UX of Senses

Following up to the first week's presentation, we had a major task ahead of us to come up with design ideas and choose one of them to be our final design. But before we could do any of this, we had to find ways of experiencing thermoception ourselves and we went body-storming.

In addition to the staircase exercises we had at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Cristele explored using stainless steel scourers as heat preservatives for fingertips.

Amongst the ideas was a chalice that lights up upon sensing body heat. This would be meant for use during holy communion but given the time frame, it would not be feasible. So we had to come up with another and fast.

The idea was to come up with design that brings out the aspect of people coming together just like St. Paul’s Cathedral does but in thermoceptive vision. We settled on two that included:

We made life size designs of the spiral prototypes with shoulder wearable straps and a cloth with strips for a maple dance activity.

• Could have had a much more refined product if we had picked one of the two.
• The activities should be experienceable by everyone not just part of your audience.
• Present from the centre stage.

This was just the beginning and I cannot really state we had fully embodied what was was required of us but we were advised not be hard on ourselves either. Here were my take-aways:

• Always document your experiences using medium within your nearest reach.
• Perfection without a final output in the given timeframe is no work at all.