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The hard work begins Monday morning when Matt Cottam will come in to teach us about Interaction Design …but purely analogue …no computers! This seems like a great place to start to get down to the basic rules of interaction. I am VERY excited!!

In the mean time, we are off on a bike ride on Sunday to see the ‘white cliffs of Denmark’ , south of Copenhagen! A view not to be missed apparently – just like the spectacular view of my back wheel collapsing as the loose spokes, I was told to fix, finally give way! Let’s hope Old Agnes holds it together!

I remember leafing through bunches of family photos as a child, and coming across the occasional picture of a 2 ton metal machine, thinking how very strange, I can’t remember  that ‘CNC horizontal boring mill’ from our holiday Majorca circa 1996! With an engineer for a father, this became the norm and here I am many years later posting photos of similarly heavy machinery. ‘Martin’ here is the table saw in the rather splendid wood workshop at DKDS! I find it amazing how these things are designed, like who informs the usability of such a massive, and potentially dangerous machine!?  Anyway, once again the facilities available are of such a high standard… you can understand why the Danish are so well renowned for their wooden furniture!! 

We didn’t quite have enough time to throw together an Arne Jacobsen- like chair, we just managed a few rounds of the table and band saw where I produced some practical eye wear…

As part of our initiation to CIID, Karen asked us to fill out an online questionnaire by Foursight. We were unaware of what exactly it was for… 

However the results were in, and our ‘thinking profile’ was revealed to us. The results were not necessarily what we were/and not good at, but our preferences within the design process.

Me = the “early bird”

A high clarifier and high ideator

“They enjoy finding problems and opportunities to tackle” Definitely!

“Early birds at their best have a sixth sense for which problems to focus on and effortlessly come up with clever ideas and original solutions” – I’d like to think so!

but “Their potential watch out is the half finished initiative – those really great ideas that never get off the ground”  - sounds familiar!

how to improve:

+ strategies that help them see  an idea through to the end

+ collaborate with developers and implementers

+ learn to pace myself and save enough energy for final stages of refining solutions and bringing them to action

+keep my eye on one task before getting distracted by the next interesting opportunity!

Taken on board!

workshop induction today!  A chance to try out welding metal, bending metal, cutting metal…milling metal, which as you can see ,was my favourite as I produced my out-of-scale aluminium cassette tape above! I might just make a vintage Kylie Minogue (post – Donovan) case to give it some authenticity! 

Anyway…the DKDS facilities are undoubtedly amazing, and we were given free reign to try out all the machines to make what ever the hell we wanted…mostly insignificant objects for the mantelpiece! I look forward to future prototyping…

And in true fashion, I have one injury to report…blisters ahoy! Remember…never touch just welded metal!

track for yesterday…played on repeat…

Black Sabbath – Planet Caravan ( Dj Steef Mix )

We arrive into the studio on the Wednesday morning looking a little anxious as our first project lies ahead. We have a day and a half to complete said project, with user research and relevant form of prototyping, to be presented to everyone at 3pm on the Thursday…ambitious, but achieveable!

Our brief: SLEEP;

Something we are all good at, and something we will no doubt be lacking in within a matter of weeks at CIID

Our Group: Eric, Jacek, Jesper, Laura and me!

After an hour or so discussing our own sleep patterns, and areas for opportunity, we locate an interesting user group that will be accessible in the short time we have for user research. To the airport we go…

User research is a familiar area for me, but the prospect of probing complete strangers about personal matters is still daunting, however with a little perseverance  we soon had 15-20 profiles of airport users; travellers and workers. On first glance, very few people displayed problems with sleep…but as our Pilot year mentor Sid advised, don’t struggle looking for the problems, look for the opportunities. We found out people accept that they forfeit sleep when travelling long distances, but they do it anyway because they have to for work, or for the experience on the other side. The opportunity started to become clear through this recurring theme.

So the design challenge that transpired from our user research;  how to help the long haul traveller adapt to the transition between time zones.

I personally see the plane journey as a vacant space, or limbo, where little can be achieved in thought or in action. You no longer withhold the identity of your departing location, nor the arrival destination which for some can cause anxiety, alongside the stress on the body caused by jetlag. Furthermore, the arrival in an unfamiliar place that does not correspond with your body clock can add to this stress. So how can we make a comfortable and calming experience for those in transition.

And ‘Time Zone’ was born…

Upon entering the departure gate, the environment simulates that of the destination and it’s time zone. The lighting is adjusted accordingly to night or day, as it is currently in the destination country. The environment of the destination is recreated through video installation in order for the traveller to start processing the information visually. This is continued throughout the plane journey. 

The idea is not to omit jetlag obviously, but to start the transition earlier to mentally prepare the traveller for the unfamiliarity of their destination.

For a day and a half project, we were happy with what we achieved, especially in creating this opportunity from what seemed unavailing user research. It’s an interesting concept although perhaps unpractical in its implication.

As a team, we found the entire process rewarding and particularly felt the benefit of the workshops with Karen earlier in the week. A very nice start to the year…