Day 7: More

I had a couple more ideas that I wanted to get out in the open before
the week ended. There are lots of images, so I'm going to explain them
one by one.

Image 1 & 2: The idea behind the belts is that for one person to
engage another person in conversation, they should always be directly
facing their counterpart. This set consists of two belts, with one
belt buckle containing an IR emitter, and the other having a
receiver/detector. If the receiving belt doesn't detect the emitting
belt, it will start to beep.

Image 3 & 4: In my meeting with Cynthia we also talked about
tone/volume of voice being an aspect of first impressions. Voice falls
somewhere in the area between the spoken word and body language. Image
3 is an idea of having fake glasses made of high-tech glass that
frosts over (the kind we see in fancy bathroom stalls) whenever the
users speaking tone/volume falls below or rises above a certain level.
Image 4 is the same voice regulation idea applied to cufflinks that
trigger a reaction in an inner ear bud.

Image 5: A finger shaped cap with an implanted needle that prevents
the user from tapping his/her fingers in conversation. I am aware that
this is very tongue-in-cheek, like the collar idea, but just wanted to
throw it out there.

Image 6: This is my original chair idea from last semester repackaged
into shoes. There will be a sensor that monitors leg tapping/bouncing.
If the user continuously shakes his/her leg, the embedded miniature
vibrating motor in the shoe will vibrate as a reminder to stop.

Image 7: Body language experts often point out the importance for
people to show their palms to the person they are trying to establish
a rapport with. Showing the palms is a sign of openness, and it can
also be traced back to older times when it was a sign of not baring
arms. This wristband features a camera-flash taser that is connect to
an accelerometer. The accelerometer triggers the taser which when
wearer's palm is facing down.

Next step: I'm going to categorize all the product ideas I've come up
with and label them as either more fictional or more functional. I'll
also be conducting a survey with all the product images and
descriptions to see which ones people find to be the most interesting.

(download)

calibration makes it happen

I stabilized my eyetracking setup using some heavier gauge wire - as you can see in the picture, there's far less extraneous hardware involved now (still not pretty, but oh well). I did get it to connect to my birthday suit flash app, but calibration is still less than perfect. I'll upload some screenshots soon - it would be great if I could do a video capture of my screen to show it actually working, but unfortunately I have to run the Gaze Tracker off a virtual windows machine.

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need to add additional infrared LED's to illuminate my pupil more.

The Highlander Lives! And other minor updates

After battling with my crappy hosting provider and making my code more efficient, I have a working version of "The Highlander" up and running online. I tested it with multiple users (3-5) at once to confirm that, from a technical standpoint, the page worked as it should. Right now it just outputs a simple sentence every 10 seconds depending on what condition is met (you have gained control of the site, you are maintaining ownership of the site, you are not in control of the site). The site checks my database every minute to establish ownership, and if the user in control stays on the page for over a minute they should maintain priority over newer attempts. From this simple implementation, there was some confusion when people were only able to experience either ownership or non-ownership. They grasped the idea once they lost ownership or vice versa. I'm excited to get it online so I can now really have some fun modifying it.

Highlander: http://thesis.kunaldpatel.com/highlander and invite your friends to click on it after you do so that you can feel empowered :-) It's purely a technical proof-of-concept at the moment!

(10:36:11 PM) Me: http://thesis.kunaldpatel.com/highlander
(10:38:11 PM) Greg Modzelewski: i get it
(10:38:14 PM) Greg Modzelewski: there can be only one

Full Disclosure: Greg is one of my best friends and we probably share half a brain, but until now I thought there was only sports and music stored in those areas.

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I also added a technical update to my "penultim.it" prototype in the form of an additional text area and "copy" button. This was purely from a functional standpoint, as this setup now allows users to enter a new URL or easily copy the shortened URL they've received. That's about all the functionality I want to add right now, so I'm going to move on to writing a project description and designing a layout for the page.

penultim.it: http://thesis.kunaldpatel.com/penultim.it

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Lastly, I had another prototype idea while walking home at 1 AM in the freezing cold early Saturday. I've mentioned my interest in 404 pages, and Shir reminded me about a site that collected some Creative 404 Error Pages that I was thinking about, but wasn't quite sure where to take. I began thinking about the significance of 404 pages as markers of dead-ends and digital "wrong turns." No matter where one goes wrong, we all arrive at the same warning sign. Perhaps because it was 1 AM, the visuals I kept returning to were bathrooms in bars where people had written or drawn all over the walls. These markings are left in forgettable spaces that we spend very little of our time, but as they accumulate they give the space it's character. This photo by Conway sums up what I'm trying to say quite nicely.

My idea is thinking about what if 404 pages were treated like the bathroom stalls of the Internet? What if you could leave a record of your frustration at arriving there, or a warning message about what you were looking for, etc.? This kind of stuff exists on the Internet in several forms already, with Your World of Text probably being the closest example to what I'm talking about. I'd like to flesh out the idea some more to really distinguish it and make the connection to 404 pages stronger, but I think it's worth pursuing.

 

Good night all!

Day 6: User Testing / Union Square Green Market

Davyhughes

I spent some time at the Union Square Green Market hanging out with Mr. Davy Hughes. Davy was kind enough to invite me into the Green Market Van to get away from the cold. He is one of the managers at Union Square Green Market (USGM) and he kindly took time to hangout and answer some questions I had about Boca Loca, the market, vendors, and consumers. He tested my user interface and gave me some feedback.

Comments: Really easy to use. He liked how it wasn't platform specific and is a simple web application. The click flow works like this --- login screen --> manifest of inventory --> add new or remove existing --> if add, choose product (vegetables, fruits, meats) --> choose type for product (ie. Fruit --> apple, orange, grapefruit) --> text input for variety --> submit

I was the 5th person that has come up to him to talk about a "green platform". He's really excited about my thesis and it's focus on recipes. None of the other applications out there are focused on developing and sharing recipes, instead, they are the run of the mill app that shows you whats available and where. Sure, it's good to know what's available, but knowing what to do with these items is pretty important too.

Davy felt that it was beneficial for another text field for the vendor to enter in a description for the product. he gave the example of the potato and how many different varieties there are and the different uses. I asked if he thought producers would use Boca Loca, if the producers had access to the internet on their phone. He said the farmers are about two years behind in technology but would definitely be interested in ways they can increase their bottom line. I've started to think of ways to entice vendors to sign up -- perhaps a YELP or ZAGAT style of rating system complete with some sort of "badge" they can post.

After meeting with Davy, I tested my interface with two more vendors, Bread Alone (worker), and D&J Organics (owner). Both had mobile web access and both found the interface easy to use. They didn't think of adding a description text field though. Good thinking Davy. My roommate (MFADT 2009) also tested my interface and thought it was easy to use. She added a pomegranate to the inventory.


The USGM is pretty sparse on Mondays and Davy suggested I come back Wednesday when there are more vendors. I'll be back on Wednesday. Either way, today was a "fruitful" day, no pun intended.

Triangulated T-shirt #2

Conway sent me this amazing wooden carpet piece by a Central St. Martins grad named Elisa Strozyk, and I was really interested in the way that this piece moves, and I loved the way that it draped in this photo of it as a blanket over the model. This prototype is an attempt to apply a similar principle using only fabric. To create this, I layered raincoat canvas with two layers of interfacing and cut it into equilateral triangles to make this type of tile I saw in Strozyk's piece, except that her equilateral triangles are further divided into triangles joined at a center point. I think that, despite the two layers of interfacing, the fabric I used still doesn't have the crispness of her wooden triangles. However, I like that such a simple building block as this equilateral triangle form, printed to look like more triangles than it is, can create this additional illusion of depth. - klee

(download)

Playing with PR

I've decided that for today I will play around with some items I can use for promotion of the film.

tank-top: two lay-outs, one with a face and one without, not sure what I like better, I think the clean one without the face.

condom: I think because researchers trying to blame the circuit scene for being one of the major causes for the rise of HIV/AIDS and other STD's, a condom should be part of my promotion, to push and educate more about safe sex. The two pics show the front and the back of the condom's wrap.

armband+headband: dancing all night and morning causes a lot of sweating obviously, I think it will be cool if party goers will wear this to circuit parties, and who knows maybe there will be a big party for the film:-)

wallet/mp3: when in party there is no much room to put your money, ID and such, so I think this design will function both as mp3 with the soundtrack of the film, but also a small pocket in the back for money and such...and you can wear it on your arm, while dancing, and if when the music stops, put your headphones on and keep on listening to the music from the film:)

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Day 6: Materials & Advisor Meeting

Finally got home after lots of roundabout transfers. I took the bus
this morning, so didn't realize the 7 train wasn't running AGAIN.

Picked up a cheap pair of black slacks today for the velcro pants
prototype, then headed to Staples and Home Depot to get velcro. Both
were closed by the time I got there since it was Sunday... (and I
thought I could get through the week with no fails). I then decided to
swing by Bed Bath & Beyond to see if they carried velcro strips, but
they only had them in white (I want black). I'll be going into
Manhattan again tomorrow for the velcro. After the shopping, I met up
with my thesis advisor, Kyle, to talk about the presentation of my
project. We came to a consensus that presenting the At Hello
series like The JetBlue Flyer's Collection (thanks Conway!) would probably be the
most appropriate. The Flyer's Collection is an advertising campaign
launched by JetBlue over the holiday season that was built upon a
series of fake products that flyer's of other (more inferior) airlines
might need. Like my idea of having both a gallery and an online
component, The Flyer's Collection included both a fictional online
catalogue/store, and a temporary physical store in NYC's Meatpacking
District.

I still have a few product ideas that I want to "visually" realize
before the end of our thing-a-day week. More tomorrow.

Response and new drawings

In my meeting with Cynthia on Friday it became clear to me that the population I was most interested in serving is that of adults who have already learned a foreign language but don't often get a chance to speak it and lose their skills. The technology really lends itself to a learner centered, not a professor centered community because it emphasizes the sharing of knowledge between people. Also because there was such an interest in the survey in live communication that should really be the focus. The main draw of Converso for this particular audience is the connection to other speakers. There is also some interest in connecting Converso to Facebook. Overall 63% of the 42 people surveyed preferred that Converso be a stand alone site and 36% wanted a Facebook application. While I'm interested in that possibility for the moment I'd rather plan out the interaction of Converso first and then later figure out how to connect it to facebook. I've made a few rough sketches of the potential interface of Converso. It's a cross between a network and a chatting application.

(download)

-Hilary

Prototypes of Possible User Interface

Based on feedback on yesterday's prototype, I gave the form a bit more thought. I think that there might be space for more than one type of final product, and I was surprised by how pleasing the t-shirt-with-weird-polyhedron concept was. Hence, I was envisioning one product like this t-shirt, where the screen-based interface would allow the user to drag one of various pre-created 3D polyhedral shapes onto a t-shirt, scale as desired, and order it. Based on the size, it would also be relatively simple to provide a pattern and instructions for how to insert the piece into a t-shirt.

The bottom half of the sketch is another possibility, more in line with a product in which the entire form is made of these polyhedral shapes. In this prototype, I envisioned giving users the option of scaling one of several different base "blocks" all of a uniform size to begin with, but then also with the capability to scale 2x, 4x (or maybe even larger). From there, the user interface would allow them to drag this block into a body form. Additionally, I wanted to try and give the user the capability to click on vertices to make either concave or convex shapes in the blocks. 

The third type of thing I was thinking of was a scenario in which the user would just define a series of points on a body form, and the system would generate a Delaunay triangle mesh based on the points the user chose, or the user could ask the system to generate a random set of points on which to base the mesh. I would like the same capability as the previous prototype, where the user would be able to make points either concave or convex by clicking on them. 

In either of the latter 2 cases, it would be nice if it were possible to produce a systematically numbered pattern for the user to print and use to make the piece themselves. 

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knitting with wire


(Ditto about sending from the wrong address earlier - sorry for the delay) 

I haven't yet abandoned the idea of a sculptural dress that responds to eye-tracking by simply lighting up.  I do like the approach of turning the male gaze into something beautiful, rather than casting a critical eye and hoping it will magically go away.  I have gotten some feedback about some of my garment ideas being too geeky and physical computing-y, but I think there's room to create garments involve wires and LED's that are still beautiful. As such, here's something I'd wanted to try for a while - knitting with wire. (sorry for the poor photo quality) 
I like the marriage of something as traditionally crafty as knitting being combined with more modern materials. This kind of knit could easily create a lattice to support LED's and other small electronic devices.  With a heavier gauge, it could probably be free standing and lend itself to being sculpted very easily. At this point, I just wanted to see how difficult it would be and how it would look.  This particular gauge wasn't that easy to work with, but I think the results are quite beautiful. Not sure if I'll go further with this, but it's good to know that it's doable.

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