For our ‘Final Outcome’, we had to design and create an experience prototype, a summary board, storyboard, visual language board and a sketchbook documenting our research and development. These were displayed in an end of semester exhibition in our studio.
Initially, I designed for my experience prototype to not only consider my interaction as a streaming device, and showing both the look and feel (visual design and app prototype) as well as the role of the interaction (streaming and playing nature audio), but also to replicate the action of placing the microphone in nature. I thought that this part of my design would be vital to replicate since this involves a lot of connection between the user and nature. However due to limited time (and aiming to make the experience prototype as streamlined and simple to understand as possible) I decided not to include microphone deployment in my experience prototype which I exhibited. I think it is important to note that if I was given more time to refine this interaction, this would definitely be an area that I would focus on, due to the physical nature of reconnection that it facilitates. It is the action of a user going into nature to deploy their microphone device, forcing them to consider about how different natural areas around them makes them feel and encouraging the user to think about their local ecosystems and environment, that made me decide to design this interaction as a personal microphone, rather than my initial idea of pre-deployed livestreaming microphones.
My final experience prototype was displayed on a laptop screen, simultaneously playing a pre-recorded visual walkthrough of the app prototype I made using Adobe XD (look & feel of artefact) and a pdf file with a brief explanation and an interactive button which played a 15 minute recording of nature sounds I took from the Dundee Uni Botanic Gardens. Headphones that were left plugged into the laptop allowed people to use the experience prototype as they walked around the exhibition.
The video shown as part of the experience prototype can be found on the reflective essay and videos blog.
My visual language board shows Visualisations of my design, the hierarchy within my design and screenshots and artboards from my app prototype.
I also created one final storyboard. I used a combination of almost all the draft storyboards in my sketchbook to help me create my final one. I made sure to consider how the user would feel throughout the interaction with my design, and how this would impact them.
Finally, our summary board had to include our ‘hero image’ (an image which captures, summarises or represents our design), the concept name and our concept summary.
Below are photos of my work exhibited in our studio.
