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Physical Interaction Design
@argoncobalt
Ariel Cottonwww.electricstud.io
@argoncobalt
This talk focuses on...
● My background in interaction design
● What interaction design is
● How interaction design can be applied to physical interfaces, not just software ones
● Teensy microcontroller demo that uses a pressure sensor to control mouse movements on the computer screen
@argoncobalt
Hullo. I’m Ariel Cotton.
● Artist who makes comics, interactive & figurative art
● Toy inventor
● Interaction designer
● Merges art, design & technology to create emotionally engaging and novel experiences
● Lives and dies by being interdisciplinary
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The quintessential fine artist.@argoncobalt
I thought STEM was pointless.@argoncobalt
Boy was I ever wrong...
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I went to Cooper Union for art.@argoncobalt
At Cooper I became intrigued by engineering.@argoncobalt
Took a break from art for a while. Eventually ended up coming back to it and combining it with engineering.
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Now an artist + inventor + interaction designer!
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My work
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Distance Dolls
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Lady Godiva
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Les Fleurs du Mal
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I’m obsessed with unconventional interfaces.@argoncobalt
What is interaction design?
@argoncobalt
Interaction design is...
● what defines the behavior of an interactive product
● shaping digital things for people’s use
● designing the experience of how users interact with an object or device, especially in the digital world.
● making digital things as user-friendly as possible
● a relatively new discipline
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History of interaction design
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Mechanical motion
Electrical devices@argoncobalt
Big computers@argoncobalt
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Personal computers
Xerox PARC
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Household digital devices & ubiquitous computing@argoncobalt
How do you… (a) do; (b) feel; (c) know?@argoncobalt
Isn’t interaction design more or less the same thing as user interface design, user experience design, human-
computer interaction, web design, product design, industrial design or visual design?
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Yes and no.@argoncobalt
User experience design.@argoncobalt
User interface design.
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Human-computer interaction.@argoncobalt
Web design.@argoncobalt
Industrial design.
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Visual design.@argoncobalt
Product design.@argoncobalt
Interaction design concepts
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Why do we need interaction design?
Hello there...@argoncobalt
Goal-driven designFiguring out what users want and need
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“Interface as magic”The interactions should be so seamless that the users
don’t even notice the design
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Amazon’s mega dropdown!
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Most dropdowns have a bit of a delay.
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If they didn’t, then the sub-menu would disappear.
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No, it’s not voodoo. It’s merely a triangle.@argoncobalt
UsabilityThe user interface should be usable and easy to
understand. (Well no, duh...)
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Being intuitiveEven if the user has never seen a product like yours
before, navigating the user interface should still come fairly naturally to him or her.
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LearnabilityIn cases where the solution to your design problem calls for an extremely unique interface, the user should still be
able to internalize it with relative ease.
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Know when to innovate and when to stick to paradigms that have already
been established.
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Be willing to learn, accept constructive criticism, and know
that you will make mistakes.
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A couple more points about interaction design...
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Being interdisciplinary
● Many art, design and tech fields are more interconnected than people think, and they use similar principles.
● I use principles of interaction design in almost all my work, be it art, inventing or web design.
● Ultimately anything that follows the principles I mentioned is a piece of interaction design.
@argoncobalt
Design as a way of life
● I see everything in life as a design problem waiting to be solved.
● I scrutinize all my surroundings with the same critical eye I use when I’m designing something or critiquing another person’s design.
● Interaction design deals primarily with software interfaces, but in order to be a good interaction designer, you need to notice how everybody interacts with everything.
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Everywhere you look you’ll see examples of interface, layout, and color decision-making.
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I take walks through Gowanus and get inspired by the old-school typography on all the signs.
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Techniques that I use in my work
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I never go anywhere without a sketchbook.@argoncobalt
The Arduino microcontroller platform.@argoncobalt
A microcontroller is a very small computer.@argoncobalt
The Teensy microcontroller platform.
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DEMO: Turning an Arduino into a mouse input
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Q&A
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FarewellIf you have any questions about Arduino, interaction
design or anything else I’ve discussed, or you’re interested in keeping up with my work, feel free to find me on Twitter @argoncobalt or look up my website, www.electricstud.io.
@argoncobalt
