For this week, we finished the javascript animations of the interface and decided on whether or not we wanted to continue from building off where we left off in the materials workshop.
1.
(Materials) Because we had limited experience with materials and the time limitation on module three, we weren’t really sure when we would hit the breakthrough and wasn’t really sure what this is what we should be focussing on. We kind of struggled with continuing with the sound by reflecting on what connection did the sound have to do with the interaction and came to the conclusion that during our tinkering, we got a bit lost and wasn’t exactly sure what we were doing with it. We weren’t sure whether or not it was arbitrary.
2.
(Javascript) We wanted to implement different animations on the interface to engage the user. We wanted the user to use hover and click in different ways to trigger an output feedback.
3.
(Coaching with Clint) Notes:
- The interaction could be a bit artificial, not as organic because of the way we focused on the visuals and the motor separately
- Using a contact speaker
- Expressing individual items in the field or the field itself?
- Servo can’t be precise, do we go against or go with it?
- What is the general character of the thing rather than the individual thing
- Do we appreciate for what it is, all one thing?
-Challenge: for the user to find their own activity around it and be able to play with it, how you’re upsetting the whole field rather than manipulating the individual
- Motor can be more of an extension of the cursor rather than the object
- What’s the metaphor of the interaction?
- More residing in you rather than the objects
- Maybe the dark blue square have more of a harder movement and the opaque one, softer. Feeling the triangles, tactile feedback? A surface that you’re touching and probing, not really seeing the objects as active as much
- Overall turbulence of the thing versus the individual
- What conceptualization of this do we want to go with?
- Movements: back and forth between small ranges
- Framing: What are we representing?
After talking to Clint, we decided that we wanted to play with the field as a whole. We definitely agreed that we should have built the whole interaction together along with the servo and the interface. It would have made it a more organic interaction versus it being forced because we weren’t entirely sure how to connect the Arduino servo into the sketch. Following that, we wanted to make the darker colours more intense and the clicking more intense.
4.
(Arduino Sound) By using delays() and servo.write(), we first started by playing with the rhythm of the Arduino servo sound to mimic the movement of the animations as a way to connect the user to the interface. We wanted to explore user understanding through a direct connection of the animation.
6.
(Intensity) After getting the hover to work a bit better, we wanted to compare and contrast it to a user prodding and poking at it. As Clint said, “Motor can be more of an extension of the cursor rather than the object.”
7.
(Insights) It didn’t really end up the way we wanted it to because of us struggling with the code a lot. We wanted more hovering interactions and felt that it would have been a lot more like an extension of the cursor. How does sound represent the intensity of the sketch when the user probes it? Does sound add depth/ 3D?
Movement versus Intensity/ the whole versus the Object:
- the movement has to be precise
- moving the light blue triangles taught us the importance of easing in and easing out in animations, to make it a fluid experience
- Which ones are more intense and how do you judge that?
- Animation versus visual intensity
- Which one catches your eye more? The visuals?
Colour, hierarchy, /Gestalts are all characteristics that affect it
- the faster the animation, the more intense it is
Loudness versus Intensity
How does the loudness of the servo play into the intensity of it? Is the sound it’s making intense or is it just the volume?
- the intensity in the sketch versus the servo
- Experimenting with coupling animations with sound and how that affects the experience and feeling
- Relationship between animations, how they can be enhanced and supported with sound
- something in the animations that we are emphasizing through sound or vice versa
- How does visual intensity go into sound intensity?
- Vocabulary has limitations (“intensity”)
- Intensity: call and a response?
