UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING - FALL 2009
IDC |:| interaction design



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Group Projects
The main part of the course is dedicated to the design and implementation of a larger ubiquitous computing project. The purpose of the project is to practice interaction design by doing, as well as to experience the value of prototyping. The project will also bring together technical knowledge from the Physical Computing course with more design-oriented thinking of IT. The project should result in a working prototype ready for demonstration at the end of the course.


Possible Projects Ideas
Projects should be about creating a computational thing or a computational environment with a clear relation to the ideas of ubiquitous computing. Preferablly, the projects should also involve the course theme, which is "Everydays: ubiquitous everyday environments" and can adress topics such as interactive furniture, everyday activity support or sustainable living. Exceptions to this may be accepted, in particular the project could be appliable to the HCI conference DIS 2010 - AARHUS - DENMARK.
When you are trying to invent your project try to look for settings that will help you come up with ideas, for instance:
  • Design for a specific use situation or for a specific user group
  • Find inspiration in a boring situation and design to change it
  • Game and play - A game or a toy with a well defined user group
  • The invisible interface
  • Digital artefact - or simply digital art?
  • ...
All projects must be approved by the teachers before they are initiated.


Groups and Supervision
Projects should be carried out in groups of 5, or 4 students. The groups are formed by the teachers at the beginning of the course. Throughout the project there will opportunities for supervision regarding both interaction design and technology.

Groups A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, K, L, M, O, P, and Q mostly consist of 5, sometimes 4 students, and have been defined in the class.

Project Drafts and Project Proposals
To ensure the quality of the projects, each group will have to present a number of proposals during the initial concept phase.
The process is outlined below.

* Five Project Suggestions

As a first step each group must hand in five-5 project suggestions no later than 9th November 12.30. These suggestions can be rather brief, but must contain a concept description, a description of the context of use, possible users and, last but not least, why this project is interesting. 
The suggestions are shown to one of the teachers, at a predefined meeting-time. You will then receive some feedback before the next step.

* Three Project Proposals

On 11th November each group will present two-2 project proposals to the rest of the class for feedback. 5 minutes of presentation for each group. Focus on the following issues:

  • Background / problem area
  • How you intend to work with the suggested problem
  • Related research / products
  • How you came up with the idea
You do not need to hand in anything this day. Instead, try to get your classmates to provide feedback.

* Final Project Proposal

Based on the feedback from the presentation of the project proposals, each group selects and describes their final project proposal. The final project proposal must be submitted by sending an e-mail to a course e-mail (a gmail) no later than 13th November 17.00.

The following should be presented in your written project proposal:

  • Title of the project.
  • Description of your idea or concept, motivate your choice and give a short background description. You can for instance mention related research/projects/ideas that you know of, user group, or a use scenario.
  • Some sort of picture or sketch of the concept.
  • Description of how you have planned to implement and how you plan to realise your idea.
  • If your project is dependent on a certain technology, then describe this.
  • Suggestion of criteria for how you can validate how well you have succeeded with your project.
  • A time-plan for how you imagine to realise the different parts of the project.

* Project GO

When the final project proposal has been reviewed by the teachers, the project will be given the sign Project GO on 13th November.


Budget
Each group has a budget of 1500 SEK. More information.


Grading
The main criteria for grading the project will be:
  • Concept - originality, development etc
  • Realisation - how the project work is carried out
  • Presentation - the result displayed at the end of the course.
  • Documentation - the quality of the project report.

Project Report
The projects must be documented in a project report. The report consists of two parts: (1) a website giving a brief description of the project, (2) a full paper report delivered as a PDF-file. The paper report must be available for download from the website part of the report.

The written report should contain:
  • project concept
  • an introduction to the context of your design
  • main goals of the project
  • possible related work
  • the design process and critical design decisions made
  • how the project was realized, including a description of the technology behind it
  • evaluation against goals
  • discussion: what worked, what did not, possible improvements, interesting findings, etc
  • conclusion, lessons learned
  • technical documentation, as appendix
  • project plan as appendix.
The contents could be arranged in any suitable order. A possible traditional report outline could be:
  1. Introduction
  2. Background
  3. Concept
  4. Realisation
  5. Evaluation
  6. Related Work
  7. Discussion
  8. Appendix: Technical documentation and project plan
The website should contain the following:

The purpose of the website is to draw attention to your project and create an interest for reading your report for further information. The website will be read by future students, media and people without your knowledge.
  • Short abstract in Swedish and English
  • Description of the project
  • Video (if there is one)
  • Pictures and/or powerpoint
  • Downloads of source code, technical specifications etc, required to re-create the project.

Submitting
The project report is submitted by handing in an electronic copy of the project website no later than 18th December . Note that no changes or corrections to this version will be allowed.


Conference Paper Submission / Design Challenge
Student groups are required to either write a short paper (2 pages ACM format) about their projects, to be submitted to suitable conference if available (submission optional). Students are also encouraged to submit to the HCI conference DIS 2010 - AAHUS - DENMARK if their project suits the call for participation. Category: Short paper or Demonstration, 1st May 2009. Conference dates: 18th-20th August 2009.


Below are some up-coming deadlines for relevant conferences:
ACM Calendar of Events

"How-to-do" for the "Aspiring Author", please follow DESIGN TASK:
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"Self-check" for the "Systematic Author":
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