EXERCISES

NEW! Download revised instructions to the exercises: exercises_revised2.pdf which includes the new Portfolio Exercise The Cube.

This course builds upon ten different exercises, of which five will end up in your portfolio. The pedagogical thought behind them is to transit from industrial design-like tasks, dealing with form and material to typical interaction design tasks, where issues regarding temporality and complex behavior become additional important parts of the design work. The first seven exercises are carried out in class, and you will get extensive feedback on them, so that you can improve them if you want to have them in your final portfolio. You also choose two of the three portfolio exercises and make these alone, without any official help or feedback (but DO ask your friends!). The exercises are as follows:

Ex 1: Super Hero Gadgets - on form, gestalt and interaction
Ex 2: Cartoon - on the rich vocabulary of postures, on symbols and semantics, and depicting temporality
Ex 3: Designing Emotions - on form, material, interaction and evoking or expressing emotion
Ex 4: Interaction Themes vs. Things - on the connections between form and interaction
Ex 5: Temporal Paint - on temporal aspects and how the affect interaction
Ex 6: InfoArt part II - on temporal aspects and how they affect expression
Ex 7: Design the Apple - on applying someoene else's aesthetics
Portfolio exercise: Calculator on the Runway - working with "personality" as a way to create a working aesthetic
Portfolio exercise: The New Office Assistant - to study, analyze and significantly improve, even create, an aesthetic
Portfolio Exercise: The Cube - to design something following your own aesthetic codex.

How it's done
Again, the course is designed for active participation, discussion and a lively exchange of opinions and knowledge. To encourage such a creative working environment, you are required to carry the exercises out at the IT-University, working together with your peers and me, asking for and giving advice and opinions on each other's work. Some of the exercises are even carried out in pairs or groups, others you will carry out alone.

Each exercise has its own deliverables, but in most cases part of the deliverables consist of a short design rationale ( i.e. an explanation of why you have made the most important design decisions. “I chose the color blue because that signals piece” etc.) and you will also have to write ½ - 1 page of constructive feedback to someone else's design.

Design exercises are scheduled on Tuesdays, and a feedback session, where we discuss design rationales in relation to feedback take place next Tuesday. These sessions are very important for the course since the skill to analyze a design and see its strengths and weaknesses (in any aspect, e.g. functionality and/or aesthetics) is very important for a good designer. And - since a part of your portfolio will consist of exercises that you may improve and extend after feedback, you will benefit greatly from these sessions

On writing feedback
Remember that the feedback must be constructive. This means that if you have some kind of complaint, you must suggest a possible solution. When writing feedback ask yourself: