do (not) touch!
Innovative applications, installations or performances are characterized by the absence of mouse or keyboard that are not needed anymore for the interaction with the computational system. These input devices are often replaced by gestures or tangibles. Thus, the user is allowed to move freely in space or to collaborate much easier in groups.
In the project/Fachmodul “do (not) touch !”, we will explore such interaction concepts in order to understand why they go beyond the well-known desktop metaphor & which advantages they keep ready for us. Together we will develop an idea for an innovative interaction concept, e.g. as a gaming application or an audio-visual instrument. The realization will take place in two teams consisting of computer scientists & media artist/designers: One group will create a gesture-based application and the other group will work on a tangible interface. Consequently, the type of interaction differs in both teams, but the goal of interaction and the feedback from the computational system remains identical. In the final phase of the project, we will arrange a contest. Both interfaces will be tested & expierenced, firstly from ourselves, afterwards from other people. We will film everything & conduct interviews with the test persons. With the help of qualitative approaches, this little user study shall finally lead us to respond the questions of pros & cons for gesture-based & tangible interfaces.
This project/Fachmodul is interdisciplinary. We will start the process of finding the right idea with diverse creativity methods & research strategies. The prototyping follows soon. In this phase, we will study different technologies (e.g. Kinect Sensor, Leap Motion or Arduino) in individual workshop sessions. The interaction concepts will be defined together in both groups. At this stage, the media artist & designer concentrate their efforts ideally on the (audio-visual) creation of the interface, whereas the computer scientist work on the design of the system implementation. During the test phase at the end, the participants will get into contact with user-centered design research methods due to the corporative preparation and evaluation of a user scenario.
Students of Computer Sciences & Media and Media Art & Design have the possibility to be part of the whole creation process an interactive application or installation requires – from the brainstorming over the development to the final utilization. We aim to teach you content-related & technical skills. Furthermore, we give you insights into topics such as time, team and project management what we try to reflect collectively during the team meetings.
This course will be a cooperation between Computer Science & Media and Media Art & Design students. The media artist & designers will spent less time than the students of Computer Sciences & Media because they concentrate their efforts on the design of the application & the preparation of the user study. |
