Exploring Interactions (EI) is the Master specific design project for the Master Design for Interaction at IDE, TU Delft. Each year the course has several topics, defined by faculty researchers with a consortium of stakeholders. Each studio works on one topic and each student defines her or his individual design goal within that topic.
In an entire semester, students analyse and design interactions; the way people use, understand, and experience products and situations. Students design an innovative experiential interaction scenario for specific people and situations, exemplified through a product, a service, an environment, a thing, or any combination of these. Interactions are everywhere, for example, on human-product interaction level, on a personal, emotional level, or on interpersonal, social level. Students explore the effects of their interventions iteratively, evaluating how they affect the personal and social context in which they will be used. Throughout the project, the gathered knowledge is applied in an increasingly refined design concept.
For more background information see the study guide here.
The elements of the project are that students formulate a design goal, analyse current interactions, develop an interaction vision, generate starting points for innovative design, and develop and test new product concepts. These elements are applied and developed iteratively throughout the project.
The course follows three iterative cycles
IDEATE – in the first cycle a chosen situation is explored, a design direction and goal is formulated; research is conducted in order to understand current interactions in the chosen situation, the knowledge gained is applied in the development of an interaction vision; and design ideas are developed and initially tested through sketching and rough modeling.
ITERATE – in the second cycle the design concept is formed and a rough model with a first evaluation of the interactions is produced; the design concept is tested and developed further iteratively through small tests in context.
DEMONSTRATE – in the final cycle the concept is adjusted to facilitate the desired interactions; a detailed experiential prototype is made and evaluated with users.
Course coordinator: Roy Bendor and Gert Pasman
Previous course coordinators were Pieter Desmet, Stella Boess, Ingrid Mulder and Anna Pohlmeyer.