Author Archives: Melody Quintana

Class Recap

This week, class began with each group presenting their Calvino design fiction. Then Michael walked us through some examples of design deliverables and gave us a tour of ESI. Finally, each group shared and got feedback on their slide outlines.

Assignment

Each group completes a final iteration that represents the culmination of their idea and post documentation by Sunday. Please focus on the prototype this week, since the final presentation will not be due until the week after next. File your documentation under the Final project – final prototype category.

Class Recap

Michael showed us some mock ups he’s been working on covering a broad range of design process phases in public spaces. Aastha, Matt, Melody and Nga delivered tech presentations. Finally, each group give an update about their latest iteration and showed their user experience diagrams.

Announcements

• Next week’s class at ESI – here’s the address:
  • ESI Design
    111 5th Avenue 12th floor
    New York, NY 10003
• Shared Dropbox folder for tech reports – Want access to people’s tech report slides for thesis reference and/or further edification? Sneha had the lovely idea of creating a shared folder in Dropbox. Visit the tech reports folder and please add your slides to our growing library!
• Playtests next Saturday – The folks at ESI are showcasing their new gaming theater in a playable (but still private) ‘beta’ state through a series of 30 minute sessions. Sign up to participate in a session on Saturday, December 6, ongoing from 12–10 PM.

Assignments

1. Invisible Cities (due Sun, 11/30) – Each group re-craft their design for one of the worlds created in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Please post under the Final Project – Invisible Cities Category. As a reminder for how to add your post to a category, I’ve included a screenshot below.
2. Compile final presentation outline (due in class Mon, 12/1) – Print a draft of your final presentation slides for next class. While you don’t need to fill in the exact content just yet, you should include the core components of your presentation — things like title page, creation myth and user flow diagram. Be sure to have each component printed on a separate piece of paper so we can pin them up and reorder them.

Reminder – How to Post

When you create a new blog post, check the “Final Project – Invisible Cities” category on the right panel before you publish.

Class recap:

Michael shared some of the prototyping work he did the previous week, and recommended the Society for Experiential Graphic Design for anyone who might be interested in getting involved in a local community that’s focused on experiential, physical, and technical design in physical space. We also discussed our learnings from Pete’s lecture, listened to tech presentations, and did an in-class exercise to help each other brainstorm new ideas for our concepts.

Assignment:

• Iteration 3 – Get together and discuss input and ideas from in-class design swap. This is time to start doing a hard convergence. Choose a gem or something that has caught your interest most and start honing it. Find a day this week to go out and do your second to last iteration. Create clear goals to test against. Plan how you will be documenting your prototype. Please post your documentation to the Final project – week 5 category no later than Sunday.
• Tech reports – Matt, Aastha, Nga and Melody

Class recap:

• Michael announced that next week he’ll be away and we’ll have a guest lecturer who specializes in creating public gaming experiences.
• Mikey, Amy, Michie, Mini, Jeff and Hanna presented their tech reports.
• Michael had individual meetings with each group to review project status and create plans for completing projects.

Assignment:

This week you will do your second iteration based on what we talked about in class.

1. Write a series of goals that you want to understand through your testing. Go back to your original goals and parameters to make sure that they are aligned.
2. Take a photo or plan of the location that you are working in and highlight the spaces that you are activating.
3. First set up your second iteration at SVA IXD floor let it run for at least 24 hours, ideally 48.
4. Set it up at the actual location and document
5. Write an analysis of your findings

Please post documentation no later than Sunday, 11/9 and file it under the Final project – week 3 category.

Sam W., Sneha, and Sunnie are scheduled to present their tech research reports next week as well.