IxDA, AIGA, and Interact Seattle present: Touch and Beyond III: Make-A-Thon 2010

Make-a-Thon 2010
A one-day event for working and student designers 
Saturday, November 6, 2010, 9 AM-5 PM

Sponsored by Microsoft Expression

The IxDA Make-a-Thon is a one-day event for working and student designers seeking to explore today’s tools and methods used for designing interfaces that utilize gestural and touch interaction. You’ll get a chance to participate in three 2-hour workshops on a range of topics:

• Arduino for Designers: An Introduction
• Gestural Ideation
• Conceptual Models in Interaction Design
• Prototyping Interaction with Video Scenarios
• Really Agile Design
• Understand It, Solve It, Sell It
• Interaction Design for Social/Mobile Innovation
• And more…

Over the course of the day, participants will be able share out what they learned with a passionate group of designers and developers looking to push the boundaries of their craft.

Workshops are led by designers from Cisco Systems, frog design, Hornall Anderson (HAX), LiFT Studios Vancouver, Pulse Energy, Teague, T-Mobile Concept Center, University of Washington

Registration is limited to 100 attendees; sign up at http://www.seattlemakeathon.com/

Cost to Attend:

$80 early bird registration

$120 after October 15, 2010

Registration is open now.

Location:
Microsoft Building 43
156 Ave NE & NE 31st St
Parking under 43

Workshops:

"Arduino for Designers: An Introduction"

Led by Ric Ewing, T-Mobile Concept Center

This workshop is an introduction to the Arduino, one of the most popular hardware prototyping platforms available today. No need for prior electronics experience as we’ll walk you through all the basics, from the process of setting up your first Arduino program to sending hardware sensor data to an application on your computer. The course will be based around the SparkFun Inventor's Kit for Arduino (see link below) an inexpensive package that includes everything you’ll need to start prototyping. While we won’t have time to get hands-on, we’ll have information and content to take away that will help speed up your tinkering at home. We will step you through:

Computers, hardware and sensors are not provided, so those wanting to follow along will need to bring their own setup. The SparkFun Inventor's Kit for Arduino can be purchased at:
 http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=10057

"Gestural Ideation"

Led by Prarthana Panchal, Microsoft and Joyce Chou, T-Mobile Creation Center

Mobile device usage is rapidly evolving beyond touch interaction with a screen.  With increasing amounts of information complexity, we won’t be able to rely on fixed input methods. The next big challenge in mobile user experiences is about designing for interactions that break out of the screen.  Kinetic UI explores the intersection of the mobile GUI and physical input methods.

This workshop will provide techniques for designing for kinetic experiences and will walk you through our process from exploration to final concepts. We will look at the possibilities when you leverage physical gestures to design UI, without the constraints of a small device screen.

"Conceptual Models in Interaction Design: Designing Interactions Based on Experience, Expectations, and Explanations of Users"

Led by Axel Roesler, University of Washington

Don Norman has introduced mental models to design audiences in his 1986 book The Design of Everyday Things — mental models are internalized explanations and expectations that guide our actions and interpretations in the interactions with artifacts and people. Mental models are based on experience from interacting with the world.

In human-computer interaction and cognitive science, conceptual models form the knowledge base of expert systems — they instruct automated processes and tell an interactive system what to do. Often considered as 'smart' technology, instuction-based adaptive systems are part of virtually all computerized products today. Good design in such an interactive system is achieved when the system does what a user expects — when the designed system's conceptual model matches the user's mental model.

We will explore techniques to elicit knowledge about the mental models of prospective users of an envisioned design — and how to translate users' explanations of interactive behaviors into concrete design concepts that match users' expectations, yielding in interactions that are useful, useable, and meaningful.

"Prototyping Interaction with Video Scenarios"

Led by David Sherwin, frog design and Aaron Rincover, Cisco Systems

When exploring interactions that transcend singular devices and form the basis of device ecosystems, wireframes just don't cut it. Much of the interactions you're looking to define and refine are evoked through motion, sound, haptics, and other variables that can't be easily documented without "dancing about architecture." In these situations, it's often most effective to create video scenarios that describe how an interaction would happen out in the real world. And these scenarios are useful not only for explaining ideas to your clients—they're an effective way of prototyping interactions to see if they make sense and feel real.

Over the course of this workshop, we will explore the various flavors of video scenario that you can create, depending on the design problems you're seeking to solve. Then we'll spend the balance of our time working in small teams to create short interaction vignettes describing how a novel, future-looking application would behave across devices through a set of use cases. It is recommended that attendees bring a computer for quick video editing and a mobile device/camera for creating videos on the spot.

"Really Agile Design"

Led by Brian Monzingo, Teague

Sometimes you need to see an idea—and fast. Put away your sticky notes and whiteboards because real designers make. Through rapid design, simple prototyping, and guiltless forking, you will practice brainstorming by making. Designers will work side-by-side to model exemplary interaction ideas.

"Understand It, Solve It, Sell it"

Led by Chris Monberg, Hornall Anderson Experience Lab (HAX)

Rapid prototyping has become something of a buzzword in the world of interaction design. People write books about it, design tools for it, and rightfully so: we need to constantly

be looking for shorter paths between idea and execution. Hornall Anderson will lead a process oriented workshop on how to approach, solve, and then present concepts. Too often
we try and win approval by presenting the deliverable or the technology, when what we’re dealing with is a very human problem. Your client already knows their business. Would any
person on the street be able to see the value in the solution you’re presenting?

"Interaction Design for Social + Mobile Innovation"

Led by Haig Armen, LiFT Studios, and Chris Stone, Pulse Energy

The evolution of mobile devices and affordable broadband connectivity give us, as designers, an incredible opportunity to design for real-time and even long-term behavioral change. Leveraging the platform as an advanced inter-connected social ecosystem provides us with the direct contact that’s often needed for making a lasting impact.

This workshop will include an intense lineup of participatory design exercises that will touch on a series of methods for designing compelling user experiences. The focus will be on social responsibility with the intent to affect change at a behavioral level. You will work in teams to execute a design brief that aims at breaking people from a particular set of habits by providing alternatives that result in far-reaching, beneficial effects.