Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Nuzzle; an interactive hospital experience for children





Nuzzle is an object that helps children through a stressful hospital experience by providing them a way to escape from reality into the interactive world of a virtual character, who gradually also teaches children about the hospital. This is a concept we sent in for the Microsoft Design Expo 2007. (more)

HappyZap: the Start of Social Zapping






This animated scenario shows a concept for a device that facilitates a social way of controlling the television. Instead of a physical struggle, the hunt for control happens on a virtual level with HappyZap!

Luxalive; human values in interaction







Products should start to move!

This is a prototype of a reading lamp that moves according to the values an individual strives for. For example, when you like to be dominant, the lamp will follow you like a slave. And when you like to help others, the lamp will not work well and ask you to help him to stay upright.

It is part of a research project that is aimed at finding out how to design for specific human values in interaction to make interactions with products aesthetically more valuable.

The lower movie shows parts of my design process: making quick interactive prototypes from LEGOs connected to Phidgets and Max/MSP on a laptop. A great method!

Multimodal interaction idea for wearable digital pet



This is a exploration showing how people could interact with a Tamagotchi-like device, using, apart from the visual, also the tactile sense and interacting in a more implicit and natural way, instead of pushing coded buttons. This first prototype was designed and built in three days.

Romanticism movement collage



For capturing essential elements from the esthetics of the era of Romanticism, this video was compiled from various sources, like the Tchaikovski's Swan Lake ballet.

Dentissimo; expressive interaction with a toothbrush



Currently, Western culture tries to maximize profit. Efficiency is highly valued, which is reflected in our current interactive products. But the world cannot function like a logical machine, it is way too complex to be controlled like that. In my vision, the notion of esthetics needs to be emphasized more throughout not only the form of our environment, but also our interactions and behavior as a whole. This toothbrush is an early example, showing how elements derived from classical music can be translated into interactive products.

Ralph.

Aesthetics of interaction; interaction collage



Filming interactions with everyday objects as a starting point for translating the aesthetics of a classical music piece to interactions with interactive products. Check the movie.