This 10-week course 'Experience Design for Interaction' had the goal to strengthen our ability to learn from own experiences, since small- and medium-sized companies do not always have the resources to go through extensive user testing or participatory design with end users. To achieve this, we applied soma-aesthetic design and Research through Design.
The focus was on multimodal aspects including in some form the physicality of the body, the (unexpected) interaction with technology, bringing across a story, and the constant experiential-reflection.
The project outcome had to be an interactive escape room piece, requiring interactions with digital tools to solve puzzles, which in turn are closely linked to collecting ingredients/preparing a meal, providing a multimodal, memorable experience of 5-20 minutes.
Firstly, we collected insights from various different research to ground our decisions in theory. Our main focus was on embodied design methonds, storytelling, interactive experiences, and idea generation techniques. We gathered our insights in a shared Notion page and discussed our findings weekly.
Some of our insights regarding on how to ideate were:
Some of our insights regarding on how to test our setup and riddles were:
And some of our insights regarding on how to design the escape room were:
In the ideation phase, we followed a guided bodystorm lab session, conducted an 'Embodied Sketching x Immersing' workshop, a 'Worst Possible Ideas x Toys' workshop, as well as a 'Method 635 x Mix and Match' workshop. All this lead us to our final theme discussion and settle for a story.
We started our ideation with a guided session that introduced different methods like bodymapping and material based inspiriation. Each of us took the roles of experimenting with different items, verbalising what ideas came to mind and what we felt while doing so, as well as noting down observations.
We continued by immersing ourselves with nature and creating a somatic awareness through embodied sketching. We took a walk and tried out different hobbies, such as yoga (as seen in the top left picture that I took). We wrote down every thing we experienced and shared our insights.
Insights were for example:
After the embodied sketching, we kept our experiences fresh in mind and continued with a worst possible idea workshop paired with random toys for inspiration. To do so, we moved to the room where the escape room could have taken place to immerse ourselves in the environment of the possible setup.
We set a timer of 10 minutes and collected as many bad ideas as possible. Afterwards, we presented, collected, and categorised them on a whiteboard, discussed what made them bad, and how we could flip them into a great idea.
As an example, we identified physical pain as a negative experience one could have during an escape room. The opposite would be a theme where it is about healing, so a pharmacy could be a possible setup.
Based on the first two ideating methods, I created two lists containing all ideas that had been generated so far: one numbered list containing all identified themes from the worst possible ideas workshop, and a second numbered list with the observations and ideas from the embodied sketching. We then mixed and matched those two lists during a Method 635 workshop. For example, you could take the previously described theme of a pharmacy and match it with sounds of water to generate new ideas. This process lead to 104 ideas.
We met one more time to go through all our generated ideas, select the best ones, and gave ourselves a timebox of 10 minutes to brainstorm a theme with a coherent backstory.
In the end we settled for a theme where we saw the most potential and liked how the food could be incorporated: Stuck on a Boat.
You are on your Auntie Lizzy's boat in the middle of the sea. Suddenly, your engine stops and you discover a hidden room where Auntie Lizzy left her tablet and a secret recipe to make biofuel. Only if you manage to make the biofuel you will escape.
To iterate multiple rounds of our concept, we firstly prototyped very roughly our ideas, evaluated them with teachers and fellow students, updated the theme based on the collected feedback, divided into groups, conducted embodied testing sessions, and put it all together in a working setup for another evaluation.
We found the perfect smoothie recipe with just three to five ingredients. It contains apple juice, banana, berries, and honey. We created a puzzle for each ingredient. We divided the building of the first initial prototypes of those puzzles between us. We also obtained the initial materials to make the setting more immersive and boat-themed. I will now describe the tasks I was involved with.
I was tasked with incorporating the movement of the ship to the floor. I considered a range of mechanical solutions, including weights and springs, rolls, and balancing boards, and created corresponding sketches. However, we decided that wooden material and Euro pallets would be sufficient to achieve the desired boaty feel, despite the lack of feasibility.
I also had to decide on the game station that would best represent the diary. We wanted to add an interactive element, so we decided to use a tablet. I created basic wireframes showing a user flow. The correct code word is "biofuel" (written multiple times on notes next to the tablet). This unlocks the tablet, shows the recipe and allows the user to enter different codes to unlock the ingredients.
To ideate and prototype how the fuel making machine could look like, I worked together with another group member that had an industrial design background and provided him with a sketch so that he could make a more high-fi sketch/render out of it.
I was in charge of creating a riddle for the apple juice ingredient. I made sure to incorporate collaboration into the riddle by working with the spatial elements of the escape room and locating parts of the riddle in different places. I decided there should be three walls with multiple taps. The third wall will only open the taps and let out liquids if the users press down on the correct two walls (LEDs at the taps will shine green). The liquids that come out of these taps are water, orange and apple juice, but they are all food-coloured as apple juice. Users must therefore taste or smell which tap they are using.
To simplify this immensely for the actual low-fi prototyping, I got six plastic boxes that could be placed together in pairs of three at different places in the room. Red, orange, and green post-it notes had to be placed manually in front of the box the moment the test person touches it. Once two test people touch the correct pair of boxes, both will light green and a cabinet out of cardboard will open and reveal the apple juice.
We trialled our first version of the escape room in an informal setting with teachers and students. The feedback from participants and teachers was clear: our riddles were too disconnected and a tablet to coordinate them was unnecessary. The need to escape was not prominent and the room division was not clear enough. We also learned that knowledge-based riddles are unsuitable and audio-based riddles need to be coherent. and audio based riddles need to be coherent.
Based on the collected feedback we tried updating our theme. We therefore tested and experienced different scenarios ourselves which helped us understand what needed improvement.
Based on the feedback we added an approaching storm to create a need to escape. We got rid off Auntie Lizzy and instead introduced Popeye as an overaching theme. This allowed us to integrate the food experience into our storyline by gaining strength when drinking the created smoothie. We also omitted the tablet with the idea of receiving codes by instead connecting the riddles directly to ingredients.
To work on our escape room as efficient as possible, we divided into three teams.
Creating the immersive space by:
I was not part of this team, but I helped them with transporting material (top left picture) and designing boat tickets for the onbaording (bottom right picture). I used Figma to do so.
Creating sensory-rich riddles by:
I supported this team by lasercutting and glueing the labels of the toolbox (top left pictures).
Responsible for riddles that require collaboration and physical movement:
I was part of this team.
To build the engine, we used Euro palletts we did not need anymore and cut it into a quadratic shape. Next, we added the levers. Both of this can be seen in the following images:
I also lasercutted an 'engine' label by preparing it first in Adobe Illustrator. Before adding the Arduino logic and screwing the engine to a self-made table, it looked like this:
Next, I took control of the Arduino logic and got the circuit ready. The switch component controls whether the participants have already drunk the smoothie or not. If they have not, the switch is left as it is. Regardless of how many buttons are pressed at the same time, the red LED will always light up. Once they have drunk the smoothie, the switch can be switched. If all three buttons are pressed now, the green LED will light up. This is what you can see in the following image.
I then soldered the components and attached them to the engine:
Next, I downloaded an online available lasercutter file of a book, added an engine label, and prepared a manual with the instructions of the engine to put it inside:
Lastly, we built an apple juice riddle that maintains the collaboration and spatially distributed aspects. We made the riddle more boaty by making it a double-sided map. Users have to press two specific islands so that a flap will open. The map was placed in the back wall that divided the storage room from the engine room. This meant that one person had to stand in the engine room while the other had to be in the storage room.
It started off with a simple sketch of mine depicting the possible layout of the map:
I then tried a rapid test of how the flap movement could be controlled with a servo motor. The solution, written on the back of the flap, was to be "Apple Juice".
Based on these prototypes, I made an Illustrator file to lasercut the map.
Sadly, the laser cutter did not work well, and we realised the islands were too difficult to keep working with this map. My colleague finished the task, adjusted the map, built the Arduino code and put it all together.
To make it a multisensory experience, I printed three labels with "Juice" on them and put them on three glass bottles. One was apple juice, the other two were ice tea. Participants had to try the juices or smell them to find the correct one.
We booked a room for the escape room and tested it out. We learned to set up efficiently and that the honey riddle sounds needed to be adapted. We also saw what furniture we needed.
After building and testing the setup, we were ready for the final demo day. In 2.5 hours, five groups of three to four people experienced our escape room.
During the presentations, I was behind the engine, controlling the sounds. My colleagues had different roles, such as the captain with boarding people on and off. Others were the radio/hint person, speaking through a walkie-talkie with participants. Some simply watched the recordings to see if teams needed hints.
After each run, we cleaned, reset and stacked up. It was fun seeing the teams solve our riddles. All groups escaped in time and gave positive feedback.
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