Physical interaction design

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?

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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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10 Principles of Good Design

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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.

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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.

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