IID Charrette

Rather than having a normal first week of classes, the IID department held a charrette. Over 4 days, groups of students worked together to parse out what "Interaction Design" means to the IID department at SU. We are definitely not a traditional interaction department (nor are we a traditional industrial design department). I think most students see interaction not only in terms of technology but also in terms of human and environmental interaction. I find that a lot of projects that I, as well as my peers, create are very systematic. Designing the form of an object can be fun, but designing the specific functions and relationships the object wil have in a greater ecosystem is far more interesting to me. I'm glad I chose a department that encourages this kind of thinking.

The specific brief of this project was given on Wednesday afternoon: "Create a way to fing things in Syracuse." Tuesday was spent finding our own way around Syracuse, so we had first hand experience about how confusing the city can be (as well as how many hidden gems there are).

Thursday was spent ideating and the final presentation was due Friday at 4pm. So, in less than two days, groups created some sort of "mock-up" of an idea. My group presented the video below.


Group M Charrette Final from Margaret McGill on Vimeo.

The design was created for anyone who wants to explore a place without having to rely on maps or GPS screens. The idea was to allow the user to get lost without any of the anxiety of being lost. A chip in each shoe uses GPS to always bring the person back to a starting point (a car, hotel room, etc).  When the person is done exploring, they simply make a gesture, like clicking their heels together, and the device is activated. The person begins walking, if they need to turn the chip in the specific shoe vibrates.

Overall, I loved being able to work with IID students from other years and I think the idea turned out pretty great.

So what is it I'm doing?

Above are the fruits of my first library trip for thesis. I have slowly been eliminating some as useless and plowing through others for information. The best books lead me to more sources, while others lead to dead ends.

So what am I studying for thesis? There's a theme in the titles of the books: they all mention "story" in one guise or another (narrative, fiction, literature). I have decided to tackle the idea of storytelling from a design standpoint, as in:

How were stories told?
How are stories told?
How will stories be told?

No, this is not going to be a new E-reader design (though I will cover that phenomenon in some depth at some point). I've set myself the task of looking at story through as many lenses as possible: philosophical, linguistic, psychological, anthropological, sociological, among others. I've spent the past few weeks defining exactly what I mean by "story."

This blog is hopefully going to encompass not only the "story" of my thesis but also the story of my fifth and final year as an industrial design student.

And that, in a nutshell, is what it is I'm doing.

Next time: what the heck do you mean by "story"?