ImpCam - working title
Course : Final Project @ CIID
Duration : 12 weeks
Tags : Interaction Design, Prototyping, Scenarios, Experience prototyping, Concept development
Blog : DefaultInteraction ImpCam
What is it?
ImpCam, my final project at CIID, is a camera designed for children, and is an exploration into how cameras can be used for more than just recording images.
What is a camera when a child holds it, looks into it, and presses the button? For my Final project at CIID I sought to look at the camera as more than just a photographic device. Today's children are born into an age where technology is part of their daily experience. Creating, sharing and viewing are naturally within their vocabulary, and buttons and gadgets are an endless source of fascination. A child's experience with objects around them has a high impact on their overall development, including social skills, emotions, physical activity, mental prowess
I see cameras as being part of child's life at a very early stage, so I have been trying to understand how these pieces of technology can be adapted so as to have a valuable and more meaningful impact.
Project direction
From my research and prototyping I decided to work on two broad areas.
1 - How can I create a social tool, that is engaging and helps children navigate through their daily lives?
2 - And how to use the world around us, the real world, as inspiration and raw material for play and learning.
How does it work?
Apart from traditional uses of a camera, I hope to also explore and demonstrate how powerful the medium can potentially be.
Find below 4 video scenarios of concepts that I explored.
ImpCam Magic - This scenario explores the traditional aspects of image capturing and offers more in terms of how one can view and share images.
ImpCam Hangman - In this scenario see how Victoria uses her ImpCam to play a game of hangman.It is an exploration into how one can see patterns and alphabets in the world outside.
ImpCam Puzzle - What can one do with the photos they collect? Can all the pictures Victoria takes be used to create fun games?
ImpCam Scavenger - In this scenario follow victoria as she creates a game of scavenger that she invites her friends to play with. The scenario explores how one play the traditional scavenger game using the digital medium.
Conclusion
In conclusion I also designed the shell of the camera and used the IPhone as a prototyping platform for my concept.
clay mockups
designed for a previous course, webcam and arduino - Ujjval
Video game console shell tests
Prototype, working demo
Below are two videos of the game in play. The object of the game is to find a path between the butterfly and the rose, the only criteria being that you need to find the 'path' in the real world around you!
first video
second video
Further reading
If you are interested in reading further about the project and about the different stages of the process please continue down this page.
Project details
Process
The process I followed was one of rapid prototyping and quick iterations of concepts to arrive at possible solutions. Through the project I involved children in the design process not only to validate my ideas but also to have them co-create with me.
Quick overview of process timeline
Session at School - Playdough :
Having set a design brief I went to a local school to spent time in a classroom, where children were between 8-10 years old. The teacher and I began a discussion about drawing and painting, what it is, why they do it, and how much they love doing it. Having steered the conversation towards photographs and cameras, I asked the children to help me make a camera, they would love to use, using playdough.
a quick video of the day
At the end of the day, I also asked them to do two worksheets for me as homework. What they had to do was,
1 - Draw and sketch one great adventure you will have with your new camera. Be as imaginative and creative as you can!! Have fun.
2 - Who will you show all your wonderful pictures to?
3 - How will you show it to them? Try and think of a new way to do it! Remember it can be completely fun and it doesn't have to use a computer.
drawings from the worksheet
Some extremely interesting ideas were stumbled upon that I may not have arrived at had I not had this session. And filled with inspiration I moved to the next stage
How might we? :
From all the data collected from each of those sessions I built myself a Need and How might we map. This helped me narrow down onto design options and challenges.
Brainstorm:
Having formulated my design avenues and with some concepts in mind, I moved into the brainstorming session. The brainstorm questions were
1 - How might we turn viewing photographs in a social experience? what tools can we provide to achieve this?
2 - How might we develop new ways to share and view images? If we could, how can we make it a tangible experience?
3 - How might we create game using cameras?
educational games, excercise games, plain old fun, or anything you can think of!
4 - How might we link more than one camera together? Is there a benefit in having buddy cameras?
My book of concepts was growing at an astonishing rate.
All Concepts
View more documents from siddharthm.
Quick Prototyping:
Diving right into the process I did some quick and rapid concept prototyping to test my ideas.
concept 1 :
To test the idea of augmented reality and screens. In this concept, simple shapes are displayed on the screen, and the objective is to match them to shapes in the real world.
An added feature, when you click the button an image is saved for later viewing and discussion.
I quickly noticed that it was easy to see shapes and patterns in the world around you, and how a circle can also be an oval is seen at the right angle.
Test with Victoria:
Also what came from the process was that the shapes can be easily replaced with other things, like the alphabet for instance. I have explored this concept further with the Hangman Concept.
Below is a video of my first prototype, its a walk-through of the concept (requires audio)
concept 2 :
Try and find a path in the environment around you to get the ball into the hole.
This concept was born out of the necessity of me feeling kids needed to interact and see the world around them from a different light. This concept has been developed a lot and is a fully functional and playable application.
Below is a quick demo video of how the game works.
Experience Prototyping, testing and refining:
I did some quick tests to see how children engaged with my concept. Post which I refined the experience and tried it with a different set of children. Find below a quick video a boy interacting with my prototype.
Also while shooting my video scenarios I had the opportunity of treating that as a experience prototype as well.
Video Scenarios:
I created 5 video as scenarios for the use of ImpCam.
Final prototype:
I created one working prototype demo for the IPhone platform.
The object of the game is to make a connection between the butterfly and the rose, but you need to find the 'connection' using lines in the real world. Below is a video of how the game works.
Future:
I am currently in the process of refining the experience and games and concepts. Planning on uploading the game as a free demo app to the app store.
Please feel free to browse my blog for latest updates and information regarding my final project.