Comics, Robots, Fashion and Programming: outlining the concept of actDresses
This paper is about how one can use the sign system used in comics and the practices of clothing and accessorising to control the behaviour of physical interactive devices. This is done by a design study research in three different cases, the first being the accessorising and clothing of a robot pet (Pleo) and thus changing its behaviour via sensors (RFID tags), the second being making GlowBots do different things when attaching different physical tags to it and the third being attaching physical comic-style speech bubbles on a robot vacuum cleaner to make it perform different tasks like avoiding light. It was interesting to see a concrete example of design research, i.e. research that proposes solutions via self designed prototypes, like this one and its many possibilities for evaluation and how the method can be used to improve a design or product. It seems to be very useful when one aim to make something more user friendly (Maier 2010) and when trying to make prototypes of different sorts for future evaluation.
Question: Which would be the areas of usability for actDresses? Do the end-users actually want this kind of functionality?
Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration
What role will prototypes play in research?
I believe that prototypes can play a very important role in research due to its explaining and applying nature. For example it is my opinion that the logic in the paper by Haibo Li and colleagues would have been very hard to follow without their applied prototype. Prototypes play the role of sense making and applies the theory onto something real that we as readers (that often do not have the expert knowledge of the problem or theory at hand) can relate to and have as a basis for deeper understanding.
Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?
A proof of concept prototype is necessary when you are trying to persuade the readers/users that the theory will work. It demonstrates the feasibility of the concept or theory and is often used on a very specific, or narrow, case (Wikipedia 2013a) as they did in the paper we read for this weeks theme. It may also lay the foundation for future design work in my opinion. It might both tell what to do and how to do something as well as what not to do and how to not do it regarding the design or application of the prototype.
How can design research be communicated/presented?
I believe that the most effective way to communicate or present your design research is through an implemented prototype of some sort. Of course, since design research is an iterative process you can always present it present it by its constituents, like for example what the results of a user testing was or what the target group thought of the idea or design before it was prototyped. In my opinion the research “has to” be presented with some kind of visual aid, for example via videos, mock-ups or graphs etcetera, in order for it to be able to communicate its message.
Resources
Fernaeus, Y. & Jacobsson, M., 2009. Comics , Robots , Fashion and Programming: outlining the concept of actDresses. , p.3–8.
Maier, Andrew - UXBooth - Complete Beginners Guide to Design Reserach - http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/complete-beginners-guide-to-design-research [Retreived on December 4 2013]
Sun, J., Liu, L. & Li, H., 2008. Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball : Rendering. , 10(6), p.1022–1033.
I totally agree with you that prototypes makes it a lot easier to understand a design concept because then you can test it out how it works. I also found it a bit hard in the beginning to understand how the vibration concept by Haibo et al was supposed to work at first but it was enlightening to read about their prototype and the evaluation that they did.
SvaraRaderaI think the feasability is very important when you are making a proof of concept prototype. You can then see if it is possible or maybe worth it to make the final design. As you say, it is also good to persuade the users, although in the paper by Haibo et al, the users did not get persuaded to buy such a product, they at least got to know about the concept and most of them thought it was an interesting one, so then you know that there are interest in continuing with the research for such an area.