Week 4

Previously, in our contact class we discussed our possible major project ideas concepts. At the start of our class we got a few team members from another team and was god to do an exercise that critiqued and highlighted the positives of our projects. 

Great Barrier Reef

Positives:

• provides a good source of information 
• interesting for users
• targets a nech market for reef enthusiast 

Negatives

• bland 
• not that exciting 
• targets toward neck market 
• too simple 
• nothing that entices users 

Recommendations 

• show the user the predicted future of the reef and how long it will last without changes being made 
• how much is being destroyed each year 
• how it is being destroyed 
• the wildlife distinction rate (graphs and timelines)

 Festivals and Events Identification 

Positives:

• good tool to identify events and festivals 

Negatives

• No information found on trove

The negatives of this concept is that Trove only provides articles and material that may not be as recent as needed for this concept. 

Recommendations

• too hard to execute 
• would not meet the brief 

Murders 

Positives:

• good concept
• interesting to users

Negatives

• needs to be more interactive 
• a lot of research 

Recommendations

• needs to more expansive 
• no limitations on murderers 

Overall, all the concepts gave good feedback but all the concepts need to be more interactive and make it fun and educational. 

To figure out the positives and negatives, we completed the hats activity. The purpose of the activity was to work out the positives and negatives of each concept.. Within this, we needed to get other peoples opinions of the concept ideas and what they thought about the perspective application ideas. Within our group, 3 people went around to other tables to give an opinion of there ideas, while 2 people stayed at the table and displayed our ideas. 

The six hats activity incorporated the use of six different hats. They included the ones displayed below. Each hat portrayed an different opinion on the given paper prototype. 

Lecture

In this weeks lecture we were notified that we had to display a poster and pitch for next week, it had to be A3 printed and what it should cover.

We went over what should be in the concept document and how it should be displayed. The concept document had to include:

1. the purpose, audience, interactivity and the use of data within the application 
2. sketches, storyboards of supported visuals
3. background research and inspiration 

After covering what we know about the the poster, pitch and concept, the lecturer taught us about interaction design and what it is. 

"Interaction design is about shaping digital things for peoples use" (Jonas Lowgren)

From this first quote i understand that interaction design is about design digital concepts that people us. This means that interactions design is used within the digital age to design concepts that incorporate the use of IT. 

I found it interesting that interaction design shapes digital things for people. This meant:

• creating a personal experience for a use

The user gets to decide how good or bad the concept is, allowing the user to majority of the control over the application and the designer decides what level of freedom they have. 

I found this really interesting as the designer has to develop the user experience for the user by creating an application that gives the basis of the concept but then the user manipulates the application as they wish. 

The lecturer then showed us examples about some people work. 

i found serious play very interesting as the user has to design stuff and keep inspired from using chocolate. 

This week i contributed by:

• With the group deciding on the final application concept
• Decided on the layout of the poster
• Did my allocated parts of the concept document 
• I made one of the paper prototypes

Sketch of the poster - brainstorming: