maandag 2 november 2009
Week - Day 5 - Final Presentations!
At around 7 in the morning most of the group sat bleary eyed around the working area, discussing our options. We missed one important member of the team since we needed to get together the video that would be shown during our presentation. The so usually punctual Jakob had overslept miserably, and on top of that found out that the rendering had not been completed since he had run out of disc space. So instead of bundling our powers to finalize the presentation, there was waiting to do... waiting for a computer to finish something is extremely frustrating when there is little time and no other choice. But this was the critical path we had no way to avoid now.
After rendering there were lots of fresh obstacles to overcome. The film had to be cut up a little to remove black screen, after which it needed to be output, and output again together with the music. And more outputting since there were problems with the film's resolution, and outputted again since it still wasn't as it was supposed to look. A harrowing proces that brought a lot of stress but this is how things go before the final moment. In the meanwhile Alex worked on the presentation materials while Alina nervously rehearsed her speech.
And so it was done! All came together at the last moment and we were able to enjoy lectures and the other student's presentations without frustration. Being the third group to present was good timing for us, since we didn't have to sit in anticipation for long and did not have to be stressed over being first.
The presentation did not go as smooth as we would have hoped. The film suffered from silence while we played it as the group before us had turned off the sound on the mac instead of the soundboard. Alina was also quite nervous but she managed to present our ideas clearly and we were happy with the results.
After presenting there was some inquiry by the national press, who asked us for a short interview during the recess. This was a very nice opportunity and we tried to tell our story as best we could. Further down the line there was a little award ceremony for the three groups that had the best concepts, and although it was a shame we were not up there, the exposure from local and national danish press was more than enough to leave us beaming.
But there was one more thing to consider... The Designschool Cafetaria had been so wonderful, everyone of the international students seemed to agree: This was the Best Cafetaria in the World. So thinking up the perfect gift for these people was of supreme importance, and extremely difficult. But the ideation phase Alex and I started ended promplty as she thought up giving them an award. A quick round along the students made it clear and together with Nimisha we hand-crafted a great prize, that was quickly signed by all students during a lecture about futurism. Our epic cook seemed quite pleased and a little flustered when she was called to the stage after all the awards had been handed out, but it was definately worth it.
The rest of the day was mostly a lot of fun! We drank and ate and laughed. Bought more to drink and moved to Rikards place for a final afterparty. People were tired and drunk, nostalgic and loving. We had spent two weeks of intense collaboration in Kolding and gotten to know each other quite well, so it was sad to know that this great experience was coming to an end. But vows of social networking were made and hundreds of pictures and hugs were exchanged. Everyone was happy :)
To all of you Vision2020 imagineers I say: See you in the Future!
After rendering there were lots of fresh obstacles to overcome. The film had to be cut up a little to remove black screen, after which it needed to be output, and output again together with the music. And more outputting since there were problems with the film's resolution, and outputted again since it still wasn't as it was supposed to look. A harrowing proces that brought a lot of stress but this is how things go before the final moment. In the meanwhile Alex worked on the presentation materials while Alina nervously rehearsed her speech.
And so it was done! All came together at the last moment and we were able to enjoy lectures and the other student's presentations without frustration. Being the third group to present was good timing for us, since we didn't have to sit in anticipation for long and did not have to be stressed over being first.
The presentation did not go as smooth as we would have hoped. The film suffered from silence while we played it as the group before us had turned off the sound on the mac instead of the soundboard. Alina was also quite nervous but she managed to present our ideas clearly and we were happy with the results.
After presenting there was some inquiry by the national press, who asked us for a short interview during the recess. This was a very nice opportunity and we tried to tell our story as best we could. Further down the line there was a little award ceremony for the three groups that had the best concepts, and although it was a shame we were not up there, the exposure from local and national danish press was more than enough to leave us beaming.
But there was one more thing to consider... The Designschool Cafetaria had been so wonderful, everyone of the international students seemed to agree: This was the Best Cafetaria in the World. So thinking up the perfect gift for these people was of supreme importance, and extremely difficult. But the ideation phase Alex and I started ended promplty as she thought up giving them an award. A quick round along the students made it clear and together with Nimisha we hand-crafted a great prize, that was quickly signed by all students during a lecture about futurism. Our epic cook seemed quite pleased and a little flustered when she was called to the stage after all the awards had been handed out, but it was definately worth it.
The rest of the day was mostly a lot of fun! We drank and ate and laughed. Bought more to drink and moved to Rikards place for a final afterparty. People were tired and drunk, nostalgic and loving. We had spent two weeks of intense collaboration in Kolding and gotten to know each other quite well, so it was sad to know that this great experience was coming to an end. But vows of social networking were made and hundreds of pictures and hugs were exchanged. Everyone was happy :)
To all of you Vision2020 imagineers I say: See you in the Future!
Week 2 - Day 4
Only one more day to go and get it right!
We started out by reviewing the garments that were designed by Alina and Alexandra, and put together during the night by Alex. After which the storyboard was refined so we could start shooting when the props were finalized. We put some thought into a name and logo for our jacket and suitcase, but this took quite a bit to get right and not have an unsuspected phallus symbol pop up somewhere.
We decided to shoot the film inside of the school. Since the weather was awefull and we wanted a white background to later scribble some animations on that would explain the concept better. The boys filmed effeciently and this took a little over an hour. Meanwhile the girls started to prepare the rest of the presentation that would take place before and after the little video.
Editing was difficult. While Jakob worked on visuals for the animation, Jan had lots of trouble getting the macs in school to work. But after some workarounds it was finally up, and running the pipeline to the After Effects bit became a lot simpler.
Time was short and the voice over for the film took quite a while to make. Putting animations in the final version also took up quite a bit of time. We finished the recordings and discussed what our strategy would be to finish up the presentation just before the school would close for the night (around twelve). We'd start early at seven to realize our powerpoint, while during the night Jakob would finish up his After Effects, Alexandra would prepare some presentation materials such as a poster, Jan would remaster the sound recordings and music, while Alina could get some rest to be fresh for the presentation in the morning.
Sleep is overrated anyway.
We started out by reviewing the garments that were designed by Alina and Alexandra, and put together during the night by Alex. After which the storyboard was refined so we could start shooting when the props were finalized. We put some thought into a name and logo for our jacket and suitcase, but this took quite a bit to get right and not have an unsuspected phallus symbol pop up somewhere.
We decided to shoot the film inside of the school. Since the weather was awefull and we wanted a white background to later scribble some animations on that would explain the concept better. The boys filmed effeciently and this took a little over an hour. Meanwhile the girls started to prepare the rest of the presentation that would take place before and after the little video.
Editing was difficult. While Jakob worked on visuals for the animation, Jan had lots of trouble getting the macs in school to work. But after some workarounds it was finally up, and running the pipeline to the After Effects bit became a lot simpler.
Time was short and the voice over for the film took quite a while to make. Putting animations in the final version also took up quite a bit of time. We finished the recordings and discussed what our strategy would be to finish up the presentation just before the school would close for the night (around twelve). We'd start early at seven to realize our powerpoint, while during the night Jakob would finish up his After Effects, Alexandra would prepare some presentation materials such as a poster, Jan would remaster the sound recordings and music, while Alina could get some rest to be fresh for the presentation in the morning.
Sleep is overrated anyway.
zondag 1 november 2009
woensdag 28 oktober 2009
Week 2 - Day 3
We started the morning by arguing! There was a difference of opinion on how to iterate our concept. Instead of trying to add too many features there was a strong need to try and focus on making the concept stronger as a whole. There weren't any strong heated arguments but the tension was palpable. And so it was decided that we should take a short break, cool down, have some coffee and try to work around the difference of opinion to come to some kind of mutual understanding.
This worked quite well. Working through the problem, facilitated by a caring teammember, we came to a consensus about the path we should take. After listing our focus and voting on the way to proceed we had a clear path ahead and proceeded to present our findings of the research done the evening before.
There was a lot of information to be explained and we spent quite some time talking about the various parts of the research. Each worked form his or her own background to fill an explicit role in the process, and everyone was keen on elevating our concept to the next level. Different prototypes had been made, wireframes designed, important papers explained and ways to see parts of the concept in different perspectives put forth.
With a new focus we went on to create a different persona, one that would explain an important audience for us to develop for. The cityboy of the future was born, he had no kids but a strong materialistic drive and a strong ambition to be succesful. To create for a user that would be difficult to reach we devised a strong incentive and a way to incorporate his lifestyle with our concept.
Because of this we could redesign our product to better fit the needs of the persona. We could leave some of the functionality behind and simplify the concept to be able to better communicate it come friday. A talk with Barnabas also provided some valuable insight that we felt was of great help.
We had decided to go out and buy some props for our final prototype to communicate to our stakeholders (in this case, our tutors, press and dignitaries from the designcity Kolding), instead of using cardboard, plastic and wood. But before this possible there was a short lecture by Barnabas we had to wait for. In the meantime we talked about envisioning the final presentation and came up with a framework for this. The lecture was quite interesting and inspiring, it focussed on some key points we should have a strong focus on and I think came at exactly the right time in exactly the right dose. Another helpfull addition came from a journalist who told us about the 'press pyramid' of information disclosure. We decided to follow this model as a strong guideline.
We went out into the streets and visited secondhand shops for materials to build our final prototype with and found some good bags and garments we could redesign into our futuristic concept.
More talk of presentation ensued. We decided on a look and feel, a certain style and were sure to reach consensus before moving on through the different phases in our exploration of possiblities. Other topics of discussion included: the timing of the videoclip we were going to be making; the structure of the information disclosure; colours and minimalistic style; animations in the video; style of the garment vs. style of the video.
While the ladies were busy designing the garments the boys put together a storyboard taking the viewer throught the user journey by treating the most important touchpoints of the concept. After doing this we got together again to iterate both processes and revamp some parts where necessary. There was some confusion at a certain point that related to the earlier argument, but we were able to quickly work through this and keep focus. Much fun was had while we thought up weird names for our concept.
And so we worked, and worked, deep into the night...
This worked quite well. Working through the problem, facilitated by a caring teammember, we came to a consensus about the path we should take. After listing our focus and voting on the way to proceed we had a clear path ahead and proceeded to present our findings of the research done the evening before.
There was a lot of information to be explained and we spent quite some time talking about the various parts of the research. Each worked form his or her own background to fill an explicit role in the process, and everyone was keen on elevating our concept to the next level. Different prototypes had been made, wireframes designed, important papers explained and ways to see parts of the concept in different perspectives put forth.
With a new focus we went on to create a different persona, one that would explain an important audience for us to develop for. The cityboy of the future was born, he had no kids but a strong materialistic drive and a strong ambition to be succesful. To create for a user that would be difficult to reach we devised a strong incentive and a way to incorporate his lifestyle with our concept.
Because of this we could redesign our product to better fit the needs of the persona. We could leave some of the functionality behind and simplify the concept to be able to better communicate it come friday. A talk with Barnabas also provided some valuable insight that we felt was of great help.
We had decided to go out and buy some props for our final prototype to communicate to our stakeholders (in this case, our tutors, press and dignitaries from the designcity Kolding), instead of using cardboard, plastic and wood. But before this possible there was a short lecture by Barnabas we had to wait for. In the meantime we talked about envisioning the final presentation and came up with a framework for this. The lecture was quite interesting and inspiring, it focussed on some key points we should have a strong focus on and I think came at exactly the right time in exactly the right dose. Another helpfull addition came from a journalist who told us about the 'press pyramid' of information disclosure. We decided to follow this model as a strong guideline.
We went out into the streets and visited secondhand shops for materials to build our final prototype with and found some good bags and garments we could redesign into our futuristic concept.
More talk of presentation ensued. We decided on a look and feel, a certain style and were sure to reach consensus before moving on through the different phases in our exploration of possiblities. Other topics of discussion included: the timing of the videoclip we were going to be making; the structure of the information disclosure; colours and minimalistic style; animations in the video; style of the garment vs. style of the video.
While the ladies were busy designing the garments the boys put together a storyboard taking the viewer throught the user journey by treating the most important touchpoints of the concept. After doing this we got together again to iterate both processes and revamp some parts where necessary. There was some confusion at a certain point that related to the earlier argument, but we were able to quickly work through this and keep focus. Much fun was had while we thought up weird names for our concept.
And so we worked, and worked, deep into the night...
dinsdag 27 oktober 2009
Week 2 - Day 2
We started the day by going through the user journeys again, just to make them clear for ourselves. After this we had the opportunity to explain them to another group, who were very helpfull in pointing out some of the barriers we could encounter in our user proces. We had been so focussed on building a future scenario that we had forgotten to fill some important details in like user needs and the barriers in our story. But there was little time to do this, and after providing some feedback on the other groups' user journey we went back to redefine our stories to collect them into a single narrative and see where the most important touchpoints would lie. In this way we could deduce which part of our concept to prototype.
Some parts of the journeys were removed, some clarified, but finally everything was set in a working narrative line that we were all quite happy with. Some discussion ensued about the most important part of the user journey that we were going to prototype. Since all lines converged on, and went away from the store where our product would be bought, it seemed obvious that this should be the starting point for our prototype. But most of the group felt that the actual products were far more interesting to build and get insights into.
So we collected a lot of materials: wood, plastics, paper and lots of tape. And we started to build our two products in seperate teams. Alina and Jakob focussed on a suitcase that would clean your clothes while they were being kept in a special compartement of the bag. While Alexandra and Jan made a coat that while worn would filter pollutants from the air and store them inside of special compartments of the suit, these pollutants would then be drawn out and cleaned by the suitcase. We had a lot of fun building these things and time flew by until we decided to lay the finishing hand on the initial prototypes and try to find people to do some very important user testing.
Our first victims were two males in their 50's, waiting for something or other at a local carpark. They talked about their imagined use of the product and how they would feel about using it, but didn't actually try to interact with either the suitcase or the coat. However, through discussion we did gather some interesting userdata about our prototypes. With the help of Marco, one of the designcamp students working on a different subject, we were able to glean more information. Projecting himself into the future he told us how he could see himself using the product as he tried on the coat and rummaged through the suitcase. Interesting tidbits surfaced, some of the interactions were quite succesful, others could be worked on, and overal we got useful data to iterate with.
From there on it was a question how to proceed. We talked about our observations, quickly wrote down some ideas and some of us tried to create a discussion on what to iterate and how, but this met resistance and was kept aside to be handled the next day. Since we could contact a technical textile liaison from the designschool, the idea was put out to see if there were any opportunities that we could work with to build out some of the design area's. The idea of doing more research was pushed, and there was some resistance, but in the end it was decided the group would separate for the day to do some hours of research by themselves and present this the next day to be taken up in the iterations of the products.
To finish off the day we had some preliminary discussion about how we were going to visualize our products at the final presentation. Would it be a powerpoint? Film? Stop-motion animation? What would the format be? It was good to have at least some first thoughts on this to see where we would be on the final day.
Some parts of the journeys were removed, some clarified, but finally everything was set in a working narrative line that we were all quite happy with. Some discussion ensued about the most important part of the user journey that we were going to prototype. Since all lines converged on, and went away from the store where our product would be bought, it seemed obvious that this should be the starting point for our prototype. But most of the group felt that the actual products were far more interesting to build and get insights into.
So we collected a lot of materials: wood, plastics, paper and lots of tape. And we started to build our two products in seperate teams. Alina and Jakob focussed on a suitcase that would clean your clothes while they were being kept in a special compartement of the bag. While Alexandra and Jan made a coat that while worn would filter pollutants from the air and store them inside of special compartments of the suit, these pollutants would then be drawn out and cleaned by the suitcase. We had a lot of fun building these things and time flew by until we decided to lay the finishing hand on the initial prototypes and try to find people to do some very important user testing.
Our first victims were two males in their 50's, waiting for something or other at a local carpark. They talked about their imagined use of the product and how they would feel about using it, but didn't actually try to interact with either the suitcase or the coat. However, through discussion we did gather some interesting userdata about our prototypes. With the help of Marco, one of the designcamp students working on a different subject, we were able to glean more information. Projecting himself into the future he told us how he could see himself using the product as he tried on the coat and rummaged through the suitcase. Interesting tidbits surfaced, some of the interactions were quite succesful, others could be worked on, and overal we got useful data to iterate with.
From there on it was a question how to proceed. We talked about our observations, quickly wrote down some ideas and some of us tried to create a discussion on what to iterate and how, but this met resistance and was kept aside to be handled the next day. Since we could contact a technical textile liaison from the designschool, the idea was put out to see if there were any opportunities that we could work with to build out some of the design area's. The idea of doing more research was pushed, and there was some resistance, but in the end it was decided the group would separate for the day to do some hours of research by themselves and present this the next day to be taken up in the iterations of the products.
To finish off the day we had some preliminary discussion about how we were going to visualize our products at the final presentation. Would it be a powerpoint? Film? Stop-motion animation? What would the format be? It was good to have at least some first thoughts on this to see where we would be on the final day.
Week 2 - Day 1
The concepts that were presented by all the the different groups were interesting, fun and inpiring in many ways. Questions and comments were helpful and pointed many people to interesting ways and directions to look and experience. As a group we presented our concepts one by one and helped each other out where nescesarry, which worked quite well. The feedback focussed mainly on ways to eliminate pollution through technical means, but the tutors wanted to see us go even further into a science fiction world where everything could be possible.
After this pleasant morning round of presentations some wonderful food was set out for us, which was immensely enjoyed. With full bellies we jumped into User Journey's. Toke gave an insightful presentation on this methodology and we started creating some great journey's through our future vision. I guess we like crafting and building on the feedback to go deeper into our vision we each created seperate scenario's to work out what was in our head and then communicated this amongst each other to help build out the journeys even further.
At around five we decided to call it a day, since there was a film planned for us at the local movie theatre. Children of Men posed an epic doomsday scenario for us to be inspired by and it may have influenced our visualisation of the user journeys even further.
More fantastic food awaited us at the school for a late dinner with wine, beer and great conversation. A day to remember :)
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