Physical interaction design

Physical Interaction
Design
@argoncobalt
Ariel Cotton
www.electricstud.io
@argoncobalt

This talk focuses on...
● My background in interaction design
● What interaction design is
● How interaction design can be applied to physical
interfaces, not just software ones
● Teensy microcontroller demo that uses a pressure
sensor to control mouse movements on the
computer screen
@argoncobalt

Hullo. I’m Ariel Cotton.
● Artist who makes comics, interactive & figurative art
● Toy inventor
● Interaction designer
● Merges art, design & technology to create
emotionally engaging and novel experiences
● Lives and dies by being interdisciplinary
@argoncobalt

The quintessential fine artist.
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I thought STEM was pointless.
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Boy was I ever wrong...
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I went to Cooper Union for art.
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At Cooper I became intrigued by engineering.
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Took a break from art for a while. Eventually ended up
coming back to it and combining it with engineering.
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Now an artist + inventor + interaction designer!
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Les Fleurs du Mal
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I’m obsessed with unconventional interfaces.
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What is interaction design?
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Interaction design is...
● what defines the behavior of an interactive product
● shaping digital things for people’s use
● designing the experience of how users interact with
an object or device, especially in the digital world.
● making digital things as user-friendly as possible
● a relatively new discipline
@argoncobalt

History of
interaction design
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Mechanical motion

Electrical devices
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Personal computers

Household digital devices & ubiquitous computing
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How do you… (a) do; (b) feel; (c) know?
@argoncobalt

Isn’t interaction design more or less the same thing as
user interface design, user experience design, human-computer
interaction, web design, product design,
industrial design or visual design?
@argoncobalt

User experience design.
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User interface design.
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Human-computer interaction.
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Industrial design.
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Interaction design concepts
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Why do we need interaction design?
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Goal-driven design
Figuring out what users want and need
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“Interface as magic”
The interactions should be so seamless that the users
don’t even notice the design
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Amazon’s mega dropdown!
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Most dropdowns have a bit of a delay.
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If they didn’t, then the sub-menu would disappear.
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No, it’s not voodoo. It’s merely a triangle.
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Usability
The user interface should be usable and easy to
understand. (Well no, duh...)
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Being intuitive
Even if the user has never seen a product like yours
before, navigating the user interface should still come
fairly naturally to him or her.
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Learnability
In cases where the solution to your design problem calls
for an extremely unique interface, the user should still be
able to internalize it with relative ease.
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10 Principles of Good Design
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Know when to innovate and when to
stick to paradigms that have already
been established.
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Be willing to learn, accept
constructive criticism, and know
that you will make mistakes.
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A couple more points about
interaction design...
@argoncobalt

Being interdisciplinary
● Many art, design and tech fields are more
interconnected than people think, and they use
similar principles.
● I use principles of interaction design in almost all my
work, be it art, inventing or web design.
● Ultimately anything that follows the principles I
mentioned is a piece of interaction design.
@argoncobalt

Design as a way of life
● I see everything in life as a design problem waiting to
be solved.
● I scrutinize all my surroundings with the same critical
eye I use when I’m designing something or critiquing
another person’s design.
● Interaction design deals primarily with software
interfaces, but in order to be a good interaction
designer, you need to notice how everybody interacts
with everything.
@argoncobalt

Everywhere you look you’ll see examples of
interface, layout, and color decision-making.
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I take walks through Gowanus and get inspired by
the old-school typography on all the signs.
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Techniques that I use in my work
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I never go anywhere without a sketchbook.
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The Arduino microcontroller platform.
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A microcontroller is a very small computer.
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The Teensy microcontroller platform.
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DEMO: Turning an Arduino into a
mouse input
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Farewell
If you have any questions about Arduino, interaction
design or anything else I’ve discussed, or you’re interested
in keeping up with my work, feel free to find me on Twitter
@argoncobalt or look up my website, www.electricstud.io.
@argoncobalt

Physical interaction design

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