miMic: The microphone as a pencil

miMic, a sonic analogue of paper and pencil is proposed: An augmented microphone for vocal and gestural sonic sketching. Vocalizations are classified and interpreted as instances of sound models, which the user can play with by vocal and gestural control. The physical device is based on a modified microphone, with embedded inertial sensors and buttons. Sound models can be selected by vocal imitations that are automatically classified, and each model is mapped to vocal and gestural features for real-time control. With miMic, the sound designer can explore a vast sonic space and quickly produce expressive sonic sketches, which may be turned into sound prototypes by further adjustment of model parameters

A participatory approach for digital documentation of Egyptian Bedouins intangible cultural heritage

The Bedouins of Egypt hold a unique intangible cultural heritage (ICH), with distinct cultural values and social practices that are rapidly changing as a consequence of having settled after having been nomadic for centuries. We present our attempt to develop a bottom-up approach to document Bedouin ICH. Grounded in participatory design practices, the project purpose was two-fold: engaging Egyptian Engineering undergraduates with culturally-distant technology users and introducing digital self-documentation of ICH to the Bedouin community. We report the design of a didactic model that deployed the students as research partners to co-design four prototypes of ICH documentation mobile applications with the community. The prototypes reflected an advanced understanding for the values to the Bedouins brought by digital documentation practices. Drawing from our experience, three recommendations were elicited for similar ICH projects. Namely, focusing on the community benefits; promoting motivation ownership, and authenticity; and pursuing a shared identity between designers and community members. These guidelines hold a strong value as they have been tested against local challenges that could have been detrimental to the project

Inspirational Bits - Towards a Shared Understanding of the Digital Material

In any design process, a medium’s properties need to be considered. This is nothing new in design. Still we find that in HCI and interactive systems design the properties of a technology are often glossed over. That is, technologies are black-boxed without much thought given to how their distinctive properties open up design possibilities. In this paper we describe what we call inspirational bits as a way to become more familiar with the design material in HCI, the digital material. We describe inspirational bits as quick and dirty but fully working systems in both hardware and software built with the aim of exposing one or several of the dynamic properties of a digital material. We also show how they provide a means of sharing design knowledge across the members of a multi-disciplined design team

Usability as a focus of multiprofessional collaboration: a teaching case study on user-centered translation

As professional communication needs are increasingly multilingual, the merging of translator and technical communicator roles has been predicted. However, it may be more advantageous for these two professional groups to increase cooperation. This means learning to identify and appreciate their distinct but mutually complementary core competencies. Since both professions share the ideology of being the user’s advocate, usability is a common denominator that can function as a focal point of collaboration. While many translation theories focus on the reader and the target context, usability methods have not traditionally been a part of translator training. An innovation called User-Centered Translation (UCT), which is a model based on usability and user-centered design, is intended to help translators speak the same language as technical communicators, and it offers concrete usability tools which have been missing from translation theories. In this teaching case study, we discuss the teaching of four UCT methods: personas, the implied reader, heuristic evaluation, and usability testing. We describe our teaching experiences, analyze student feedback on all four, and report on the implementation of a student assignment on heuristics. This case study suggests ways in which UCT can form an important nexus of professional skills and multiprofessional collaboration

The ‘responsibility’ factor in imagining the future of education in China

Design and creativity have been a considerable force for improving life conditions. A lot of effort has been invested in explaining the design process and creativity mainly through the design thinking methodology, but design accountability and responsible actions in the design process are, yet, to be fully explored. The concept of design ethics is now increasingly scrutinized on both the level of business organization and of the individual designer. A 4-day design workshop that involved creativity techniques provided the base to explore responsibility in the fuzzy front end of the design process. The future of education in 2030 was defined as the workshop's theme and fifty-six students from China were asked to create detailed alternative scenarios. A number of imagination exercises, implementation of technological innovations and macro-environment evolutions employed in the workshop are discussed. The aim was to incite moral and responsible actions among students less familiar with creative educational contexts of student-led discovery and collaborative learning. This paper reflects on the use of creativity methods to stimulate anticipation in (non)design students

Giving voice to equitable collaboration in participatory design

An AHRC funded research project titled Experimenting with the Co-experience Environment (June 2005 – June 2006) culminated in a physical environment designed in resonance with a small group of participants. The participants emerged from different disciplines coming together as a group to share their expertise and contribute their knowledge to design. They engaged in storytelling, individual and co-thinking, creating and co-creating, sharing ideas that did not require justification, proposed designs even though most were not designers …and played. The research questioned how a physical environment designed specifically for co-experiencing might contribute to new knowledge in design? Through play and by working in action together the participants demonstrated the potential of a physical co-experience environment to function as a scaffold for inter-disciplinary design thinking,saying, doing and making (Ivey & Sanders 2006). Ultimately the research questioned how this outcome might influence our approach to engaging participants in design research and experimentation

A Software Radio Challenge Accelerating Education and Innovation in Wireless Communications

This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents our methodology and tools for introducing competition in the electrical engineering curriculum to accelerate education and innovation in wireless communications. Software radio or software-defined radio (SDR) enables wireless technology, systems and standards education where the student acts as the radio developer or engineer. This is still a huge endeavor because of the complexity of current wireless systems and the diverse student backgrounds. We suggest creating a competition among student teams to potentiate creativity while leveraging the SDR development methodology and open-source tools to facilitate cooperation. The proposed student challenge follows the European UEFA Champions League format, which includes a qualification phase followed by the elimination round or playoffs. The students are tasked to build an SDR transmitter and receiver following the guidelines of the long-term evolution standard. The metric is system performance. After completing this course, the students will be able to (1) analyze alternative radio design options and argue about their benefits and drawbacks and (2) contribute to the evolution of wireless standards. We discuss our experiences and lessons learned with particular focus on the suitability of the proposed teaching and evaluation methodology and conclude that competition in the electrical engineering classroom can spur innovation.Comment: Frontiers in Education 2018 (FIE 2018