more. One concept stuck in my mind.
Before Monday Lecture: 15-07-11
--->Part A: Project proposal
Detailed, self-explanatory storyboard on A3 paper.
Written description of plan to do, how you are going to do it, what type of experience should the user get and why it is going to be exciting for the user.
Over the next two weeks from 1-08-11
I began experiment with paper to test out my initial idea of using layers to create a sense of depth and perception. It was quite tedious and time-consuming. Not to mention, a lot of paper was required.
I tried using black cardboard instead and found that although a bit thin, the perception of shape was cleaner, and simpler to understand.
I made some more test templates just to experiment with the card and normal paper as a confirmation that paper was not solid enough. As confirmed, the harder material was better.
I played around with some more texture making on the card to see what kind of engravings or mark-making from my craft knife could create.
Taking what I've learnt from these tests, I created a prototype that would have a series (3) of templates with shapes where the user would feel and each time they went through the sheets, would get an idea of drawing an image. Each template would have a different aspect of the image, in this case a fish, so the user would be building on that image while they progressed.
Test samples from the above one:
I tested this out on some people and found that to my disappointment it seemed to complex for them to understand and get; the idea was completely out because their sense of touch was concerned with individualizing each layer as a separate one to the next. As this was supposed to be a unique experience, I did not want to give too much away, so unfortunately it failed.
Looking over what all my experimenting showed me, I used some symbols in my project (some that may be familiar) and created them out of foam board. From one of my tests, my tester said that the cardboard wasn't thick enough and so with the fish one especially it was distracting and too intricate to feel each and every bump.
Example of the top left template.
--->Part B: Written Description
Xie Katie
Drawing by Touch
This project is an experiment to test the human sense of touch. The idea is to visualize what you feel without looking at it directly, and if your sense of touch is as good as you think it is, then you should have no problem passing the four templates. That is how we theorize it, but here putting this theory into reality really challenges the sense of touch. In my investigation I found that this idea was quite interesting because when I tested it, certain people found it irritating that they couldn’t get a feel for the shapes right (for some it was a little amusing) which I liked because it put in perspective how much we really relied on our sight to make many judgments about the world. So the experiment itself going through four levels of difficulty is to challenge and provoke some reaction out of the user.
Instruction
Without lifting the cover of the paper, put hand (preferably the non-writing one if you are left-handed) underneath the sheet to feel the shapes. The four templates are separated and marked by the black lines and numbers.
Try to visualize what you feel and draw on the paper provided.
(5) Images showing object
