Exploring Interaction

December 6th, 2012 Mitra Malkamy/4204913

Working title: Social Space boxes

Introduction:

This report you are about to read is about second part of social space box exploration as a report for Exploring Interaction. This cycle is named Iterate. Space boxes are studios (max 20m2) provided by DUWO, for international students. Because they are private and near to campus so many students choose them for living. This report includes a summary of previous cycle, modifications of Interaction vision, and main insights that led me to ideas and different phases of idea exploration, which I achieved in this cycle.

Design goal:

Create a new way for people who live in space box to know their environment and each other better.

Summary of Cycle 1:
During cycle 1, I tried to find the best way to communicate with other people to understand their feeling and experience toward space box. In first phase I designed a questionnaire and asked people to fill it in order to become more familiar with them. Some questions like what kind of interaction you like to have with other people? After analyzing this part I got this insight that people like to have interaction but there is no place for that, which led me to my first impression from current situation and initial interaction vision. My interaction vision based on my study, was included some words with pictures such as curiosity, fun, playful, non-intruding and etc. After finishing this phase, I designed a booklet with various kinds of questions and tried to convince people to share their suggestions and expectations with me. This phase was interesting for me as well. I learned that I should also give people a motivation to persuade them to cooperate with me. So, I personally went to neighbors door and talked to them and give a piece of chocolate and ask them if they like to participate in my research or not.

After receiving booklets, I analyze them as a same way I analyzed results from phase 1. In this phase, I found some interesting interests that people have like doing sports, gardening, or parties. At this moment I had my direction to do brainstorm session. I decided to find a way that people could share their hobbies and interests with each other. During brainstorm session I came up with different kind of ideas that will be analyzed further in this paper. Figure 1shows the poster and visual summary of cycle 1.

Figure 1: Poster of 25th Oct presentation

Modification:

After receiving feedback from tutors about presentation on 22th of October, the first step was so clear for me. So, I tried to review my process and modify some issues.

Missing main insights from booklet:

I reviewed the booklet and results of it again and write main insights that could lead me to further exploration. I wrote five quotes to state my insights. (Figure2) 1. Ethiopian student: There is no place where neighbors hang out, a common place where you can meet people. 2. Indian student: I expect people living in a studio interact more with each other. 3. Taiwan student: I thought people would knock each others door and make friends or have dinner together. 4. Portuguese student: I think it is not hard to have interaction with each other, with enough determination and intuitive we can have a good time in space box. 5. American student: I like to talk with my neighbors and invite them to dinner or tea to my room.

Figure 2: Main insights from booklet

Rewrite interaction vision:

I searched for an appropriate way to show my interaction vision and consist the words I used to describe it before. I remembered the labyrinth game when I was a kid and I think it is a very proper example. (Figure3) It is fun, playful, self-motivated and people are curious about which way they should go. Sometimes people hold each others hand and guide each other and it is not intruding. The important matter here is that I do not consider transparency and mirror material, but the way of playing is a thing that I considered as my interaction vision. (Figure 4)

Figure 3: Labyrinth game

Figure 4: Labyrinth plan

Cycle 2: Iterate
Activities 1. Check the ideas 2. Story board 3. Explore ideas 4. Detail product concept 5. Conclusion

Check the ideas:

In this part I check all my ideas to identify their positive and negative aspects in order to find my focus for further explorations. For make it possible, I made an idea cross-matrix. In below, you can find this matrix, which shows the position of my ideas in the graph. (Figure 5)

Figure 5: Idea cross-matrix

As it is showed in matrix, I divided this matrix to four parts, feasible, non-feasible, cheap, and expensive. The idea of common room is not really practical, so I put it in the top left area (Non-feasible, expensive). The unknown message is cheap to do, but from my booklet experience, I know that anonymous message wouldnt work, however it is cheap, so maybe with further exploration it can be part of the exploration. Gardening ideas are feasible but unfortunately expensive. Besides, DUWO dont like to change the environment. And finally, messages on door or laundry room were put in feasible and cheap part. According to the matrix, I continued my process with the messages in right bottom part. The first thing I did was thinking about the note on the door. Figure 6 shows initial ideas storyboard.

Storyboard:

Figure 6: storyboard

Explore the idea:

It is time to see what is peoples reaction to the idea. At first, I decided to do it by myself, and then ask people to do it. It was good to see the result. I wrote my name and my interest on piece of paper and pasted it on the door. There was a blank page in any case some one wants to reply me. I got two answers from my neighbors, they wrote on paper, and in evening knock my door and we talked together. They found it really great idea and became friends. We went Diwali, Indian festival, and now we have a short conversation each time we see each other in corridor. One of them said it was strange that I remove the paper. So, in general I think it was a successful exploration. (Figure 7)

Figure 7: The messages I wrote and received via the interests board.

Furthermore, I decided to also try it with other neighbors, but before that I thought I need more exploration in other phases as well. Figure 8 shows the flyer that I prepare to convey the introduction and purpose of doing this exploration.

Figure 8: The flyer of interests board introduction

Next idea:

In this phase I tried to look for social projects that were successful. One of them was a very great lecture Stefan Sagmeister about shares happy design, which shows that people write funny things if they have a chance and like to share it with others. The experiment that he showed was about putting some bubble in different situation and people wrote on them. I inspired by this, but the difference for me is that I should pick some pictures that have some meaning for space boxers. For instance, show their room, or some general things like football and sports, other wise bubbles alone cannot be a good solution. Figure 9 and 10 show the example of these pictures.

Figure 9: The picture of space boxes

Figure 10: Students in TU Delft

I put some of them in laundry room. I got answers, but not good one. I was upset at first, but then I thought I should predict this situation and I cannot control they way people express themselves. Figure 11 shows one of the answers I got.

Figure 11: One of the sentences that is written on picture.

Figure 12: The expressions I received

After seeing this result, I wrote an introduction and pasted it with a blank page and new pictures, but I havent seen any other comments since then. (Figure 13)

Figure 13: I put new pictures with a blank page for any kind of questions

Conclusion and further plans:

In general, I did these two experiments. One of them was successful and another one was not. The first idea coordinates my interaction vision. Something funny that makes you to be curious about the person who writes on the board. It has a direct message so it is a clear communication, and its purpose is obvious. The second idea is fun and makes you to be curious but it is not really clear or guide people to what they should do, so maybe it is confusing. Another reason that I thought was that people may like to share their interests, but they are students and so busy with all other courses they have, so maybe they cannot find enough time to do such stuff. Both experiences were helpful for me and I learned a lot from doing them. First one was good because It was introduced me to two people and we became friends. It has been proven to me that people like to meet new people, but the purpose of this communication is important for them. In second one I learned I shouldnt expect all people to behave like what I really think. I should have predicted some unexpected or inappropriate results. Space box life style makes me some limitation. For instance, we do not have any ceiling to cover corridors or doors from rain. Due to this problem, I have to think about other material beside papers that can be safe from weather, or choose some place like laundry room for experiments, where is safe from rain or snow. (Figure 14) As a further plan, I want to combine these two ideas together. In this case, I will ask some people to help me and share their interests with me. I will find a proper picture, which is related to their favorite topic and ask them to write a sentence or a question in order to share it with others. For example, if some one likes doing sport I will put a proper sport related picture and ask him/her to write something about it. In my opinion these kind of experiment needs a lot of time to people become adapted to them, but I want to try everything I can in this case.

Figure 14: Conclusion