During my time working as User Experience Designer for COBI I was responsible for a variety of tasks. My range of duties reached from research, organising, conducting and evaluating user tests and surveys over the creation of flow charts, screen flows and wireframes to prototyping, but most of all concept development and documentation for new features and optimisations.
As an example of my work at COBI I give an insight into the process of creating a concept for synchronised feedbacks and notifications for the whole system.
The use of augmented reality to overlay navigation and traffic- relevant information on a pair of glasses in combination with routing, adapted to personal needs can make cycling in urban space safer and more efficient. As a result of dense and complex urban traffic, „weaker“ road users like cyclists are subjects of a higher risk of accidents compared to motorised vehicles. By turning away focus and attention from the transport scene towards a navigation device or smart phone this risk increases significantly. Bringing navigation instructions and traffic-relevant information direct in the cyclists field of view can minimize the risk.
My bachelor thesis project deals with a concept and design of an application for augmented reality glasses that allows bicyclists to find the optimal route and receiving navigation and traffic information during the movement without turning away the sight of the current transport business. Additionally safety hazards, that can not be caught by senses or perceived in time, can be pointed out.
With this project our team came up with a physical approach to manipulate digital data and delete it more easily in an physical, expressive way, more suitable and natural for the act of destruction. It should also make aware of how we deal with our digital traces and data and how hard it is at the same time to delete it if you could remove it forever. Besides focusing on Embodied Interaction and Physical prototying, (anti-)archiving and memories were import topics to explore for our team. Digitally saved information is favorable for archiving but much harder to be completely deleted, so desired. Facebook is one of he worldwide biggest social media platforms were people share and record their activities, memories and feelings. However, removing unwanted data or deleting your Facebook account completely can be a difficult undertaking. Based on that frustrating experience we created a “physical Facebook” as a concept idea for an exhibition. The book functions as a physical controller, in which the sites represent different information like friends, shared post and pictures, groups, etc. of a connected profile. Every stronger physical interaction with the book has direct impact on the appaerence and content of the connected Facebook profile. punishing the book for example creates optical deformations. Tearing out pages deletes the respective data on the profile.
Ecojojo is an innovative concept to improve the live cycle assessment through energy production (based on a smart energy grid) and recycling by use of the payment system of public transportation. Condition is the cooperation between the region, different service industries, institutions, energy suppliers, etc. and the public transportation companies. Idea is to create a kind of reward system. By using environmentally friendly services, producing energy in a certain way or recycle, users can collect value points on their public transportation smart card. The personal additional value using the public transportation system, thereby contribution to energy production and a clean environment should be carried out without additional activities, but will be integrated into already existing habitually activities. Collecting points through green-minded activities effectively lowers the costs for using the public transportation system. Ideally users can be encouraged to think about their ecological footprint and an ecoconscious, sustainable cycle can be created.
Although there is a large number of Applications in the music area, hardly one concentrates on training sight-reading and tempo play on your acoustic instrument based on sheet music. Especially for professional musicians, music students, advanced hobby musicians and all who are used to work with sheet music it is difficult to find exercising applications running on a tablet.
Clef contains two main exercising functions, sight-reading and tempo play. To use the App users does not need to have their instruments plugged in. When starting to play (or sing) a selected piece, the App will recognize it and where on the notes you are at what time. In the sight-reading and tempo play mode notes are by default displayed as a continuous passing through note system, so turning pages is not necessary. If desired, they can also be displayed as classical sheet music. After exercising you can see an analysis of mistakes you have done, whether you played wrong notes or which parts were not played in the selected tempo. Additionally the App provides a music library. Selected pieces can be just listened to in different sounds and joint music sessions can be simulated.
Mood Ambiance is a place related interaction design concept developed in the "Social Mass Media" course at Malmö University. Besides developing a concept to solve a place related problem, the focus was lying on extensive fieldwork and several rounds of iterative ideation phases, using a variety of methods. The final concept our team came up with is addressing the problem of boredom caused by waiting time at train stations. It makes use of the barely used media screens you can find everywhere in the station. Through the Mood Ambiance App Users can help shape these surfaces. They can upload a picture to a daily theme that will be displayed on the screens as collage from all uploaded pictures. To connect the waiting poeple abit more and make them get in touch with each other, if wanted, the App gives the opportunity to influence the ambient light conditions and background music of whole areas. For this purpose light intensity, preferred color and music style can be selected. based on the highest percentage of settings people in an area have selected the ambient conditions will be changed.
IxD worldwide is an outcome of the project course "Speed-Up! - and Reflect!" that took place at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam under directon of Prof. Constanze Langer and Prof. Frank Heidmann. In that course we brought the interface design study into question, discussed and reflected on different aspects, took a deeper look on study structures, curriculae, teaching and learning methods, gender question etc. Together with Stefan Fabris our aim with this project was to present a comparison of universities and training in the field of interaction design. How does the global landcape of majors in the field of Interaction Design looks like and how does the education on other Universities differs from ours?Where lies the weight of topics?How long does the study take?How much does it cost?Which methods are used to teach and learn in which place?– a lot of questions that arose and wanted to be answered during research of higher education in the field of Interaction Design on a global view.Our attempt within the context of numerous questions was to depict the comparison of academic training. This should be clarified through extensive background research and a survey. The results should be displayed in a detailed information visualisation. But after problems came up concerning the completeness and applicability of information of the completed survey and its evaluation, the aim changed to a simple representation of collected information, free for own interpretation. As final result a poster and a interactive Map were created where the collected information is located and pictured. You can find a link to the map and poster here or on the documentation site of the whole course.
nicetwowheel is a bicycle navigation device with the advatages of a bigger touch screen, combining a classical navigation device with functions of a cyclometer and a bike radio. Basis was the wish for a bicycle navigation devices that provides a bigger screen the classical stand-alone products or smartphone Apps and at the same time offers a integrated training function for performance-oriented cycling. Additionally the build-in radio and music function supports a switch-over from training to relaxed driving. After defining the range of funktions and evolving the information architecture we created first paper protoypes for first user testings. during the design process several user tests were made to eliminate ambiguities and optimize the device and its functions. Based on the test results we reworked some parts before starting to create mock ups.
RecRadio is a result of a course task to create a graphical User Interface for a web radio application following design guideslines. Based on the given task the focus was not lying on creating a new innovative radio web applikation but rather following existing guidelines and explore the degree of creative freedom within it. Nevertheless we wanted to add some functions to create a link to old mixed tapes. Besides searching, saving and bookmarking radio channels and listening to them RecRadio allows to record the things heard. The record function can be set to start and stop automatically on the beginning and end of a song or the user can start and stop the recording at any time. Some basic editing functions are also included to afterwards change, name and save the recordings.
My intention with geneapraph was it to create a family tree visualization that shows the overlapping of lifespan of generations. By just displaying the lifespan of persons you can also directly see who, at least theoretically, got to know each other. I tested out many different variations, finally decided for one basic ground structure but two different shapes to display the information. In the more classical view overlapping lifespan is visible more quickly. On the other hand the semicircle view gives a more interesting impression and it is easier to distinguish between father’s side on the left and mother’s side on the right.