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final demonstration | current work in fabric displays | our process/struggle with fabric | what can we learn from an interactive bag? |
| What can we learn from an interactive bag? We continue to look back at this design process and remind each other how important it was that we followed our instincts, let go of our past mistakes and continue to challenge ourselves over the entire six weeks. In closing, we'd like to share some of our reflections about our design process: Why design with fabric? At first, "because its cool" seemed to suffice as answer to this question. Certainly, this remained, and still remains an impetus, but it never seemed to be enough to make us believe in the design direction. Indeed, our struggle with this project (read about our Process/Struggle) stemmed (pun intended) from the fact that we were trying to find, or invent, a need for interactive textiles that could be useful to people today. We were trying to ask "why design with fabric?" What we ultimately realized is that the exploration of fabric itself, approached from a highly speculative,hypothetical perspective, allowed us to ask "what if?" What if the fabric around you could respond? What would it do? Why would it matter? What would make that special? Don't be afraid to let go of your original idea. Once we realized that an RFID scanner on a piece of luggage had only tenuous connections to having a fabric interface, we saw that we had to make a change. A big one. One of those where you kinda fall flat on your face and hope you can fix yourself up before anyone sees. With only six days until the project was due, we dumped our original project and began exploring fabric in a bunch of different ways (at a bunch of different wee hours). For us, one of the coolest things about this project was that we, as a team, let go and moved on, taking some pieces of learning and imbued them into a new project that we believed in. And that's when we discovered... The value of textiles: ...they can also amplify devices you already have. And who needs another device anyways? We already have miniaturized, powerful and productive objects that transmit and receive data, text, audio and still and moving images. The cell phone/PDA/e-panacea isn't going anywhere, and it's going to be pretty tough to build something that can replace it in a specialized way. That said, isn't it a b%$*& to get it out of your bag or briefcase, check your calls, grab your calendar? Textiles are, literally, at hand for everyone. Consider how easy it is to interact right now with your sleeve, bracelet, coat pocket, purse, carpet, or gloves. What if these items could project the information from your phone in more readily accessible ways? What if 'devices' stopped being the things we interact with, and started being the 'controllers' for more mundane objects? Placing a phone into a totebag makes the bag 'come alive', amplifying and making readily accessible information that we already have. It occurs to us that one value of fabric is that while we can quickly check a text message by grabbing a phone, it will never be easier than grabbing our suit cuff. The other is... 2) Personalization Fabric is directly connected with our fashion, style and individual expression. It begs to be customized and personalized. In a world where moving, copying and pasting the colors of threads may someday be as malleable as pixels, our clothing, carpet, curtains and ballcaps will be altered to our own style and manner, as well as to the occasion. "Hey great shirt. Can I scan that pattern?" Further, this also suggests that one day we'll be able to draw on fabrics, perhaps in a similar way to our concept of this activity, shown here. Navigation can't be separated from style. Why are current interfaces all so similar? And why do we all try to make everything look like a web site? When the situation allows, "non-web" navigational structures allow for new forms of interactivity. Plus they're alot more fun for the deisgner to make and the user to, well, use. This is not to say that the rules of navigation don't need to be followed, but simply that there are many ways to establish hierarchy and organization, and most of them don't look like a web site. We imagined the ways that interacting with a purse would be quite unlike a computer, and we wanted to embrace that difference. Our design took the ubiquitous tree metaphor and expanded it, using the growth and recession of organic stems and vines to serve as the organizing structures of an interface. Items 'open' and 'close' without being entirely hidden from view. This design choice accomplishes two things: 1) the user doesn't feel like she is 'computing', 2) the interface itself becomes an enjoyable, playful experience.
Finally, we wish to discuss the value of exploratory design. Transmissive and emissive fabrics are still in initial development, and interactive fabrics wont exist in the near or even not so near future. What we've proposed may never get built, and it certainly will never make us any money. Regardless, the concepts we've generated from this exercise (interface as a device amplifier, personal expression, new forms of navigation) are of value to us as designers in direct and perhaps unforeseen tangential ways. Design doesn't have to necessarily solve a problem or fill a need, it can also suppose and make-believe; in the case of our work, such an approach certainly appears to have been both educational and productive. |
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11/08/07 Interface Design, Midterm Assignment Interaction Design I, Phil Van Allen Art Center College of Design Christiane Holzheid Christopher Grant Ward |
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