Archives for category: AppForArtists

apps for artists – Final App

April 28, 2012 //
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So after a long week, our app is finished! In our app, we have a library of books, colour coded into sections of techniques, works and influences to include all aspects of Rosheen as an artist. We wanted the user to learn how to use the app, even though we did include a user guide.

I think our app has came together well, and now the presentation and exhibition are over I think we succeeded in conveying what we wanted to through our app and executed it well. It appeared to be well received at the exhibition, with many people commenting on the overall look of our app being well finished. It was really nice to see our finished design on an iPad, everything looks so much better and it was nice to use it and see that our interactions really worked.

We managed to fill in content for all the books on the home page. This made it nice to watch people really explore the content in our app as this was always a focus of our design! This project has been really interesting, it’s been nice to try and understand someone completely different to our selves, like an art student and create something which is totally individual to that person and their career.

Categories AppForArtists, apps, second year, university

Apps For Artists – Easter

April 23, 2012 //
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The PageViewController proved near impossible to implement. When we got one part working, it would break another. we couldn’t change the content on individual pages, and when we changed any content, it changed the spine from the middle of the book to the left hand side.

Because of these problems we decided to simplify the interactions in our app to make it achievable. We decided it was better to convey Rosheen’s work through our concept than to spend any longer fretting over a gesture.

So from this we spent most of easter working through our app, I worked on putting all the content into Xcode as the rest of the group completed the photoshop for it. Xcode was challenging to begin with, it took a little while for David and I to work out the code to navigate between pages inside the books, but once we had worked that out I have enjoyed building the app. It will be good to have it on an iPad soon.

A small group of us have also been working on planing an exhibition for Thursday.

Categories AppForArtists, apps, second year, university

Apps For Artists – week 10

April 2, 2012 //
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In class this week we started with a talk from Tim Brooke, Creative Technologist at Imagination, take a look at his website. he spoke about him self and his work, from his days at IDEO with Graham Pullen to working at Nokia. It was interesting to find out the range of things he’s done as an interaction designer. He spoke about the types of things you can do with Interaction design, from big comercial projects, working with phones, screens or something more physical to working on more intimate or fun projects. It reinforced my enjoyment of interaction design and reassured me it was definitely what I want to do with my life. Every project Tim spoke about excited and interested me.

We then met with our groups to continue our ‘App For Artists’ projects. We discused our idea for our final app, deciding to run with my concept, D&AD-final-film. We discussed this concept and worked together to develoup it into a more final idea. We decided to make an iPad app, as it would give better room on the screen for our design. We then spent the afternoon making wire frames and started designing our application.

 

During this week a lot of time has been spent working on this app, we have really struggled completing the Xcode. We are trying to use a pageViewController and it has proved very difficult to add content to this structure.

Categories AppForArtists, apps, university

Apps for artists – week 8 D&AD Final Film

March 25, 2012 //
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After planing my concept video, I began to create each page and book on photoshop. I made it using the windows phone design and books to focus on my artists works and influences. I used photoshop layered over images to show what how my interface would be projected using a mulit-screen interaction. All of my paper prototyping have cumulated in this two minute film.

You can see all of the class’s concept videos here at the Apps For Artists YouTube channel.

Categories AppForArtists, apps, second year, university

Apps For Artists – week 7 Paper Protoyping

March 25, 2012 //
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From my concept I began to think about how I could turn this idea into a film. I wanted to do it as quite a lo-fi prototype so I had the idea to complete it in paper and film some one interacting with my paper model. To achieve this I firstly had to work out how to complete individual elements of my concept. I knew I wanted to include books in my design as our artists has a love of books, as well as working in a book shop. So the first thing I tried to develop was the idea of having a physical book that I would record someone turning the pages. 

I tried to capture this by taking images/video of me moving pages of a book, then made a tiny paper book and thought about how you could move the pages in the size of a phone. I then looked at the type of interactions you could use to select a book to open it.

I thought back to the windows phone, and the slightly boxy lay out, and then thought about how you could use and interact with this to navigate through the app. I used the box of a kapa board “phone” and posits to help my self undersand how a user could interact with an interface to enter an area. In this example you would touch an object and slide it down to enter it.

After figuring out these basic interactions I began to story board a concept, to help my self understand the structure my film was going to take, using this as a reference right the way through my project.

I split my concept into two sections, the first one was focusing on the phone interface and the second on the multi-screen element of concept.

From these story boards I began my concept video.

Categories AppForArtists, apps, second year, university

Apps for artists – week 7 D&AD preparing for the project

March 25, 2012 //
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I was quite taken a back by the D&AD brief we had been asked to follow, I have never followed a competition brief before. It was very open which was hard to find a place to start. It was also difficult to understand how to tie in my artist, which was something I really wanted to do. So I started by breaking the brief down into mind map.

From this I began to think about the areas I was unsure of, firstly by looking at augmented reality. I was struggling to understand what it was, and how it related to an app, so I firstly looked at some films online that used augmented reality.

After this I downloaded some augmented reality apps, to try and explore it for my self. The first one I found was a paintball app where you choose a colour to try and hit, and then point your camera to something of that colour and try to hit it. The second I found was an app called “Acrossair” which shows you a selection of things related to a search, for example pubs or tweets, and using GPS with augmented reality to show things near by through your phone camera in relation to where you are through the camera. These helped me understand augmented reality and what things to design it for.

I then looked at the windows phone and tried to work out how it worked, what it looked like and how I could build an interface for it. I noted that It took a very different structure to iPhone, however once inside an app some followed this and some didn’t. It was quite a boxy design, on a black background. I wanted to incorporate this into my design from an early stage.

Thinking about how I could relate it to a multi screen activity was a chalenge, I was trying to think of realistic technology I could use and found this http://interaction.dundee.ac.uk/~akeating/wordpress/doodle-defense-turns-a-whiteboard-into-a-battlefield-co-design-business-innovation-design/ I like the idea of trying to incorporate a Kinnect in my design, as it has a microsoft connection, and I think this could make my concept tangible.
Then began to think about an early idea and how I could connect all of these ideas and display it. I did an animated story board to convey my first ideas.

Categories AppForArtists, apps, research, second year, university

3D Augmented Reality experience with depth-sensing cameras on Vimeo

February 24, 2012 //
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Really simple idea using augmented reality with just a camera and sensor. These simple ways of interacting with screens is something I am thinking about incorporating into the D&AD brief I have been set.

3D Augmented Reality experience with depth-sensing cameras on Vimeo on Vimeo

via 3D Augmented Reality experience with depth-sensing cameras on Vimeo.

Categories AppForArtists, second year, university

Live Augmented Reality for National Geographic Channel / UPC on Vimeo

February 24, 2012 //
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A nice use of augmented reality in an every day situation. This shows how it doesn’t need to be overly futuristic and in your face, but you can still use it to show your idea, and make an impact especially when creating promotional material which we kind of are with our artists app.

 

Live Augmented Reality for National Geographic Channel / UPC on Vimeo on Vimeo

via Live Augmented Reality for National Geographic Channel / UPC on Vimeo.

Categories AppForArtists, second year, university

Doodle Defense Turns A Whiteboard Into A Battlefield | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

February 24, 2012 //
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For the next part of our DIxD module, we have been given a D&AD brief to create a multi screen experience that enhances the users personal or professional life. Up until this point I have been focusing and thinking about mobile apps, however the brief is forcing up to think about a design which is to include the Windows phone, but also moving away from just a phone screen and thinking about other devices you could link it with.

I found this design when looking at different things that can be made into a screen, this

uses a whiteboard, projector, and Kinect to track a player’s doodles in real time. These doodles then dictate the actions of projected monsters. You draw your battlefield. “I love when an interaction feels like magic, and while I think the game is a good one and I’ve put a lot of work into making it fun, the biggest reaction I get whenever I demo it comes from putting that first line on the board,” admits Wallace. “That’s not how people are used to dealing with a computer. Seeing a projected creature avoid a line that I drew in reality just feels special because it shouldn’t happen, but there it is.”

via Doodle Defense Turns A Whiteboard Into A Battlefield | Co.Design: business + innovation + design.

While this is in a rough version right now, the idea of using a device like a Kinect without necessarily looking at a television screen is something I have found interesting. I think this is an idea that could really influence my prototyping ideas.

Categories AppForArtists, apps, second year, university

AppsForArtists, Reading week: Sketching user interactions, the work book

February 21, 2012 //
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Over reading week I have been reading “Sketching User Interactions, The Workbook”  to inspire my paper prototyping presentation I am about to start. The book so far has tought me that you must have multiple ideas to get the best design, if there’s only ever one idea, design will never advance.

10plus10
Technique I learned earlier 10plus10 exercise

scribble sketching

Rapidly producing ideas in seconds, literally. It allows you to capture moments of ideas very quickly. Exercise**
This is a skill I feel I could really use in day to day activities to help me develop my visual skills. Recording situations is a key skill of an interaction designer

sampling with cameras

Taking photos of good and bad design and analysing it: this allows you to develop your critical eye as a designer. Taking these images as memory’s lets you think back on them when it comes to designing something your self. To make this even better you could make a sketch book of good and bad design, printing these images out. This would allow me to keep a record and highlight the parts of these designs that caught my eye, for good or bad.

Photo tracing!

There is a few examples of image tracing in this book where you can trace firstly the image of a content in an interaction sketch, for example a mobile phone (using both paper or photoshop) this will both save time, and allow you to keep a constant through your sketches. This means if a user or client is trying to understand your concepts, you’re giving them a constant, something the can recognise and picture as they move through your design! This is a technique I want to incorporate into my paper prototyping exercise in the AppsForArtist project.

Another good way of using tracing is to trace the outside of hand shapes so you can quickly reproduce an outline to show an interaction, for example a finger sliding a long a screen, it will always be in the same position. This is one that may be best to use with photoshop, so you can save a collection of useable templates to aid any interaction displays as a transparent overlay.

Taking these overlays or tracings you can give your designs a real sense of context by creating hybrid sketches, by layering these drawings over photos and backgrounds. This is something I feel will be heavily involved in my paper prototyping presentation. Even if you take physical drawings, on acetate film or tracing paper and take photos and/or videos of them in context. I feel this gives design a real meaning by creating augmented reality.

Using foam or kappa board allows you to bring these hybrid sketches into tactile prototyping, making a 3D image of say a phone, and giving it a moveable screen all’s you to give a user an even better sense of what the interaction could be.

From here The book goes on and look at how to bring these sketches together in creating visual narratives, so I’ll save that for another day, once I’ve applied a few of these techniques.

Categories AppForArtists, second year, university

iPhone Stencil Kit — UI Stencils

February 20, 2012 //
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Really fantastic sets of stencils to draw user interactions! Something that could be really useful in our up and coming paper prototyping project! Shame about the price.

iPhone Stencil Kit — UI Stencils.

Categories AppForArtists, apps

Future Daydream

February 19, 2012 //
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Interesting read about a future of technology, moving beyond screens.

Future Daydream.

Categories AppForArtists, apps

Apps for Artists – Week 5 Finalising our research

February 17, 2012 //
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This week we had to complete our artists boards and finalise the two minute research video for our first hand in. We were bringing all the information together that we had been gathering for the past few weeks and using our graphic design skills to display it in a way someone looking at this project briefly could understand what we were doing. On the first board we were to combine all initial research to develop a profile of our artist, and then take the key points from this board, and on the second show the link between what we felt was the most important information and how we felt this was going to influence our early design work. During this process it was hard to condense all of the information Rosheen, our artist had told us as she was very passionate and descriptive about her work and process in the interview.

Completing the assignment this week became quite difficult, it was hard to find work for the whole group to do while actually completing these things. However I feel it has got everyone in the group to a good stage to begin paper prototyping. D starting to look at the D&AD brief, and concidering interesting ways to convey ideas.

Categories AppForArtists, apps, research, university

Apps for Artists – Week 4 First Draft Videos

February 6, 2012 //
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Today was aurentated around first drafts. In our groups we completed a first iteration of our participants board, taking all of the information in the transcript of our interview with Rosheen, and simplified it down into the main points that we felt were important to start our design process. The main things we took from this were:

  • She likes her own personal space.
  • Very creative and free in her thinking and design process.
  • Loves to read.
  • Very research driven.
  • Makes frequent use of the human body.
  • Currently involved in deign with latex.
  • Would class herself as a print maker (Also her favorite method of designing)
  • Had a large influence from a few artists, particularly Kiki Smith

From this we bagan to make a rough edit of our research films, taking the footage we had from our interview, and the important points established in our early participants board. It was quite a challenge to take the 15 minutes of footage we have and break it down to being 2 minutes long, including titles. I am not particularly good at editing film so this excersize was quite a task. Therefor this first edit was very rough, cutting to text very clumsily. However I feel we have develouped a good structure to our video and have a good basis to work towards for next week.

Categories AppForArtists, apps, second year, university

Apps for Artists – Week 3 Field Work Skills

February 2, 2012 //
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This week we were told a few things to bare in mind about field work., including the tools we need, the challenges and the POEMS method. Field work is good as you are able to see people within their own context. This helps develop a better understanding for the user you are designing for.

The tools that can make this possible:

  • Observation protocol – set of basic rules to follow when carrying out this task
  • notebook&pen
  • camera
  • mobile phone
  • suitable clothing
  • plenty of rest&snacks.

There are some challenges to completing field work:

  • There can be too much to write
  • Nothing new to see
  • Hard to keep structure in your notes
  • Writing too much that you forget to observe things.

We were asked to look at the POEMS method to design research, written by Kumar and Whitney, 2003. We were advised to take these things into consideration when beginning any field work, jotting these five points down at the top of a page, to try and allow us to keep structure to our notes while observing.

  1. P – People
  2. O – Objects
  3. E – Environments
  4. M – Messages
  5. S – Services

I think these have been good little snippets into field work to get us started on basic research techniques. It will be good being able to apply these to our project when in the art student’s studio.

Categories AppForArtists, research, second year, university

Apps for Artists – Week 3 Observing

January 30, 2012 //
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This week we were asked to complete an exercise to give us the chance to learn some basic observational skills. After splitting into groups, we were to go spend half an hour out with the studio watching people, taking notes and photos. Then reflecting on our observations we were asked to think about the story behind the things we had seen. Emma, Rachael and I went out and sat by the window in Air Bar, in DUSA. We felt this was a good place to watch people, as we felt too intrusive sitting closer to the people we were watching. Originally we had sat at the entrance to DUSA, however this felt very uncomfortable.

We watched people as they moved around the area outside the union and the Premier. Durning the excersize Emma and I took notes of what we saw and Rachael took photgraphs.

As we watched there was a few things we picked up on. I think the thing that most interested us was the contrast in people walking on their own and people walking in groups. People that walked on their own tended to either have head phones in, listening to music or had their phone’s in their hands. Very few were actually talking on their phones, most were just playing with them, so checking texts, browsing the internet, playing games, etc. When discussing this after we got back to the studios we felt this could have been a comfort thing, not necessarily that they were doing anything important but that it allowed them to not be bored, and sometimes not to feel as self conscious when people are walking about in groups chatting. People on their own also tended to walk much faster than people in a group. Groups tend to walk slower, chatting among each other, moving more leisurely.

 

Categories AppForArtists, research, second year, university

Apps For Artist – Week 2 The Interview

January 28, 2012 //
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We began the process of prepairing the interview last week by thinking about the types of things we wanted to ask our artist, and concidering the main points we were to cover:

  • Making activities
  • Thought process
  • Influences
  • Tangible outputs (their work)

We bagan to think of a list of questions we could ask the artist, firstly to cover all of the information we felt we needed, whilest trying not to be too intrusive. We eventually decided on these questions:

  • What are the main aspects of your course?
  • What part do you favour? Why?
  • Why did you choose the course over other art related courses?
  • Do you think the combination with philosophy directly influences your work? Do they complement each other or clash?
  • What do you do in your course? (General overview)
  • What initially attracted you to the course? Do you still feel the same?
  • What are you currently working on?
  • What mediums do you like to work in? Why?
  • What are your influences?
  • How do you feel about your own work?
  • Is there main themes you try to convey through your work? If so, what are these?
  • As a designer, we have a design process we tend to follow, as an artist do you have a thought process you try to follow? If yes, what is it?
  • Could you explain some of your past projects, and anything you intend to complete in the near future?
  • What would you say your favourite piece of work is? Why?

After this, we were given the name and contact details of our artist, Rosheen Murray. I contacted her and arranged an interview for the Friday following this weeks class. We met and went to her studios to observe her working enviroment. This allowed us to both chat to her before conducting an interview and let us have a good look at her work space, looking at the materials she was using and the samples she was currently working from. From this we returned to our studios and began a filmed interview. We were very lucky with Rosheen, she was happy to talk to us and explain a lot of aspects of her work. This has meant we have fifteen minutes of good footage we can use as reference through the later stages of our design process as well as giving us a good basis for our research videos.

Categories AppForArtists, research, second year

Apps For Artist – 10 plus 10 exercise

January 27, 2012 //
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10 plus 10: descending the design funnel.

20120217-040731 PM.jpg

The design funnel is the process of exploring many very different ideas, then allowing them to be refined, built on, refined again, and so on until you reach your end goal. The 10 plus 10 method helped me to understand this idea.

  • start with a design challenge, ours was a way to allow connectivity across two phones, with a new way of validating the connection between the phones
  • generate 10 different design concepts to address the challenge
  • choose the most promising design concept as a starting point
  • produce 10 details and variations of this one design
  • present a final idea to a group of people, in our case we presented these ideas to the class

In a group of three we came up with 10 ideas from ‘throwing files’ by swiping the phone in the air a certain way, as if you were throwing a ball. And using the camera an flash in certain ways. After this first part, we produced 10 details on one idea. The concept we felt was best was one that allowed the user of a touch screen phone to swipe the screen as though they were flicking away a file to another phone. Then the other user would swipe the file back down the screen to collect it.

During this process we were to sketch as much as possible to allow us to develop our visual communication skills. This was something I struggled with slightly, it was hard to draw interactions. It is a skill I will be continuing and developing as I feel it is a key thing to learn.

Categories AppForArtists, second year, university

Apps for Artists, week 1

January 21, 2012 //
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This week we were introduced to our brief for this semester.

To team up with Art, Philosophy and Contemporary Practices, students to create an app complimentary to their work. It should be an exhibition app for a gallery client who is having a retrospective of the artist’s work. The app should behave as the taster for the experience that can be found in the gallery or other exhibition space. This may include elements of content from the research activity helping illustrate the artist’s process and research interests.

I think this module is going to have a large focus on on research for the first half of the semester, something that i”m quite excited about. Next week we are interviewing our assigned artist. This is something i’ve never felt particularly comfortable doing but I’m excited to give it another go. This week we spent our time organising the interview, thinking about the equipment we might need and  writing out a list of questions and areas we want to cover.

We are thinking about building up a relationship and trust on a positive level with the artist. This will help us achieve more positive results when it comes to actually making the application.

From initial research into the course, it is multi-disciplinary, like ours. They combine a Fine Art with a Philosophy module, making them stand out from most art students. I think this will influence their practical work a lot, they may have more of a back story to their work than many basic art students.

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/art_philosophy_contemporary.htm

 

Categories AppForArtists, apps, research, university