Parallel Prototypes
We started last week jumping back a few steps and began work on prototypes for a park. When we spoke to Alan again, he pointed out that our park or space is the medium for our solution, and that the features we decided to place in it would determine its effectiveness. Keeping that in mind, we went on a field trip to Revelle Plaza to examine the space we have to work with. We have since created two prototypes, one similar to the more traditional park with benches swings and open spaces that allows users to easily choose not to interact with others (optional interaction). The second one, which we called interactive by default is designed to cater to the more interactive users. In the coming week we plan to do our final round of user interviews and combine the most desirable parts of our two prototypes into one final prototype.
What we each thought:
“It fascinates me to find that the park is our canvas while the features we choose to place inside it are what make it truly make it an art piece. It’s also crazy to think we have only a couple weeks left to finish things up. I’m glad we were able to pick a space we were all confident in, and brainstorming exactly what should go into the park and where was enjoyable. The imagination is our limit, and we surely exceeded it. It’s also funny to think, why was UCSD designed how it was? Revelle Plaza had so much potential, yet, it’s a square of concrete used by none. Through our prototypes, we tried to make a space that was interactive by default as well as one that is interactive by choice. Let’s see what the users think.”
Best Regards,
Lion
“This week was surprisingly tiring. Designing the prototypes involved a great deal of discussion. Don’t get me wrong, the discussion was valuable, but it was a great deal of talking. With each potential feature we discussed how we expected it to be used, how it might contribute to or detract from the interaction we sought from the design and what kind of interaction we hoped to gain from it. As we go through user interviews, I hope we can discover which parts of our design work and which don’t as we design the final prototype to present at the end of the project.”
Best,
Turtle
“Based on our user data, we discovered that pleasure and interaction for our users includes having nature in the setting, building a stronger sense of community in UCSD, and having an uncluttered, open space to hang out with friends or relax. Both of our prototypes address some or all of these issues. The first one has more of an emphasis on the park’s open space for people to create interaction, whether it be relaxing under the sun, playing frisbee with friends or eating lunch. With the first prototype, we created an overall relaxing park where you can interact but can also bide your time on your own if you choose not to interact. With the second prototype, interaction is highly encouraged and enabled with the dog park across from the coffee cart, the Mayanlike tower with grass on each layer, and the fountain above that with open space in the middle for people to sit, eat, study, in one of the two long tables, etc. We hope to see how our users interpret both versions of the park and which features within the park appeals to their sense of pleasure and interaction more. ”
Take it easy,
Whale
“Despite our setbacks and our current direction, I’m excited with all the possibilities that this week has offered us. Now that we have parallel prototyped and we are ready for A/B testing, we really get to understand in which specific direction we will be moving for the next (and final) leg of the race. It will be interesting to find out if people prefer defaultnoninteractive over defaultinteractive open spaces, or vice versa.”
Cheers,
Ocelot
