Prototypes

This time I mainly want to update you on the progress of the technical hardware part of our product. By now we have created two different type of 'measuring shoe's' by using two different types of sensor.

Prototype #1 makes use of force sensors that are built into a sort of a flip-flop that can be worn over your shoe. This prototype measures force of impact and is therefore also able to detect the number of impacts. An image of the prototy

pe can be seen below.

The first photo shows the force sensitive flip-flop connected to the computer

The photo below displays how the force sensor is implemented into the foam flip-flop

On the photo below you can see the prototype in use.

The second prototype that we built makes use of bending sensors and is attached to a shoe by means of rubber bands. This solution is very elegant and can be used on (or even in) any shoe. The photo below shows an image of the prototype.

All of the given sensors displayed the amount of steps on a computer screen and the impact of the step. Also the computer played a tune when a certain amount of steps was reached.

Our next step will be to use one of these prototypes to make a final usable and testable prototype that will be more specified in both function and target audience.

Interesting insights

This weeks lecture has opened my eyes to 2 new perspectives on designing computer and other human-technology interface applications, namely the following two:

- the fading notion that every bit consumes power and needs a physical place to call home

- that it is actually possible to design products that persuade you to use them for a longer time instead of throwing them away at the first sight of a better one.

The latter issue is discussed in a paper by Verbeek and Kockelkoren (1998), they argue that products that are designed nowadays are made to look at its best when they are fresh of the shelf. Off course this fits within the view of the consumption economy we live in. If something is (seemingly) broken, scratched or can just be replaced by a newer version we will replace it. However, when products were to be designed by using materials that will increase in aesthetic value with longer use, then it might be able to create a sense of older = better. Designing only the exterior of a product to enhance durability will not work, company policies also need to modified to fit this new sense of durable consumption. Change in earn-models combined with durable design could maybe be capable of breaking our habits of consuming at any cost, reduce our lust for new and stimulate appreciation of the used.

A second and probably much more trending topic in the near future is the notion that every 'bit' of information has to have a physical location for storage (Blanchette, 2011). Along with this physical space for storage goes the power its consuming herewith. At first hand it might seem a trivial fact that every bit needs a physical location of storage, however streaming services like Spotify and Netflix have heavily decreased the awareness in consumers that by streaming they are actually retrieving bits from an often unknown location. The costs for storage and transportation of this information are not at all known to the consumer. In 'the old days', when all your data was on your computer, you could actually hear the work the computer had to do to retrieve all your data. New technologies have caused this awareness to the background.

A new era in computing called 'cloud computing' is about to take earlier mentioned streaming services to the extreme by placing almost all of the data and processing power in the cloud - a distributed network of computers - and therefore separating the consumer from any notion of power and storage consumption.

The latter not only puts constraints on designers but also on the way we use our computer and especially what damage we do by using it. Damage you ask? Because we have no feedback about the consequences of our internet surfing behaviour on energy consumption we have no idea what for instance a google-search costs us. Literature research shows that consequences of the trend of streaming and cloud computing have not been explored in much depth. A short article by Berl, Gelenbe, Di Girolamo, Giuliani, De Meer, Quan Dang & Pentikousis [2009] does investigate the possibilities of energy saving in the ICT business and conlude that cloud computing might save energy in the long run because there are more possibilities for monitoring, controlling and regulating internet usage. An important fact they leave out however is the behavioural changes that will occur as a result of new streaming and cloud services that are rapidly gaining ground.

I think the above is a very interesting discussion and will be a major point of focus in the environmental discussion in the near future. Streaming services and cloud computing hold great benefits in this increasingly mobile society, the question however is...at what (environmental) cost?

New ideas

Since the latest blog entry, the idea for our prototype has taken a bit a walk on the wild side. After some discussion we have decided to go for a more fun version of the initial idea. Fun is actually the key word in our new, and probably final idea. The idea of a shoe that senses movement still stands, however we would like to enhance this "intelligent shoe" in the sense that it registeres steps and their intensity. The feedback that is given according to the amount of activity in the shoe sensors will be done through sound. A shoe that is fitted with 2 (or more) force sensors and a speaker will allow for tons of interactions that can benefit people in a lot of ways, mostly health-wise. As you see, the end-goal still stands: "get people more healthy".

The principle we will be using is "fun theory" as illustrated in the YouTube video below

Fun theory basically assumes that behavior will be displayed more often if it is fun! Therefore our interactive 'fun-shoe' will give young children a goal to engage in physical exercise more instead of staying in and playing video games. Goals can be set in different ways: rewards per certain amount of steps, intensity of sound according to amplitude of movement, make sounds (music) together.

Although this idea has the potential of activating people - and especially children - more, there are still a lot of questions surrounding the implementation and the actual behavior that this fun-shoe will illicit in real-world situations. The first step now is to build an actual (hardware) prototype that allows for exploration of behavior involving this artefact.

Week 2 - phidgets & project ideas

As an exchange student, meeting new people is always fun. The same holds for discovering novel technologies. Phidgets, to me, where certainly new and appear to be a very easy and convenient way to quickly build prototypes of any kind of interaction device. Although my programming skills are limited, I still hope that throughout this project they will at least increase a little bit. This is also why I chose to join my other group members who are obviously more skilled at this then I am.

The following weeks we will be working on our project in which we will try to create a device that motivates people to be more active and thus be more healthy. We hope to achieve this by designing a mobile device that measures a subjects physical activity. Feedback on the amount of activity shall be given in the first prototype by visual means while in the final product this might be achieved through a more sophisticated hardware device. The goal is that the feedback to your activity is viewable by anyone, thus inducing peer pressure that hopefully leads to even more physical activity and in the end to a more healthier lifestyle.