New interface ideas

Yesterday I created a new design for the interface.
Its very minimal and i feel that it needs one small magical element to give it the wow factor .
However maybe that will be how we present the pictures.
Dara

Team leader Meeting

Yesterday we had a team leader meeting.
Discussed topics were the end of year show and how to promote it .
It appears that we need two promotional items:
a booklet and a flyer.
I volunteered to help design both but were not sure of the details yet.
There was also talk of embedding fonts and how this would be done.
I sent Dee a tutorial about how to embed fonts in flash.
Then we worked through everyone's design ideas.

Dara

27 Jul 2009 MON - Design Spec Meeting

Today we had a meeting to go over Design Spec. We all agree on the basic functionality and features of the Campus interface. We are still deciding on the final Museum Building interface. We want to ensure that it is coherent with the features we are implementing in the Campus interface while still be able to access the rich content that we have gathered inside the building. Dara, Binbin and Marcos are working on the Design Spec for the Museum Building. Killian is researching Flash Interface.

Marcos.

Circulation Trails plotted

24 Jul 2009 FRI - Meeting with Feargal about Design Spec

Today we had an important meeting with Feargal to discuss our Design Spec. We brought in all our design mockups and Design Spec concepts and gave him an overview of our project, showing him the different content we collected, our aims and our methodology. We told Feargal about our concern that we had jumped in too early into the aesthetics of the interface without thinking about the end user and the content. Feargal quickly picked up on the fact that, although we intended to avoid an informational approach, our project was in a certain way "patronising" the user through the use of icons, 3d axonometric layouts and pop up panels. He believes that our content serves a much more artistic and exploratory approach to the building, and that should be reflected in the interface, which should not overwhelm the content, but rather support it and remain in the background. During the meeting with Feargal, we showed him one of the initial ideas, with a very faded campus map highlighting the circulation paths we collected, and Feargal said that the simplicity of it highlighted our content without resorting to icons, pop up panels or explanatory aids.

We had a group meeting between us after and decided to redesign the Design Spec before building the interface. So hopefully by Monday we will have the Design Spec sorted out and move on to building the interface.

Marcos.

23 Jul 2009 THU - Design Spec and People layer's experiments

Today we discussed the Design Spec. Based on our conclusions, we are going to draft a new Design Spec so we can show it to Feargal tomorrow. We also conducted experiments for the People's layer. Killian mocked up a few of the ideas we had for interface in Flash to see how they will work. We have a much better idea of how the interface elements will work. We will also edit remaining content so we have everything in the shared folder.

Marcos.

22 Jul 2009 WED - Design Spec, Editing Photos and Interviews and 3D Informational layer.

Today Dara worked on the Design Spec (using pencil and paper). Killian researched the Flash interface, Binbin edited the interviews and drawings of people inside the building and Marcos uploaded and edited photos from last night experiments and worked on 3D informational layer.

Tomorrow we'll have a quick meeting with Nicky to update him and we are going to discuss the Design spec. We also have a meeting scheduled with Feargal on Friday morning to discuss Design spec.

Marcos.

21 Jul TUE - Meetings and Experiments

Today Marcos and Killian were in the Design Meeting. There are still some issues regards the use of icons and background colours across the whole website. We raised this point as we are starting to experiment with interface layouts. The Design Team asked us to liaise with them if we have any interface design questions or if we have already defined certain elements of the interface so that they are consistent with all other groups layouts.

In the afternoon we all went over to the campus to try and run some of the People layer's experiments, but bad weather got in the way. Killian bought some batteries and we managed to put together a few leds for the night experiment. We went back to the Museum Building and from 9pm to 0:30am we created several light trails and photographed them using long exposures of 30 seconds to one minute. tomorrow we'll have a look at them.

Marcos.

20 Jul 2009 MON – Planning the big session tomorrow

Today we met up in the afternoon to discuss the Experiment day planned for tomorrow (Tuesday) in the Museum Building. We drafted a list of experiments that we need to fill in the layers that we created, and planned to execute them all tomorrow (afternoon and evening). Binbin, Dara and Marcos were working on design interface mockups. After discussing them, we agreed to take a step back and create our own design spec to give us more direction in terms of functionality of the interface and how to present and navigate all the content. We also are waiting for the Design Team to finalise details of the design spec, as today we received a further document with design standards from them. Binbin and Dara are drafting the design spec, while Marcos is redesigning plans for the building and campus and creating the 3d informational layer on top of them and Killian is researching Flash interface.

Once the experiments are done tomorrow, we intend to start prototyping the final interface and editing all the content. This is going to be the biggest challenge ahead, so we will have to keep a close eye on our Gantt chart and Google calendar!

Marcos.

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17 Jul 2009 FRI – Interface and remaining experiments

Today we had a meeting in the afternoon to discuss the design interface and remaining experiments. We made a list of what we want to have in the 5 different interface screens we are envisioning: campus, basement, ground floor, 1st floor and 2nd floor. Each of these will have 3 layers: flow, wavelength and people.

Marcos presented illustrator mockups for the idea of incorporating 3D into the interface while still having the plan of each interface underneath, by using axonometric perspective and icons for each of the 3 layers. The "fake" 3D wireframe interface allows for easy understanding of the building for a layperson while still allowing the easy positioning of elements onto the interface by using x and y coordinates. We agreed on adopting this as the overall design structure. Killian reminded us that we need to incorporate the color blue into design, as this has been assigned as the colour of our group by the design team, and also that the CUBE logo will be positioned outside the 960x600 canvas. Binbin presented concepts for the expandable information panels and Dara presented concepts for the layer icons. We need to do some more work on these and decide on how the expandable panels will incorporate different media and different sizes.

We also discussed further experiments. Binbin is drafting a list of what we want to incorporate in each layer across the 5 interfaces so we can plan another experiment session on Tuesday evening.

Plan for this week is to start protoyping interface, carry out last experiments and organise data collected.

Marcos.

16 Jul 2009 THU - Interview with Patrick Jackson

Today Dara had the opportunity to interview Patrick Jackson. He got some good recording of funny stories that happened inside the building. Marcos kept working on the interface, Binbin was working on editing interviews and Killian was kept busy by the Build team, as they were finalising the Functional Spec of the overall site. Tomorrow we will meet to discuss latest progress and plan next week.

Marcos.

15 Jul 2009 THU - The long road ahead...

Today we kept working on our individual tasks. We had a quick meeting at 1pm to update each other. Tomorrow Dara is going to interview mr. Jackson and Killian has a couple of Programming team meetings. Binbin is working on interviews and Marcos is working on interface mockups.

Looking to have some sort of working prototype next week. Also planning the last experiments to complete the layers we defined as the core structure of our project: Flow, People and Wavelength.

Marcos.

14 Jul 2009 - TUE - More Experiments Inside Building

This morning we all met to discuss interview questions to rerun Experiment No. 2 - Interviewing people inside the building (this time we interviewed staff, students and tourists). We came up with a list of questions for staff and external visitors. The idea was to get as much info as possible and see if little narratives would start developing. We recorded most interviews with an H4 recorder.

Binbin and Dara went to Museum Building earlier and got started on interviews, while Marcos and Killian attended the Design Team meeting. Marcos and Killian went to Museum Building after meeting. Killian conducted some interviews and Marcos went around building with plans to determine public and private spaces and understand the plans better. By analysing the plans we discovered that there seems to be a floor "missing" between the first and second floors. One interviewee mentioned jokingly that there was a one and a half floor.

We have split the workload for the following day or two to optimise our time.
Killian: Research Flash Interface
Dara: edit sounds recorded
Binbin: edit interviews/drawings
Marcos: edit building floor plans and campus map

We hope to start building small prototypes in Flash by the end of this week or start of next.

Marcos.

13 Jul 2009 MON - Project Specification Meeting

Today we had a long meeting to discuss our ideas about the Project Specification. Although we had a good idea of the things we wanted to cover after all our experiments of the last week, Nicky said that it was important to clearly define these before conducting any further experiments or interface concepts. Nicky told us to describe our Project in no more than a page. It should contain 3 main things: Aim, Methodology and Description.

After careful consideration, we came up with the following:

Aim:
Our aim is to explore the Museum Building inside the wider context of the campus by viewing it as a being brought to life through its interactions with people.

Methodology:
We recorded a series of experiments across progressive levels of interaction:
1) Passive: observing people and the building while looking at circulation, sound and light.
2) Active: interviewing people, manipulating circulation, sound, light and encouraging the creative use of the building.

Description:
We broke down the project into three distinct but interrelated layers which govern how the content will be presented to the user:
1) Flow: patterns of circulation, movement and ambient sound recordings
2) Wavelength: interaction with light and sound experiments
3) People: personal experience of people interacting with building (images, audio, video)

NEXT STEP: we are going to rerun some of the experiments and conduct a few more to fill in the layers that we have defined. We decided that we need to focus more on the People layer.

Marcos.

10 Jul 2009 FRI - Meeting with Nicky

Today Nicky came over to meet up with us in the lab. We showed him all the work we had done so far and described our progress. We showed him a few design spec mockups to give an idea of what the interface might look like plus we showed him the list of experiments conducted.

Nicky suggested that we write down in no more than a page our aim, methodology and description for the project before we carry out any more experiments. We decided that each of us would think about these and that we would meet again on Monday to finalise it and send it to Nicky.

Marcos.

9 Jul 2009 THU - Design Spec and Next Steps

Today we met in the morning to finalise Design Spec. Marcos drafted a Word document with overall specifications. We decided not to stretch ourselves either going into too much detail or proposing complex interfaces. We have a folder with Design Interface Inspirations and another one with Interface Mockups inside our shared folder. Killian is researching the Flash interface while Binbin, Dara and Marcos are producing Interface mockups. At the moment we are experimenting with different layouts, but we have a rough idea of what we want it to look like.

We are also thinking about new experiments for next week. Tomorrow Nicky is coming over from Belfast to meet us.

7/8 Jul 2009 TUE/WED - Design Spec

On Tuesday we discussed Design Spec. We split up to do different tasks: Binbin wrote analysis of different experiments we conducted on Sunday. Dara did some mockups for the Design Spec, Killian researched Flash for the interface and Marcos edited a video of experiments conducted on Sunday inside the Museum Building and produced a Gantt chart so we can keep track of time!

On Thursday we are going to meet again to discuss finalise Design Spec. We now have a shared folder on the TCD network where we can keep all our data.

We also posted our first video of the experiments we've been doing: http://vimeo.com/5492664

CUBE Sunday Experiments JUL 5 - Trinity Museum Building from Cube on Vimeo.

06 Jul 2009 MON - Chat with Science Gallery

Today we were still tired from last night's marathon session. We edited a rough cut of the video recording we did yesterday during experiments inside building and also had a meeting with Don Pohlman (Science Gallery) to enquire about the Infectious visitor's tracking system.

We were going to discuss design spec today but Dara fell of his bike and couldn't come in today, so we will do that tomorrow. On the agenda also is the branding for our team and editing data from our experiments yesterday.

Today we also had a Design Team meeting. I attended representing our group and Killian also attended representing the Build Team. We were presented with the overall design concept (everyone agrees with it) and told to present our design spec by Thursday at 2pm.

Marcos.

05 Jul 2009 SUN - Spatial Experiments with sound and light

We arrived in the Museum Building around 6pm with loads of recording equipment. We had three stills cameras, three video cameras, one H4 recorder, three tripods, two high quality speakers, one amp, one laptop, two microphones, a couple of LED lights, some funky bouncy "eyeballs" with embedded LED lights, one golf ball and a bag of marbles. We had a list of several experiments that we wanted to conduct. The idea was to bring the building alive (or better, let it "express itself") and experiment with the spatial quality of its environment by extracting and adding sound and light.

A short list of the experiments we carried out follows:

Experiment No.4: Take photos at five minute intervals from opposite sides of the building with cameras mounted on tripods to capture nuances of light as daylight faded.

Experiment No.5: record sounds of the building using the H4 recorder and create new ones by striking the building surfaces with marbles.

Experiment No.6: record Killian playing the didgeridoo in the middle of the main hall.

Experiment No. 7: execute 60 second musical piece created by Dara which involved clapping, singing musical notes, saying things in English, Irish, Chinese and Portuguese and hissing sounds.

Experiment No.8: use sounds recorded in the building and create a feedback loop using a microphone and speaker and make a recording of it.

Experiment No.9: release a golf ball and a few marbles from top of staircase and record the sound of them as they fall down the steps.

Experiment No.10: Take long exposure photos of building while we move around the space with led lights and funky LED "eyeballs" creating patterns of light outlining features of the building and also words (such as "Manifesto" and "Hello!".

Experiment No.11: Create stop motion animation of Killian descending staircase by taking photos of him in the same stance from each step.

We finished at 11pm. It was a very long session but it was enjoyable and we are happy with the outcome. We will be analysing and editing the data this week.

Check out the rough cut of the video recording we did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBLScvg3n7o

Marcos.

03 Jul 2009 FRI - Experiments no.2 & 3 inside Museum Building

We met in the morning to plan next steps. We decided that each of us would start to think about the design spec, as it must be defined on July 1oth. We also discussed the idea of forming a loose art collective inspired on the Etoy collective (www.etoy.com). We think it is necessary to create a buzz about our project and that a bit of branding might help. Dara developed a few ideas around the name and logo. We will discuss it further next week.

Around lunchtime we went to the Museum Building to continue our experiments. On the way, we stopped at the Science Gallery to enquire about their RFID tracking system for the Infectious exhibition. We were told to contact the Exhibitions Officer (Don). Marcos emailed him and he replied so we should hopefully meet him next week.

We continued Experiment No. 1 and conducted Experiments No.2 & 3. Killian and Binbin worked on Experiment No.1 followed a few more people coming out of the Museum Building so that we could get some more data. Initial impressions indicate that most people leaving building go towards the main entrance and the Arts block.

Marcos conducted Experiment No.2: interviewing tourists entering the building. Asking them how they found out about it, if they felt intimidated entering the building and going up staircase in the main hall and what were there feelings about the building. He also plotted their circulation patterns. Initial impressions indicate some tourists found it through their guidebooks and the others just stumbled across it by curiosity once they saw people exiting the main door. Most were intimidated by the main door and the absence of any signs, plus the sign indicating that main staircase was off limits for visitors (a few tourists ventured past it after a bit of hesitation). Many were impressed by the architecture. The only teenage visitors said it reminded them of "Harry Potter". One Czech female tourist liked it so much she came back 15 minutes later with a few of her friends.

Dara conducted Experiment No.3: taking several pictures of textures and patterns under different lighting inside the building and assemble them in strips in a Photoshop composition.

We have gathered a lot of data so far, so we will be analysing it during the next week. We shortlisted equipment needed for our Experiments on Sunday. This is planned to be a big session with several experiment in light, sound and motion. Below is the map were we plotted trajectories of Experiment No.1. It gave us some insight in how the final design spec might look like.

Marcos.

02/07/2009 THU - Manifesto and Experiments

Dublin, July 1st 2009

Museum Building Manifesto

Citizens of Trinity, Dublin and beyond:

For over 150 years I have sat here in the heart of the Trinity Campus. Since my birth I have been a subject of many power struggles, as the highest authorities of Trinity College fought about my location and architects fought about my fatherhood. I survived many smoggy winters, the slow dilapidation of my internal spaces, student pranks and a few dodgy maintenance experiments. I have been a home for many noble and decent people, who have fought important wars, built railways in lands far beyond the horizon and created knowledge. I was born to a high standard, embellished by some of the best craftsmen in this country, and yet today very few people would dare glance at me or explore the many layers of culture, technology and stories that I have accumulated over all these years. I have sat in misery while my brother the Old Library gets all the attention. I am aware that I might come across as uninviting and shy, but I have feelings too and after all these years I feel neglected.
I am a living creature as much as any of you and I will no longer sit here in silence. I declare myself free from the tyranny of packaged guided tours, the banalization of everyday life and the trivialization of history. I will make myself heard and reappropriate the technologies of our society of digital spectacle to encourage play against passivity and isolation. I will breathe, scream and reveal my hidden layers and secrets to the limits of my decency. I have enlisted a group of revolutionaries that are loyal to me and believe in my ideals. They have the most effective digital and analog tools, the sharpest thoughts, and will stop at nothing till this Revolution succeeds.

Citizens of the world, you are a part of this, as much as you are a part of me. I invite you to join me in this struggle, to listen to my breathing and to share my heart beat. My limbs are outstretched to embrace you. I invite you to step off the beaten path that leads nowhere and follow your emotions in a journey of discovery. Liberate yourselves from your everyday routine, throw away your guide books, reset your ears and eyeballs and join the Revolution!

Signed:
__________________________
The Museum Building and SEMB




We met in the morning and discussed the Manifesto ideas. We agreed to use Marcos's manifesto with a few alterations. The Manifesto was "written" by the Museum Building, and we are the "comrades" that the Building enlisted to carry on the Revolution. :-) We also discussed our ideas for experiments. Binbin suggested analysing point of view of Asian tourists as they seem to pay more attention to traditional buildings than western tourists. We thought that it might be a case for an experiment. Dara came up with several experiment ideas using sound and light and suggested we run a few of them on Sunday when the building is quiet.

Killian suggested we draft letter to Neil (administrator) with our questions. We hope this letter will be circulated to users of building so we can get some data about them.

We created a shared document so we can put all our experiments in it. I emailed Manifesto to Nicky, he gave us positive feedback and suggested we carry out a few more experiments so that on Wednesday we can discuss them via Skype.

NEXT STEP: meeting tomorrow to talk about experiments list. Looking to pay a visit to the Science Gallery to enquire about their RFID tracking system for the Infectious exhibition.

01/Jul/2009 WED - Meeting with Mark

Today we met with Mark O'Halloran inside the Museum Building. We had a walk around, exposed our ideas and work so far to him and he gave us some interesting insights. He posed the following question:
What do you want the user to get out of it?

Mark likes the idea of thinking about the building as an organic creature, being "fed" by its users and what they do inside it.


He was also interested in peeling off the different layers of technology contained in the building and how you can use sound/video/audio to explore these layers in steps instead of producing slide shows of "normal" photos of the building. Mark pointed out how the sound the building generates indicates that it is alive and questioned how could you interpret the feeling of visitors of the building.

He agrees that sound is a main component of the character of the building, but also commented on the spatial quality of it while looking at main hall from the top floor. ("Feels like a cathedral").
Mark also commented on how people seem to have a loss of confidence once they go through the main door and the sense of unease. He suggested we get visitors to do line sketches of the building when they get in to see how they interpret it.

Killian and Dara spoke to Neil Kearney (administrator of the Geology Department - neilkearney at tcd dot ie) about access to the building and our plans to carry out experiments inside and he said that was fine. They also spoke to Elaine Ecullen (cartographer of the Geology Department - elaineecullen at tcd dot ie) about getting access to maps and other info.

NEXT STEPS:
Each of us are going to write down a couple of experiments we would like to carry out in the building and also think about suggestions for the manifesto.
We'll meet tomorrow (Thursday) at 10 am to discuss our findings.