Project 2: Device, Instrument, Tool
Week 1: Observations
Choose an action that produces changes in a medium. It might be strumming a guitar (the medium is sound), hammering a nail (the media are wood, nails, and sound), flying a model plane (the media are the plane and the air). What tool or device is the action taken on? What is the goal of the activity? Observe a person or people engaged in the activity. What are the physical parameters of that activity? What does the person engaged in it do with their arms, their legs, their hands or feet, their head? How do they change their posture? Where do they need to focus their attention? Is there a secondary focus of attention (for example, if two limbs are used independently)? What physical elements of the activity make it engaging? What elements make it difficult, painful, or boring?
Do the action multiple times (perhaps 100 times), or have someone else do it. Record the action, with a video camera, or sensors feeding a graphing program, or in some other way. What patterns appear when the action is repeated?
What are the physical characteristics of the medium that you have to take as given? What physical input to the tool or device suggest or mirror those characteristics? For example, how actions you take on an audio mixer mirror the inherent characteristics of sound? How does the arrangement of controls on a VCR suggest what each control does?
Week 2: early prototype
Now that you've observed one tool or device that manipulates the medium you observed, create another one. Either modify an existing device so that it affords changes to the medium that it didn't previously, or make a whole new tool to manipulate the medium in new ways.
Ask yourself (and your intended users) why someone should use your device to do the job. Don't assume that someone will want to use it, or even know how to use it. Make the functions apparent, and figure out what will make a person want to use your device. How will it make their experience of the activity better?
Is your device dependent on other devices, or on a specific location, or on the arrangement of elements in a space? Where is is best used? What social situations (i.e in private, in front of an audience, in a crowd) are best for its use? How will you ensure that those conditions are met?
Week 3: Advanced prototype
Get other people to use your device, instrument or tool. Try as much as possible to tell them only what they need to get started. For example, if you made a musical instrument, just tell them how to produce changing tones; don't tell them what to play. If you made a device that writes text in response to eye movements, don't tell them what to write, just tell them how to make letters. Observe how your users use your device. Take notes on where they defy your assumptions as to how the tool is to be used. Ask them how they think the device works (their mental model of the action). Listen to what they have to say, and figure out where their mental model diverges from your model of how it works. Use this information to make the tool better.
Week 4: Final prototype
Based on all the information you've gathered, iron out any bugs, make any necessary interface revisions, and complete your device, instrument, or tool. Finalize the documentation of the process.