Project 1
More on the Project 1
One place that non-computer users frequently encounter
computers is as kiosks in museums providing additional information
on an exhibit. In the first project you will design and create one
such kiosk. My expectation here is not that you will produce
something that looks as good as a professional graphic designer,
but that you will apply the basic rules of visual design to design
an effective interface to communicate with the museum patron.
This project has two phases: the sketch phase and the
implementation phase.
Sketch phase - in this phase you will choose an
exhibit (or part of one) at one of the major local museums (Art
Institute, Museum of Contemporary Art, Natural History Museum,
Shedd Aquarium, Museum of Science and Industry) and tell me which
exhibit you want to do as soon as possible. At most one group will
be able to work with the same exhibit. Pick something that
interests you. This exhibit should have 8-10 objects (a painting,
a type of fish, etc) in it. If there are more than 10 then you can
choose 8-10 for your project. The key idea here is that you need
to go to the museum and not only find an exhibit you like but experience
it to get a feel for the environment that your interface
should fit into, the kind of information you need to give, and the
audience you expect. That is, your interface should feel right at
home sitting in this exhibit.
While there you should take notes, maybe some
photographs, make some drawings, and gather some literature on the
museum and the exhibit. You will probably need to supplement this
info with some other information (i.e. from books or from the web)
since the idea here is to be able to provide more information (and
relationships between information) than the current exhibit
provides. A flatbed scanner may also come in handy for this
project. You may also want to look around at some of the existing
kiosk systems currently in use to get an idea of how they do
things, but keep in mind that they may or may not be well
designed.
In this phase you should turn in the following:
For the display hardware assume:
HTML based
In this phase you should turn in the following:
Any code,
images, or other elements borrowed from others must be
cited clearly in the work.
This project has
two due dates: one for the sketches, and one for the final
version. Both are due at the beginning of class on the due date.
This project will have a critique phase. An important
part of user interface design is getting feedback. Each project
team will give a short presentation of their project in class for
10 minutes. Each person in the group will speak for part of that
time. Each group will also get together and write a 1 page
criticism of each of 3 other projects and 1 page on improvements
they believe should be made to their own interface.
Deadlines:
The following exhibits were used in the previous session of this course, so they are NOT AVAILBLE as exhibits for this course:
Teams
Here is a list
of the current teams and their choice for project 1:
Team # | Members | Exhibit |
1 | A. Khumdee P. Capello A. Bunnag |
Take Flight @ Science & Industry |
2 | R. Gosiewski C. Borcean A. Radu |
Tibet @ Field Museum |
3 | D. O'Brien T. Nguyen C. Fernandes |
Seahorse Symphony @ Shedd Aquarium |
4 | K. Katz K. Kozhemyakov J. Tran |
At the End of the Century: 100 Years of Architecture @ MCA |
5 | H. Choi D. Harms K. Luruo |
U-505 submarine@ Science & Industry |
6 | J. Cao J. Choo T. Sun |
AIDS The War Within @ Science & Industry |
7 | M. Ahmed M. Kamil A. Spale |
Life Over Time @ Field Museum |
8 | M. Lewis J. Irons |
At the Dusable Museum @ DuSable Museum |
9 | G. Li, X. Ai M. Fang |
Tour of the Heart @ Science & Industry |
10 | M. Sheng P. Liu X. Zhu |
Louis Smith Bross Gallery @ Art Institute |
11 | J. Kim X. Diokno Z. Khawaja |
Material Evidence: Chicago Architecture at 2000 @ MCA. |
12 | D. Derakhshan J. Huang F. Salonga |
Gems @ Field Museum |
13 | L. Nagarajan R.Balachandran A.Vasudevan |
Inside Ancient Egypt @ Field Museum |
14 | X. Chen E. Ma |
Underground Adventure @ Field Museum |
15 | Y. Mihailova J. Ganeva Y. Belorusskiy |
PhotoMosaic @ Science & Industry |
16 | R. Kulseth R. Fernandez |
Ancient Imperial Chinese Art @ Art Institute |
17* | D. Koziol T. Fenton |
Vipers @ Field Musuem |
18* | M. Gierach J. Dixon R. Wadhwani |
Yoruba Masquerade @ the Art Insitute |
19 | Nakamura Theis |
Automobile Evolution@ Science and Industry |