Category: User Experience

Categories
Physical Research Tangible Media User Experience Visual Communication

Recipes for Reflection

Winner

OzCHI 24hr Design Challenge

Recipes for Reflection is a collaborative project, developed with peers from design and psychology backgrounds in response to the 2016 OzCHI 24 hour design challenge.

This work responded to the challenge of fostering meaningful social innovation for an ageing population, which was an exciting and unfamiliar topic for the team to explore. Deliverables for the challenge response include a short video (design concept & prototype), design document in extended abstract format (6 page limit) and a blog for process documentation.

The project video submission, which details the project, design process and demonstrates a use-case scenario with a lo-fi prototype of the interactive recipe book.

The project team employed various methods including literature review, affinity diagramming, demographic studies, surveys and iterative prototyping, which allowed us to rapidly collate, synthesise and develop the concept into a rich, meaningful outcome. We were selected as finalists from 66 submissions and invited to present the concept to a panel and audience during the 2016 OzCHI conference, where the project was awarded as the winner; an achievement I am quite proud of.

Collaboration with Alice Brown, Claire Villalba & John Van Beusekom

Project Details

Name: Recipes for Reflection

Year: 2016

Methods: lo-fi prototyping, affinity diagramming, literature review, user surveys (data collection), thematic analysis

Software: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop & Premiere Pro

Awards/accolades

Winner of the 2016 OzCHI Student Design Challenge

Categories
Digital Research User Experience Visual Communication

IxDiscover

IxDiscover is a library of design and research methods, created to act as both a handy reference and support tool for interaction design students, as well as a resource for teaching staff.

My role in this project was a hybrid of researcher and designer, which lead me to write over 10,000 words of content across the series of methods and organise this within a WordPress-based website. My knowledge of HTML and CSS allowed me to customise a simple WordPress theme, resulting in a minimal, clear and impactful interface and experience for users.

What I’m most proud of in the IxDiscover project is the site’s ease of use and value it’s added to the interaction design student experience, which was feedback I’ve received from teaching staff and students quite a few times.

The live website is available here:

IxDiscover (ixdmethods.qut.edu.au)

“a handy guide to 15 interaction design methods you might not have heard of, or used like this before”

Project Details

Name: IxDiscover

Year: 2020

Software & skills used: HTML5, CSS3, WordPress CMS, Adobe Photoshop (for image treatments) & Adobe InDesign (for template design)

Categories
Digital Information Design User Experience Visual Communication

Asbestos, Absent

Asbestos, Absent is a series of infographics that tell a story about how mesothelioma, a cancer commonly associated with asbestos exposure, has impacted the lives of Australians. The series was presented digitally on The Cube, designed specifically to resonate with the target demographic, which predominantly comprised of QUT staff and students.

The project was designed to be read sequentially, with the first design encompassing a map-style infographic. This map details the total number of recorded mesothelioma diagnoses in the two decades from 1980-2000, and translates this figure using an average adult height. When layed across a map, the total distance of these human bodies stretched the distance from the QUT Kelvin Grove campus to Gardens Point campus, and back. A bleak image to picture, but an important message that hopes to raise further awareness of this horrible disease.

The second infographic employs a unique twist on the traditional bar graph and contrasts the 2011 figures of those who were exposed to asbestos in both workplace and non-workplace settings. The main message of this design draws attention to ongoing exposure risks faced in the construction industry as well as highlighting a little-known fact – that spouses of workers were exposed to asbestos simply because they washed their clothing in the same machine.

The final infographic in this series is a set of timelines, contrasting three individuals who were diagnosed with mesothelioma. These timelines were developed from qualitative data, such as news articles and interviews. These reports were examined, where I sought out patterns and commonalities in their stories. The resulting design gives a glimpse into the lives of these three individuals, emphasising the extreme variety in latency between exposure to asbestos fibres and eventually experiencing symptoms of mesothelioma. My hope with this design was to emphasise how important awareness is of the danger asbestos poses.

This project was developed through a combination of data processing in Microsoft Excel, while design was completed in Adobe Illustrator. I hope the outcomes resonate with you and that you find the story told through the work to be both informative and meaningful.

Project Details

Name: Asbestos, Absent

Year: 2013

Software: Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Excel, Tableau

Awards/accolades

Exhibited publicly on The Cube, QUT.

Categories
Physical Tangible Media User Experience

Cause & Effect

Cause & Effect is a data-driven piece of tangible media, which allows users to better understand the detrimental health impact of smoking on the human body. 

This project involves a tangible user interface that takes the form of a stuffed toy doll, covered in a series of touch-sensitive buttons (the black spots), which is connected to computer. Users are encouraged to hold the doll while they navigate the interface, which responds to button-presses by playing a short video about the impact of smoking on the body part associated with the location of the button pressed on the doll. Each button is softly illuminated, and when pressed, this light switches off and slowly illuminates as the video plays – giving feedback to the user and reflecting a metaphor of degradation of the associated area of the body.

In creating this project, we sought to provide people with a novel way to physically engage with a serious topic matter and gain new insight and understanding into an issue that impacts millions of people, worldwide.

Collaboration with Lincoln Savage

Project Details

Name: Cause & Effect

Year: 2013

Materials: fabric, conductive paint, MDF, black paint, wire, rare earth magnets

Software: Adobe After Effects & Premiere Pro (for videos)

Hardware: LEDs, hall effect sensor, Arduino Uno, external laptop (variable)