king talk

For the better part of this year I worked on installation projects like Streamflow and Holodeck. But in the last couple of weeks I finally had a classic interface project on my desk again.

This also meant that I got the chance to do some interface sketches again; something I almost forgot could be fun. Here are a few things (re)discovered and found interesting.

The Purpose of Sketching

The only reason why I do sketches (and not start directly with, say, wireframes) is to organize my thoughts. When I think about an interface, I always see a few details very clearly in front of me while the big picture is still blurry. Sketching allows me to organize my thoughts, combine them and create new stuff based on older drawings.

Use a Pen you Like

Everyone has a different style when it comes to bringing thoughts to paper and the pen should support that style. I personally need a rather thick pen for drawing and settled with an Edding 1300 felt marker. It is thin enough to write annotations but also thick enough to force me to ignore details in the beginning.

(Paper) Size Matters

I sketch on A3 paper. It is still managable in its size, yet large enough to accomodate a whole group of sketches. I like to draw interesting details next to the basic layout so that I get a clearer idea of the whole composition.

Start Tiny

My sketches grow as my idea of the interface becomes clearer. While the first sketch might be just 5 by 5 centimeters, the last one might fill a whole A3 sheet.

The size of the initial sketches also depends on the pen I use.
The thinner the pen, the tinyer the first sketches should be. This keeps me from trying to figure out every detail in the first sketch and thereby also reduces the fear of doing things wrong.

How do you Sketch?

Do you use similar techniques for sketching or are they completely different? Let me know in the comments!

A few weeks ago we had our second intern: Eileen. She’s currently in her 12th and last grade in school and wanted to know whether interaction design is the right thing for her or not. So she stayed one week with us.

To start the week off we showed her in which areas we are working here at envis and let her choose the one which appealed most to her.

Eileen decided to go for media facade. So we let her create a concept for a media facade that could be applied in munich. As most women love shopping and are interested in fashion we took the Oberpollinger Department Store as test object.

We started with a brainstorming on the content of the projection and let Eileen scribble here concepts with pen and paper. In steps we condensed her ideas to a solid concept. After four days we reached a quite defined level of detail and started building the facade in 3d to give Eileen a feeling of what her concept might look on a real faced.

By the end of the week we had finished a small project with Eileen and have hopefully given her a good overview of what an Interaction Designer does and what design in general is all about.

In her own words she reflected the week like this: »Ich hab mich für Mediendesign entschieden und diese Entscheidung war richtig, denn es hat viel spaß gemacht die Fassade des Oberpollinger zu gestalten. Am Ende der Woche war ich auch sehr zufrieden mit meinem Ergebnis. Zwar hatte ich mir am Anfang Design etwas anderes vorgestellt, aber ich bin so begeistert gewesen ( bin ich immer noch), dass ich es in Erwägung ziehe vielleicht Interaction Design zu studieren!«

Dear friends of the king, may I introduce you to the Pomegranate! The worlds first mobile device that combines a traditional smartphone with handy tools like a mobile projector, a coffee brewer or a shaver. Watch the videos on the website – they are hilarious!

The phone is actually a marketing idea for a part of Canada with a name that I always mispronounce. The bridge between the two is actually sort of weak, but this doesn’t take away the awesome from the device!

After we reported about Microsofts new Xbox project called NATAL, we have to tell about about this new concept for that console. It´s called Milo, a little 3D avatar boy which could be your new friend. You can share your problems with him, go outside in his world, play around and have fun with Milo. The real world is connected to the virtual one via 3D gesture recognition. You even can draw something, share it with Milo and talk about it… Maybe you can use another outstanding project from Microsoft called Songsmith to sing together with Milo. Everything is possible with this extraordinary masterpiece of absurdity.

Come on Microsoft… What´s wrong with you? It looks like you want to create a tool for all the little Bill Gates nerds which are unable to feel real emotions while they are having a real talk to real people making real fun in this really extra evil world. Well done!

via SimpleAndOpen

Ondo is a conceptual mobile phone for the music enthusiast who seeks to interactively capture and edit sounds. This concept was developed by pilotfish.

Going beyond software-based solutions of other products, Ondo is specifically designed to effectively collect pure sounds and is specially constructed to create a tactile sound editing experience.

On a small scale, it allows the user to modify recorded sounds by physically twisting and bending the device.

On a grander scale, it creates opportunities for interactive musical creation among users at different geographical locations.

continue reading …