This impulse is a continuation (or part 2) of my first post about my visit to the Children’s museum FRida & FreD. For the Gamification Course this semester we visited CoSA and looked at different parts of their exhibition. I talked to a staff member there and was able to find out that they actually work together with the Children’s museum FRida & FreD but have a slightly older target group. It was interesting to see how they approached the same concept of making complex topics tangible through interactive installations for different age groups. This exhibition gave me further insights into tangible information and learning. What was great is that I was able to see and test examples from many different subject areas such as finance, medicine, microbiology, tech (specifically the automotive industry) and STEM topics in general. Especially the STEM topics were something that really peaked my interest. Last semester I made a small prototype about tangible chemistry experiments without needing the actual laboratory.
Looking into more exhibitions was equally inspiring and insightful as I was also able to discover some approaches I didn’t enjoy so much, or thought weren’t conceptually great. The entire finance section for example I found quite boring and upon talking to some of my colleagues I discovered that they felt the same way. While some principles and ideas might have seemed nice on paper and were technically interactive, I felt that the way the content itself was displayed was not very creative or clever. The topics were still not always easy to understand and most „storylines“/games/stations took way too long. This was a helpful reminder that its not just the form that matters but its also the content itself that has to be adjusted. Simply placing it into a new medium, making it interactive by adding screens, buttons, voice control or an avatar does not make a topic easier to grasp or more fun. This highlighted for me that designing for engagement requires an alignment of content, format, and interaction method, not just “gamification”.
This was something the other part of the exhibition did much better. The stations were way more digestible in terms of length and information structure. An approach I found really great was the medical area that allowed kids to use actual operation and laboratory tools on fake scenarios and substances. I know this would have been something I would have loved as a child (and still really enjoyed now to be honest). From what I could see the kids there also enjoyed this immensely and stayed engaged throughout the whole process. Additionally what was executed nicely here, I think, was the storytelling. Apart from the cool interactions and real tools, the lengthy process never got boring. Diagnosing a patient and building a race-car were the two areas that did this best because there were constantly new steps and aspects to discover.
Both museum visits really reinforced my interest in tangible learning environments. However what I am still wondering is whether I can really find a new angle or topic that hasn’t been done yet. The setting of a museum is really interesting and it might also be fun to look into other target groups. Another interactive museum space I enjoyed was the exhibition on democracy in the Graz Museum. I feel like with these three I have a broad spectrum of target groups and topics to draw inspiration from and it might be worth looking into more.
Tag: embodied interaction
Impulse #1 – a museum!
For my first Impulse-Post I have chosen my visit to the Children’s Museum FRida & FreD in Graz. One of the topics I am considering for my masters thesis is tangible interfaces and embodied interaction. I already looked into this topic last semester and have considered children and the setting of learning and (STEM Education) as an interesting target group and subject. Tangible Interfaces allows for a many different approaches, angles which I have been finding hard to narrow down. I visited the museum with two friends of mine that had come to visit. Both of them worked on the exhibition as interaction and graphic designers so it was really interesting to get their perspective on the production and development of such an installation. The Exhibition was about Data Security and designed in a medieval aesthetic. This setting created many fun metaphors for otherwise abstract and (especially for children) hard-to-grasp topics. Choosing a medieval theme for a modern issue is a really interesting approach in my opinion but although I was skeptical at first and wasn’t sure if it would translate well, I really liked the outcome. I found the analogies surprisingly clear, the only thing I can’t say for sure is that kids fully understood the meaning, as I wasn’t able to talk to any (we went just before closing hours). I was however able to ask the staff and they had mostly positive feedback!
I think „play“, learning through making and exploration/curiosity are additional interesting keywords here, and have prompted me to look into this a bit further. What I will say is that in some parts the exhibition did rely on screens, which is something I would consider removing, if possible as I felt this sometimes took away from the immersive „magical“ feeling that was created. Another interesting part that sparked my interest was the storytelling. While the different stations alone were interesting I really liked the fact that there was an overall „quest“ and a companion that appeared at every station. This gave the whole experience a slightly more structured and guided feeling.
The biggest take-away for me (apart from the inspiring and creative interactions I got to try out), is that I have two options on how to approach this topic. I either need to pin down a very specific topic to explore in this thesis or I could go in a more general direction with an explorative thesis-approach where I ask a research question that is something along the lines of „how can interactive installations be designed to be more tangible for children?“. From there I could experiment with creating design guidelines or principles that can be generally applied to tangible interfaces/interaction. With the other option would have to pick a really specific topic and focus on making this tangible through existing methods. So I could either focus on the system and methods themselves or on the topic (like Data Security in the case of the exhibition).
Exhibition PDF: https://fridaundfred.at/wp-content/uploads/Ff_Damals-1410_Paedagogisches-Handbuch.pdf
tangible interfaces (a cool example): https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3490149.3502252
learning through making: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11528-017-0172-6
Evaluation Masters Thesis – Task 3
The Masters Thesis „Exploring Slow Technology in the Home“ by Martin Krogh from from the Interaction Design Program at Malmö University (2015) is a new approach to interaction design in the context of (smart) technology in homes. The work is divided into two parts consisting of a first theoretical research, ending with research questions and a methodological chapter and a second practical part including field work, design making, user testing, reflections and a conclusion.
Overall presentation quality
Besides very few and minor formatting issues the thesis is is laid-out nicely with a clear, logical and comprehensible structure. Text is nicely supported with sketches and images especially in the practical part.
Degree of innovation
The thesis generally explores an under-researched and relatively new topic that hasn’t been studied much. Therefor it raises interesting new questions and aims to explore them in a playful, curious way while considering the little research and prevailing ideas that do exist in the field. It even introduces a semi-new methodology of slow provotyping. Although nothing entirely new is discovered or innovated, the design experiments that are conducted are very thought-provoking and offer a new perspective on current design approaches.
Independence
The underlying motivation for the thesis clearly has a strong tie to the authors own life and personal experience. Besides a literature research to better understand the current state of research on the topic ideas, interviews experiments and user-testings were entirely unique to the thesis and conducted by the author himself.
Structure and Organization
The thesis follows a very clear and logical structure which is especially well done considering how messy an explorative a design process such as this one can be. Dividing the work into two parts (theoretical and practical) makes it easy to follow the thought-process and understand how the ideas and findings came to be.
Communication
The writing is personal and engaging as well as academic and professional, which makes for an informative read, which at the same time doesn’t feel boring or dry. The visual documentation perfectly supports the practical part and makes the experimental ideas and somewhat abstract concepts understandable. I feel like even someone who isn’t well-versed in the design world could follow the thought-process of the experiments.
Scope
The scope of the masters thesis seems appropriate and well balanced in terms of research and practical experiments. Creating three prototypes is quite a lot, which makes up for the fact that there is no „final Product“. Given that this is an experimental project that aimed to explore, rather than develop, this fits the scope and fulfills the goal of the thesis.
Accuracy and attention to detail
The language is easy to understand, mostly correct, conscience, clear and scientifically accurate. The experiments are nicely described and supported with photos and sketches. As already mentioned the structure is logical and detailed but not repetitive.
Literature
The thesis uses a good amount and range of literature aas well as own research and seems to be cited fairly correctly with clickable links which make deeper research more easy.
Overall I really enjoyed reading this thesis. It was interesting as well as informative and really nicely thought out. Especially considering that this is an under explored field the theoretical research felt thorough and gave a good understanding of the current state of research. Also considering this was written in 2015 it is quite impressive how well the situation and development of future smart technology was assessed. It also had a clear goal leading through the thesis despite being explorative and experimental.
Blogpost #6 – Prototype Video
Enjoy my little Chemistry Prototype :))
Blogpost #5 – Prototype
In my previous blog post (#3), I explored the value of tangible interfaces and embodied interaction, especially when applied to scientific concepts. I took a look at constructivist and kinesthetic learning theories and discussed how meaningful, hands-on engagement can help people and especially children understand and retain information more effectively than traditional textbook-based approaches. Building on this I tinkered around with a lo-fi tangible prototype: an interactive chemistry simulation that allows users (kids) to explore real chemical reactions in a safe, accessible, and playful way.
One of the challenges in kinesthetic learning (or hands-on learning in general), especially in the context of science education, are the physical restrictions: there is messiness, the danger of working with certain substances, and the financial or spatial limitations of traditional labs. The prototypes approach is to offer a digital-physical hybrid that provides the sensory and experiential engagement of a real experiment without the need for actual chemicals or laboratory space. Of course this is really stripped down to the most basic parts, but the bigger idea is to use technology to make knowledge tangible and engaging and not just shift everything from a textbook to a screen – because where’s the fun in that?
Making the prototype
I started by developing the concept of my prototype. I knew I wanted it to deal with some kind of scientific topic and while reading the paper about kinesthetic learning I figured that making experiments with chemicals more accessible could be an interesting starting point, since that is something that I always found most interesting in chemistry class and would have wanted to do more. The idea is to simulate the feeling of experimenting through look, sound and haptics. I chose a simple experiment where different substances react with water and started by creating my digital setup for which I created some simple visuals in processing. I initially wanted to trigger the sounds with Max9. This worked great, however I ran into the problem, that I couldn’t simultaneously trigger the MaxPatch and the Processing sketch. So I decided to add the sound directly into processing with a sound library, which worked really nicely. I then did some more experimenting with the visuals and sounds and added some information text for each chemical reaction for more context as to what is happening (it is still about education after all, even if the shapes and colors are a lot of fun to look at). I then hooked the whole thing up to a MakeyMakey and crafted really simple physical representations out of paper for the chemical substances I was simulating. To make them conductive I used tinfoil and after a bit of experimenting I was able to make my own little Natrium-Explosion in my room without dying – how cool!
Conclusion
It was really interesting diving into prototyping with a vague idea at this point in the project, as this is not an approach I am used to. I liked that it pushed me to just start, try things and experiment. This really helped me get rid of high standards for this early stage. While I think I do enjoy the topic, I might have to still dabble in my other two ideas just to figure out where I see the most potential and have the most fun. I think I will need a lot more experimenting to see what I want to do, but this is definitely a good start.