PROTOTYPE APPRAISAL REPORT

Better Than Everyone Else: ‘mirror’

This team has demonstrated a solid design process and good background research throughout its development. It seems that the trip to the art gallery has brought forth many new ideas that they are taking into consideration. Ideas such as how people interact with displays, both interactive and static, have significantly added to the projects overall appeal. For instance having an image blur when approached by someone through motion detection has the effect of engaging that person with ‘mirror’ and grabs their attention and interest.
I would encourage them to keep applying what they have learned, as I think that there is room for improvement. For example I feel that involving people more would improve the interaction with the technology and what is being displayed. So far, as I understand it, once the mirror is approached and the image is un-blurred, depending on their distance, there seems little else ‘control’ (or interaction for that matter) over what is being showed. Would it be possible to allow a person to browse between images shown for example? On another note I think that the intended use of audio is great, as it really informs what is being displayed. Overall I’m pretty excited to see the final result. Good work.

Static Synergy: ‘multi-touch table’

Unfortunately due to technical difficulties the completed prototype wasn’t available to be demonstrated in the presentation. The demo video shown however, during the prototype presentation was great. Even though it was very short it managed to convey the feeling and overall idea of the project very well. It would have been good to incorporate more detail in how you would actually cut/copy/paste/drag/delete. As mentioned in the class before, I think that the use of different scenarios would have assisted in describing the different interactions with the system and the users, as the ‘multi-touch table’ is a system for virtual file browsing and sharing. For example starting from how two people would go about getting their files off devices and onto the table. What steps would be necessary and if it required a certain sequence for both users to perform? I am also interested in how a person would use his/her hand. Would it mean something else if they’d use two fingers when dragging instead of one (being the difference between drag and copy-to)? This could eliminate the need for text or drop down menus, which I think would be a good direction to take it into (with this it might be helpful to have some sort of icon/graphics that would help the user understand what options they have). On a last note, the use of audio would help in giving users feedback to the actions and tasks that they are currently trying to perform. I’m really interested in seeing how the final table will result. Good work.