week 2 : what makes interacting so awesome?

Over the past two weeks Olga and I have been searching for what it is that makes for interesting interactions, both between humans and objects, as well as between humans and humans, mitigated by objects.

We've come up with a short list:

1. Interactions that solve a problem.
2. Interactions that reward desired behaviors.
3. Interactions that raise awareness.
4. Interactions that are simply delightful.

*bonus points for achieving any of these goals with humor or irony.

Our next task was to make lists of problems, fears, desirable states, delightful things etc.

Here are a few examples:

1. Overpopulation
2. Over-consumption
3. Not recycling recyclables
4. Cars
5. Working too much
6. Not enough time with our families / friends
7. Procrastination
8. Fear of flying, public speaking, heights, dark, intimacy, death...
9. Making the visible visible
10. Building community (not enough time with other IxD students :-)

This brainstorm brought us to yet another list of more specific problem spaces / situations, a few of which we presented in class.

Making music:

Currently, we dance to music. What if you could make music by dancing? What if you could make music by dancing with another person... with many people?

Viral music:

What if you could share a song that you are listening to with another person by touching them? They say that smiles are contagious. What if music was? What if you could send your song to a fellow driver in a traffic jam? What if everyone in a traffic jam could listen to the same song?

Making art:

What if you could make art by simply being somewhere... by working together in the same place. What if you were a color and you could track your

Virtual water food print:

What if you projected onto the side of a building how much water that building has used over the course of a month. Would it fill up the whole thing? What if we could set up a competition between music and art?

...and then we took apart stuff, and it was awesome.