Whereas people with normal sight may use visual maps to find their way in a building, blind and visually impaired people often have little means to get acquainted with the building. Wang addressed this problem in collaboration with Stichting Geluid in Zicht (Sound in Vision), initiated by Hannes Wallrafen.

Audigator was designed to explore if and how auditory cues can help in navigation. The concept consists of a 3D scale model, a webcam, and an array of speakers placed around the user. Running your finger from room to room, one will hear the sounds associated with each room coming from one or more speakers, just as if one was there. Compared to a silent scale model, a preliminary test showed that people need less time to navigate with Audigator, and navigation is more accurate.

The video below demonstrates the rationale and design of Audigator:

Graduation project – Audigator – Xiaowei Wang from Xiaowei Wang on Vimeo.

By Nynke Tromp – StudioLab member

Abstract will be provided shortly…

This LabTalk will be held in StudioSay, February 29th, at 16:00.

By Dr. Janneke Blijlevens – StudioLab member

When people encounter a (new) product design, they evaluate this product design given the previous experience we have with product designs. Hence, people’s previous exposure to product designs influence how they interpret and how they value product designs that they encounter. People have a knowledge base on how the world around them works, looks and how they behave in that world. This knowledge base is important to correctly respond to certain situations and stimuli that people encounter on a daily basis. In order to correctly respond to stimuli people need to have a stable knowledge system that helps them in correctly responding: people have a need to protect this knowledge system. However, the world around us is ever changing. Hence, people have to learn and explore to be able to behave correctly: people have a need to expand the knowledge system. These two inherent needs influence people’s aesthetic appraisal of product designs. For example, people like product designs to deviate from the prototype that people have in their mind of how a certain product within a product category looks (most washing machines are angular and white), because it adheres to the need to expand the knowledge system. On the other hand, people do not like a product design to deviate too much, because this forms a risk to the knowledge system that they already have. Hence, people like product designs that deviate, but are still recognizable. We believe that these needs also influence aesthetic appraisal of product designs that provide certain social opportunities to us. My current research focuses on how product designs that provide us with the opportunity to feel connected to people or to feel unique influences aesthetic appraisal of product designs.

This LabTalk will be held in StudioSay, February 22th, at 16:00.

By Dr. Elif Özcan Vieira – StudioLab member

A product is a multi-sensorial object which can be experienced through our senses. When designing sounds for products, sound is often considered in isolation from its source (i.e., product). However, consistent product experience requires congruity between product properties. In the LabTalk, I will discuss how the auditory and visual product properties sometimes enhance a product experience and sometimes hinder a product experience. In detail, I will present three experimental studies based on audio-visual interactions in product experience. In the first study, the memory for product sounds and how visual and verbal labels influence the auditory memory is investigated. In the second study, the influence of context on product sound identification is investigated. In the final study, the influence of sound on pleasantness judgments of a product is investigated. The results will be discussed within a perceptual, cognitive and emotional framework for multi-sensory product experience.

This LabTalk will be held in StudioSay, February 15th, at 16:00.

By Reinier Jansen – StudioLab member

Visual, auditory, and tactile textures provide information about events and objects in our environment. Designers are considering more and more non-visual product experiences. Therefore, it is interesting to comprehend how sensory modalities can influence each other. In this labtalk, I will present an exploratory study on the use of an interactive sound synthesizer to describe visual textures. The study was recently presented at the Electronic Imaging conference in San Francisco, of which I will also give some highlights.

This LabTalk will be held in StudioSay, February 8th, at 16:00.

By Dr. Walter Aprile – StudioLab member

C and microcontrollers have been around for decades. There are many C programming toolkits that work just fine with engineers, but there is exactly ONE that designers want to use: Arduino.
In this labtalk will discuss programming toolkits for designers from the point of view of education and design. I have built a framework of traits to aid in comparing toolkits, pushing existing ones in a designerly direction and make sense of what can be a confusing landscape. I will present the framework for the first time and demonstrate a small tool I have written.

This LabTalk will be held in StudioSay, February 8th, at 16:00.

Designing computing systems for frontline firefighting is an open challenge. As of today, little computing support exists for such hazardous environments and designers struggle to build appropriate systems that fit the complex configuration on the frontline.
Following Christopher Alexander’s understanding, design is about producing living transformations of existing configurations, it requires a thorough understanding of the situation on-site. Alexander introduces pattern languages as a means to describe existing configurations and to make them accessible for design, to link ethnography and design. This thesis therefore develops a pattern language of firefighters’ activities at the frontline to transform the existing practice into a design space for computing support.

The public presentation and defense is on Tuesday December 13 at 12:00 in the Aula of the TUDelft.

Users can portrait themselves on a physical Delft Blue plate, making use of spatial augmented reality technology. They can choose to have their personalized plate fabricated in real Delft Blue at the factory.

The initial developments of Delft Blue by me took place in the ID-Studiolab and were part of the PhD research of Daniel Saakes. Bart van den Berg developed the prototypes.

Try it out for yourself in Delft.