Acoustic Poetry is a conceptual object through which profoundly deaf individuals can explore soundscapes in everyday situations or special occasions. This is to enrich the connection with their environment, a rare intention in medical sound awareness devices. Acoustic poetry seeks to spark a conversation about how designing for deaf culture could be more exploratory and emotional.

When the individual feels curious about a particular situation, they can use the object to broadcast an audio sample of the environment to a human interpreter. After listening in, the interpreter crafts a profound, poetic description of the soundscape, which is then sent back and displayed on the object.

This bespoke object is a result of a competitive and very demanding brief set out by Microsoft Research in collaboration with our course and our sister product design course. Social Sewing, is a way for my grandmother to socialise with and talk to her friends while sewing through a simple intercom. Her friends are represented by miniature sewing machine avatars that move when their human counterpart presses their sewing machine’s pedal. Our team won the first prize and was invited to develop our experience prototypes into finished products and present them at Microsoft’s Faculty Summit in Redmond, Seattle. I acted as a leader in the team and coordinated difficult design decisions. I also developed Social Sewing’s complex electronics and played an important role in the model making.

The Museum of Lost Interactions is a hoax exhibition of fictional objects that try to challenge our preconceptions of interaction design history. Our exhibit revolved around a Victorian scientist, John Henry Jiffington, who needed a more precise way of measuring time in his experiments. Previous attempts to measure time intervals in his procedures proved inaccurate and laborious. In 1871, Jiffington took it upon himself to design a more precise apparatus for measuring and logging his experiments. Jiffington enlisted the help of a local watchmaker to help him build his invention that timed and displayed sequences of actions to an accuracy of one quarter of a second by punching holes onto a reel of paper. After becoming notorious in the scientific world, Jiffington’s unit of time soon became known as the ‘Jiffy’ still used in modern English idioms today.

Bespoke is a project funded by the EPSRC, the Digital Economy Bill and five UK universities. The project is an investigation of digital and social inclusion in Fishwick and Callon, UK. I worked as an intern under Dr. Jon Rogers, who leads the product design division of the project. I was mainly involved in “Digital Buskers” and “Community Capture TV”. The former is a set of statues of local artists that can play music once they receive a text message with a user’s song request. The latter is a camera that records 30 seconds of video before the user pressed its trigger button. These two objects have now been given to the community and ethnographers are documenting the different ways Callon and Fishwick residents are using them.

Memory Box is a device designed specifically for people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. The idea builds upon existing therapies such as sensory integration therapy, which uses psycho-social intervention to trigger patients’ emotions. The patient takes any sentimental possession, say a treasured photograph of a family event, and places a RFID sticker on it. Once they place the item on the Memory Box, the device starts recording. The patient then starts talking about the memories associated with the particular possession. Once they’re done, they remove the object from the Memory Box. The next time they place the object on the device, the Memory Box will play back the associated memory to refresh the user’s memory.

Apple Karts are small machines that translate the sound from an iPhone to drawings. One can draw their favourite song or give commands to the Apple Karts by singing into an iPhone. Apple Karts are physical apps, which take advantage of the iPhone and link it to the physical world. The project leaders were researchers Elio Caccavale, Jon Rogers, Pete Thomas and Mike Shorter. The project was exhibited at Il Compasso Di Latta in Milan. I helped manufacture the electronics as well as the card chassis for the devices.

Tilt is an e-reader that enables comic and graphic novel fans to experience a new medium of comics which utilises the flexibility of modern digital displays. Instead of trying to create a realistic simulation of paper comics, Tilt aims to introduce a new medium for comic artists and producers. Comics and graphic novels are broken up into panels and juxtaposed onto an infinite canvas. The user can tilt the device left, right, up or down and the comic slides accordingly. They can access the main menu by gently shaking the device and make selections by knocking anywhere on the e-reader. The fully working prototype is a combination of Flash, Arduino and ActionScript.

When my course changed its name from Interactive Media Design to Digital Interaction Design, we needed a new online face that communicated the new philosophy of the course and showcased the excellent work of the students. I designed a website that acts as the shop front of the course. Rather than showing dull academic requirements and course descriptions, the site is focused on news, projects and events that are posted dynamically by tutors, students and visiting staff. In addition, the site acts as a hub for inter-course communication.

The IMD Degree Show 2010 website was designed for people to browse the exhibiting projects. The layout makes browsing the project natural, without having to get redirected to other pages. At the same time, it gives every student a distinct area in which they can comfortably show their project, as well as introduce themselves. Since this was the last year that graduated under the name BSc Interactive Media Design, the website had to communicate the fact that the course is changing its name. I therefore designed an animation that shows the name change graphically by pulling a panel up that has the new course name.