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Theatre For You:
An exploration of Placemaking and Perceptions of Spaces
A public exhibition blending art and technology to create a new sense of place within a pre-defined public space.
THE CHALLENGE
To redefine the way the public interacted with a pedestrian thoroughfare on the University of Sydney Camperdown campus as part of the 2019 Pilot Lights public exhibition.
As part of USYD's Masters of Interaction Design and Electronic Art (MIDEA), we were tasked with developing an interactive public installation with a focus on urban interaction design, responsive environments, user experience in public spaces and the reinterpretation of the city as an interface via digital placemaking.
HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
3 month full-time project as part of Master's degree.
MAKE OF THE TEAM
KEY GOAL
Jiahao 'Andy' Chen
Jiaxin 'Jessie' Li
Isaiah Hinkler
To transform a pedestrian thoroughfare into an engaging and interactive space through a hybrid of art, proxemics and UX design.
MY ROLE
My history in visual design and creative media lent itself to my role as the visual design director.
Much of my work on this project was in collaboration with the other two members of the team, offering consultation and guiding the direction of the look and feel of the project in line with my prior experience in graphic design and game development.
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My prior experience with small-scale project management also helped to inform creative decisions and keep the project within scope to produce the most successful outcome we could achieve in the time available to us.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
While the user could broadly be described as 'the public', there were a few categories of stakeholder that could be identified; Namely, the University itself, students and teachers, and commuters.
We conducted three rounds of user testing during the development phase of the project, first focusing on the interaction itself, then on the accompanying background music and finally the layout and suitability of the interaction space.
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Iterations occurred continuously throughout the whole design process, and helped us to achieve the best possible solution in the time available to us. The reason we conducted these three rounds of user testing beyond what was conducted in our initial design research was to ensure that as the project changed over time, we were still meeting our initial aims and goals for this project, but also to improve on the accuracy of our understanding of the audience’s needs and expectations for our project.
There was an additional round of feedback gathering conducted on the night of the Pilot Lights exhibition, as a way to measure the effectiveness of our final project and whether or not it satisfied the user needs and our initial goals for the project
THE PROCESSÂ
The design process we applied was a user-centred approach, with a specific inflection of urban interaction design conducted as research through design and developed via urban prototyping.
A summary of major findings, design outcomes and key takeaways is included in the following sections.
DESIGN OUTCOMES
The aim of this project was to transform an urban space through interaction design in order to create a fun and engaging play space.
The project underwent many drastic revisions beyond its initial idea of a game involving playing with virtual balloons, however based on the feedback we received throughout the development of the project and through user feedback, it was clear that we managed to retain the intended user experience of childlike wonder and fun.
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There were some technical difficulties encountered that did impact the outcome of the design, however overall the project was considered quite successful. Future iterations of this project and its outcomes would include more rounds of user testing, and addressing some of the issues raised by users in the last round of feedback.
LESSONS LEARNED
Working in a public domain - or designing in the wild - offers a far different set of working conditions than designing in the lab. There are a multitude of variables that can't be controlled, and a number of factors that can't be accounted for, and these ultimately shape the design that results.
One of the most valuable lessons learned during this process was the knowledge gained through the process of changing our design location, and thereby direction, completely during the project. It helped me to further develop my flexibility and adaptability to change according to scope and opportunities presented, but also helped to highlight the transferable knowledge gained during the early stages of the project and how to apply them in the new location.
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This project helped me to compare and contrast the two sites and to better analyse when and where knowledge can be applied based on similarities in structure and design.
A special thank you goes out to Vivid Sydney artist and University of Sydney Lecturer Dr. Luke Hespanhol for his assistance and support during this project. This project would not have been possible without his contributions.