Brief
To Design an urban birdsong experience
Team-mates
Jumleena Bhagawati, Yanxu Chen, Cristele Saric, Wan Ying Liang Chen (Wan)
Date
17/11/22 - 24/11/22
Welcome to week 2 of UX of Birdsong. For this project, we listened to and documented birdsong while sound walking. Then we developed our design by interpreting and building on our understanding of it. and first-hand and deeply, to birdsong. As you only have two weeks, you should
In this blog post, I have presented my documentation of our observation, research, and the prototype-building process that we did as a team of 4 on this project. I have also discussed the feedback received on the prototype and my reflection on the week's work at the end of the post.
- Timeline -
- Recap -
In the previous week we tried to emulate the urban birdsong into a very difficult human dating experience. Our concept was very much appreciated but our execution was not the best. We built the protype and invited 12 volunteers to take part in our experience. As a result of overcomplication of the interaction process we were not able to bring our design to life.
- Revaluation -
This time, instead of opting for a new concept we decided to work on our existing concept and come up with a simplified experience with key changes to the design element.
- Design Process -
Brainstorming & Sketching
The team first diverged to brainstorm and roughly sketch out concepts. In this phase, we focused on trying to efficiently communicate our concept to design. Keeping our original concept in mind we came up with three different initial designs.
After we analyzed which would better suit our goal we agreed on sketch number two as a star candidate for the successful execution of our design concept.
Challenge - Converge
While trying to replicate design sketch number two we ran into a few structural and engineering issues. We were unable to use the material in hand to create a beautiful dome shape like we intended to even though we tried and tried and tried..
There came a point when we realized that we needed to improvise. We decided to gain inspiration from the simplicity of form and use of the previous prototype and combe it with the new design. From the new design, we decided to keep the element of an enclosed structure.
After encountering a few difficulties with the materials and structure previously we decided
to utilize most of our time to build a structurally sound prototype.
- Prototype & Interaction Design -
After using the trial and error method with different kinds of materials the final prototype came out to look like the sketch right under this paragraph. The interaction was more or less similar to the first week where there was a listening side and a singing side. However, this time on the listening side there was just one person sitting inside the enclosure and on the outside, there were four people singing the birdsong. Both sides were not visible to the other.
This time the person sitting inside was not distracted by city noises in the background, instead, they were asked to focus on the birdsong from the cup and pick the person whose birdsong they like the best. For the convenience of the person listening, the cup holes were marked in numerical order (as 1,2,3&4) on the inside. The users were given a piece of paper and a pen for them to write down the number of the person whose birdsong they liked.
Video showing our final prototype.
- Evaluation & Feedback -
Finishing the initial week, our prototype was tested by our classmates at UAL. The feedback this week was pretty satisfactory, with there being comments on liking the attention to detail paid in our design.
However, there were comments about us taking a meaningful key idea and oversimplifying it.
After seeing the demonstration the class came up with the following insights to help us with our concept and design further down the road:
1. We were not able to fully convince the users of our design.
2. It was highly oversimplified.
-Reflection -
Last week with the previous model we were dipping our toes into overcomplication, however this time we were diving into oversimplification in design. With the prototype going in two different directions both weeks, this project has made me realise the need to cultivate the ability to try to find a middle ground. To keep things moderate and simple and yet deep and meaningful without compromising on the concept or design.
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