I have now completed Design for Interaction at Ravensbourne. It’s been a fun three years despite the many ups and downs that have come along with it. The last few weeks of our degree were very stressful, but certainly something I’m glad I did and worked through.

My final presentation consisted of work from the RSA brief, the collaborative brief and the individual brief. Overall I think it all went well, though there were a few things I was disappointed in. But I feel a lot of that was partly due to learning and experience.

Following our final exhibition and presentations we went onto New Designers, a degree in show in London which was a lot of fun. Our group took a slightly different approach, involving Ping Pong and Top Trump cards. I’ll aim to post more about New Designers later today or tomorrow.

The idea behind my major project at Ravensbourne is to create an experience that enhances a childs enjoyment of a museum throughout; this is to say, it doesn’t rely on a single space or object (such as activity rooms or interactive tables). The goal is to find a way to allow the child to interact with the museum as whole so that they can enjoy everything the museum has to offer as opposed to just what is ultimately targeted for children.

The direction I’m moving in is to provide the child with a camera which they can run around the museum with, taking photos of what ever captures their interest. Creating interaction through observation (I guess this is something photography essentially boils down to). Having taken their photos, the pictures are then uploaded to the museums website, where they will be tagged alongside information about the exhibition piece as well as photos others have taken. Photos can be commented on and favored by others providing a sense of community on the site.

In addition photos are uploaded to a ‘photo wall’ which displays photos children have taken along with their name and age. Having photos on display like this provides the gallery with a new and constantly changing exhibition piece, and also gives the children something to be proud of.

I have more plans for the camera as well as the photo wall, I’ll post more on that as it develops.

Yesterday was the 2009 London Marathon, so I spent the day out taking photos. They came out pretty well, although I spent a large chunk of the day taking photos of the spectators. I particularly like the way this one came out.

View the whole set on Flickr

So I’ve talked aplenty about my personal major project, but at the same time we are working on a collaborative project which is due to be presented a week tomorrow. I’m working with Rob Strode, and together we’re working towards creating a musical space that is affected by the users movements within a certain area.

Today Rob and I finished up working on a miniature version of the prototype. The full scale version will be rather big, around 2.8 meters in width, with the tracking camera raised about 4-5 meters in the air, so we wanted to create a small version of it before undertaking the task. I’ll post more on the specifics of the project once I’ve scanned in the sketches and organised my sketchbook a little more.

More pictures after the break

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This morning brought about an irritating but ultimately productive set of events which gave me time to think about where this project is going, as well as where I ultimately want it to end up. What I have concluded is that I’ve been looking at it all in completely the wrong light.

In the course of my research I have come upon many companies that design and create museums, showrooms and exhibition spaces. One example would MET Studio who have developed some incredible environments that impact those who go to see the exhibition, as well as the surrounding space and those in it. Their design philosophy encompass closely working with their client and understanding their needs, then moving on to finding what is appropriate for the project in question (link).

The key thing that I took from this was understanding that everything needs to work together. So far in this project, I have been picking out issues I’ve identified within current museums as they stand at the minute. This has been my mistake. It’s no good understanding what is wrong with museums if you don’t take into account all the factors that contribute to these problems. The problem might be poor information representation, but the space itself could be a major hindrance when it comes to rectifying this issue. In order to come up with a solution, one would need to start from the ground up. Otherwise you would just end up with a poorly thought out, misplaced form of information representation that may work in the short term but would ultimately fail in the long term; and, in my mind, one of the key principles of design and goals of a designer, is to make timeless, long standing pieces of work.

For this project to work, I need to become a part of the museum or exhibitions development process from beginning to end. Everything needs to fit together in a perfect mould to create a seamless user experience from the moment the user steps into the environment, to the moment they leave. At first this sounds like a daunting task, however I see no reason why a space can’t be developed that has great navigation and user pathways, stunningly made exhibition displays but it’s key feature is incredible information representation. The main thing is that everything fits together perfectly. Interaction is all about the user experience, if there is no user experience then there is no interaction. In a space such as a museum, the user experience is merely being there. By wandering around, taking in the displays and discovering what there is to be learnt, the user interacts with the environment, they follow its pathways, are influenced by what it can tell you. Understanding the users needs from start to finish is essential, and a museum needs to direct and guide its users from start to finish.