Microsoft Design Expo 2015 – Inclusive Design

Our IDE faculty was invited to participate in the 2015 Microsoft Research’s (MSR) Design Expo with this years theme: “Inclusive Design”. Our team has been selected, out of 4 TU Delft teams, to present our concept and prototype at the expo in Seattle. The challenge was to design a product, service or solution for someone with a context-dependent disability. Our creation should improve that person’s abilities in an existing context, or change their context to lessen or remove the disability.

Video of the presentation at Microsoft

Each year, Microsoft Research sponsors a semester-long class at leading design schools. Students are asked to form interdisciplinary teams of two to four students to design a user experience prototype that solves a real-world problem. From these groups, a representative team from each school presents its work to Microsoft. Design Expo began as partnership from Microsoft and Apple to integrate technology into the curriculum of design schools worldwide. The goal is to build long term relationship with the design schools, and build community across schools. For example, one of our success stories is when ESDI (Brazil_ and TU Eindhoven (Netherlands) started an exchange program after the professors met at Design Expo. Some Design Expo students also go on to do great startups, such as the founder of foursquare, Dennis, who was a student at NYU in Design Expo’s first year. To date, around 50 design schools have participated, such as: RISD, Stanford, USC, UCLA, Bezalel (Israel), IDC (Israel), IIT Mumbai (India), NID (India), Tsingua (China), Hong Kong Polytechnic, Delft, UMEA, Dundee (Scotland), TU Einhoven, Iberamericano (Mexico), Northumbria and many more.

Winning IDE TU Delft team 2015 with the “Fuzzy Bird” to present in Seattle

Fuzzy Bird is an interactive toy for children with autism that helps improve their social skills and encourages them to be more explorative in free play. The team (LinkedIn profiles) consists out of Sophie Kelder, Minsung Kim, Thomas Latcham, Max Rijken and Astrid van Smoorenburg.

2015 © Thierry Schut Fotografie

2015 © Thierry Schut Fotografie

Microsoft Design Expo 2015 – Introduction

Inclusive Design & Technologies

In 2014, the World Health Organization radically revised their definition of disability. The crux of this change was to define disability as context dependent rather than as an attribute of a person. Interactions with technology are a clear example of this shift. Design solutions can create new access and new barriers for people participating in society.

Consider the things that are common to all human beings as we interact with the world around us. We all are motivated to achieve something greater than our momentary tasks. We all build relationships that change over time. We all have limits to our abilities – physical, social, emotional and cognitive. How can we design to embrace these universal things that make us human, but also create solutions that are highly adaptive to an individual person?

Physical interactions with technology depend heavily on what a person sees, hears, says, smells, and touches. Yet a person’s physical abilities are constantly changing. With increasingly longer life spans and increased ubiquitous technologies, designers must create adaptive solutions that address a person’s permanent, situational and temporary constraints.

Consider that a person’s physical abilities also change dramatically as they move through multiple environments. In a loud crowd, they can’t hear well. In a car, they’re visually and cognitively impaired. A new parent spends much of their day doing tasks one-handed.

What innovative interaction systems address the spectrum of human capabilities in changing physical, social and technological contexts? What are the new requirements that enable adaptive and proactive systems via voice, touch, sight, or otherwise? How could these systems scale across a range of contexts such as domestic, public, office spaces, or on the body?

Challenge

Design a product, service or solution for someone with a context-dependent disability. Your creation can improve that person’s abilities in an existing context, or change their context to lessen or remove the disability. It must meet a clear need and be extensible to wider applications. Demonstrate how your solution maps to a person’s motivations and addresses them in context. Your project may be near-term practical or blue sky, but the idea must be innovative, technically feasible, and have a realistic chance of adoption if instantiated.

Participating universities at Microsoft Research Design Expo

Microsoft Research’s Design Expo is a yearly design competition to which seven top international design schools are invited to present their work. Assistant professor Stella Boess of our faculty guided and advised us throughout the process, together with Microsoft Liaisons Jakob Nielsen and Jeremy Jobling.

2015 participating Schools and liaisons

  1. New York University Shanghai, Interactive Media Arts, Shanghai, China
    Professor: Clay Shirky
    Microsoft Liaisons: Kati London, Joyce Chou
  2. Carnegie Mellon University, School of Design; Pittsburgh, USA
    Professors: Peter Scupelli, Bruce Hanington
    Microsoft Liaisons: Annika Ushio, Austin Lee
  3. University of Washington, Interaction Design Program; Seattle, USA
    Professor: Axel Roesler
    Microsoft Liaison: Nathan Auer, Gino Scarpino
  4. Art Center College of Design, Graduate Media Design Practices; Los Angeles, USA
    Professors: Anne Burdick, Philip van Allen
    Microsoft Liaison: Julio Estrada, Colleen Estrada
  5. Delft University of Technology, Industrial Design Engineering; Delft, Netherlands
    Professors: Dr. Dipl. Des. Stella Boess
    Microsoft Liaison: Jakob Nielsen, Jeremy Jobling
  6. University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Interface Design Program; Potsdam, Germany
    Professors: Boris Müller
    Microsoft Liaison: Richard Banks, Don Coyner, Andreas Koller
  7. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Department of Industrial Design and School of Computing; Yuseong-gu, Korea
    Professors: Youn-kyung Lim, Alice Oh
    Microsoft Liaison: Jane Park, March Rogers
  8. Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Arts & Design Department; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
    Professors: Manuela Quaresma, Claudio Magalhães
    Microsoft Liaison: Melissa Quintanilha, Sara Siritaratiwat, Jiwon Choi