Experience Prototyping Assignment

I502: Prototyping for HCI

Jeffrey Bardzell, Ph.D.
Spring 2009

Overview
For this final assignment, each group will put together a video prototype of a single
interactive installation/exhibit at a museum. The installation should be both educational
and entertaining, and (of course!) it must be universally accessible.

Process
In I502 we have focused on new approaches and lenses for HCI, which provide
alternative ways of conceptualizing knowledge and discovery than the rationalist tradition
with which most of us are more familiar. These alternative approaches should help us
conceive design problems in a different way than we may be initially inclined.

For this class (and I suppose grad school in general), process is more valuable than
product, so I’d like to specify several components of the process that I would like each
team to complete (not necessarily in the following order).

• Specify the Installation Concept. The group shall come up with a concept for a
museum installation. The exact topic is up to the group, and imagine that the
budget is between $10,000 and $30,000 (just a ballpark—don’t obsess with
numbers or create a budget!). Feel free to explore the links provided in the
Inspirations section (below) to get you started, or make up something from
scratch.
o Tip: The main effort of this assignment will be expended on experience
prototyping (including bodystorming and informance, as appropriate) and
then devising a video prototype. Therefore, keep your installation concept
small and focused; do not kill yourselves by coming up with something
super ambitious.
• Experience disability. You’ve read about it, but for this assignment, I want every
member of this class to experience disability.
o For each person in the group, group members shall devise a “disability
activity” in which one person assumes a disability for one hour. It may
also help to come up with a mini-history for this person: her or his age,
cause of disability (skiing accident, or deaf since birth, etc), and whatever
else seems useful. A second person will facilitate, providing the person
with a disability with a series of activities for that hour, also ensuring
safety of the person with a disability. A third person will take notes
(liberally assisted by the other two, as appropriate).
 o Each person should play each role at least once.
o Each person should have a different disability, and at least two (preferably
three) categories of disability should be represented: visual, audible,
motor, and cognitive.
o Once complete, the group shall get together and synthesize the notes,
spelling out the major insights and discoveries learned from the
experiments. Use metaphor liberally and self-consciously to enable you to
express what you experienced when you had a disability.
• Wax poetic. We have talked about how critical theory (or philosophy) can be a
part of a design criticism that leads to design insights. I want you to practice this
“critical creativity” in this assignment; that is, I want to see bold experimentalism
and free-wheeling imagination.
o Metaphors. As a group, brainstorm to come up with many metaphors for
interfaces for your design, understanding that the interface(s) need to be
universally accessible and provide roughly equivalent (though not
necessarily identical) experiences for all who use it.
o Cyborgs. Information systems (even museum installations) join together
the human and the machine; in doing so, each has to be reconfigured to
operate with the other. Think explicitly about how your design might
change or reconfigure its human users.
• Prototype and film. Using whatever materials you deem appropriate (poster
board, boxes, paper, magic markers—whatever), prototype your museum
installation. Film people using it in such a way that those watching the film will
understand the following:
o Most groups have someone in them who owns a DV camera; however,
some groups do not (we have done our best to create groups accordingly).
If your group does not have a camera owner, make arrangements to get a
camera ASAP—the main library rents them, and classmates may be
willing to lend them, so make your arrangements ASAP!
o Your prototype should go through at least two iterations
o What visitors will learn when they use this installation
o Why this installation is universally accessible
o What additional resources (e.g., facilitators, extra space, lifts), if any, will
be needed to accommodate a visitor with a disability
o For the adventurous, you may use machinima instead of digital video to
visualize/prototype the museum piece (you should still use traditional
video to record and show your disability experience prototype).
Machinima is probably harder, so be sure you know what you are getting
into before you try it. But if you are up for the challenge (and want an
excuse to get into it), then I encourage all to consider this option—it is so
cutting edge it is not even yet on the cutting edge!

• Prepare the video prototype. Edit the video prototype.

o Keep the total production under 8 total minutes.
o Rough and somewhat amateur productions are perfectly sufficient for our
 needs here; iMovie and other consumer-level equivalents are more than
sufficient
o Add titles, captions, voice-overs or any other additional features needed to
explain or clarify video contents; alternatively, prepare a script that is
keyed to the video so someone could explain it to the museum board as it
plays. Of course, any combination of these is also acceptable.

Deliverables
The true deliverables for this assignment are insight and creative ideas.

• Deliver the video (including script, if appropriate). It must be 8 minutes and 00

seconds or shorter!
• Use the medium of video to convey your design process—particularly in terms of
how the disability portion influenced your final outcome
• Hand in paper documentation detailing other activities.
o These may include journals or scans of journals
o These are informal—please do NOT bother to type them up or make them
grammatically polished
o These should reveal what you did for your experience disability activity as
well as what you learned from it
o These should reveal your team’s process of thinking through metaphors
• A 500 word (more or less, but not a lot more or less) individual reflection on
your experience prototyping experience. Use very specific examples from your
particular disability prototype that lead to your individual insights rather than
talking in general terms. These insights do not need to be reflected in your
museum prototype directly. This individual reflection is intended to help us
understand your design process so we can evaluate your work better.
• Group will present video in class. Total presentation must be 10 minutes or less.

Grading and Due Date

Class presentations (works-in-progress) will be Tuesday and Thursday, April 28 and 30
Final project portfolios are due by Tuesday, May 5st
All group members will receive the same grade.

Inspirations
Exploratorium (San Francisco, CA)
http://www.exploratorium.edu
http://www.geocities.com/sfphototour/exploratorium.html

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (Washington, DC)

http://www.nasm.si.edu/
Shedd Aquarium (Chicago, IL)
http://www.sheddaquarium.org/