Due to the nature of the project, it is here presented in full. It was carried out by Alberto Rigau, Cady Bean-Smith, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Sidney Fritts, Lauren Waugh, Caroline Prietz, Tania Allen and Marty Maxwell Lane in the 2008 fall Graduate Design Studio with Prof. Meredith Davis and Prof. Santiago Piedrafita at the NC State University College of Design.

Students worked in pairs, each identifying a particular area to work in. As the following slides progress, the students responsible for each of the projects are credited. I was responsible, along with Cady Bean-Smith, of the production of a PSA television animation. (scroll to last student project)

Exploring the city’s music scene, an interactive portal was developed to foster conversations, information exchange, and person-to-person connections. The project, anchored in the ideas and perspective of experience design, provided an online portal and a mobile component to facilitate communication and information exchange between the members and users of the site.

PROJECT CREDITS _ NC State Graduate Design Studio: Fall 2008 Prof. Meredith Davis and Santiago Piedrafita

Project executed with Tania Allen, Lincoln Hancock and Liese Zahabi

As a first step in understanding the implications of this inquiry, concept maps were developed to illustrate, showcase and connect information related to a chosen demographic; in this case, sophomore graphic design students learning software. The concept maps, structurally grounded in the work of Hugh Dubberly, Joseph Novak and D. Bob Gowin, were used as information aids to the decision making required in the design process.

Animated prototypes were used as working study models; each addressing specific and targeted aspects of the larger problem. Content structures and an adequate information architecture were tested, tweaked and developed through constant iterations. Simultaneously, the formal language was measured and developed as a response to the needs, wants and functional requirements of the audience in question.

Interactive system behaviors were seen as catalysts for specific human behaviors, thus used to improve a user’s relationship with the developing infrastructure. Iterations led to the synthesis of ideas into one last prototype which facilitated the collaboration between a student and a teacher or peer in an asynchronous way.

Concept map

Animated prototypes were used as working study models to understand how design thinking can be used to bring together an online community through the articulation of a specific online experience.

As part of a graphic design graduate studio project, I worked on understanding the implications of interface design in trying to manage an asynchronous teaching relationship between a teacher and a student who is trying to learn software. This video is the final outcome of a series of iterations and studies that evaluated the issue and considered a variety of approaches to it.

A diagram of a working scenario that was used to test the impact of interface design on an asynchronous teaching relationship.

What are some of the implications of an interface design in trying to manage an asynchronous teaching relationship between a teacher and a student who is trying to learn software? This particular moment explores the conversation between a faculty member and a student trying to learn software.

This particular moment explores the conversation between a faculty member and a student trying to learn software.

This particular moment focuses on two students who need to work together to build one project. Asset management and access are of the primary concern in this evaluation.

This particular moment focuses on the design elements of an interface that could ease the access to assets in a collaborative framework.

PROJECT CREDITS _ NC State Graduate Design Studio: Spring 2008 Prof. Meredith Davis

Carried out as the opening project in a graduate symposium, this study provided a collaborative framework on which a group of participants created messages by visually articulating typographic form. They were asked to complete the phrase:

“The best way to shape the future is to…”

PROJECT CREDITS _ NC State Graduate Design Studio: Fall 2007 Prof. Denise Gonzales Crisp

Executed with Gretchen Rinnert, Bryan Rinnert and Marty Lane on November 30th 2007

This project certainly thinks so, questioning the fate of a person’s identity in a world where the myriad articulation of the digital self is part of daily human relations. The design of a bracelet, to be worn by a digital avatar, explores the relationship of a person’s many selves, questioning some of the repercussions of managing different representations of one same entity.

How will identity be understood in the future?

A bracelet system that will help us manage our digital identities in a digital realm.

PROJECT CREDITS _ NC State Graduate Design Studio: Fall 2007 Prof. Denise Gonzales Crisp

Educating the community members about the design process was at the core of ELEMENTAL’s strategy. Workshops, talks, and design sessions contributed to the creation of a collaborative framework. After studying such a successful process, I asked: What are some of the unspoken roles of design in larger collaborative frameworks? As a graphic designer, I became curious about the effects of design thinking principles in the work of other professionals. How can they help bring larger teams together? What are the possibilities?

Using elemental’s strategy as context, this graphic investigation identified a moment where design thinking could be applied to facilitate the understanding between the architects and community members.

Focusing on how the architects used wooden blocks to talk about space, this graphic project added language and color to the strategy, allowing community members to better imagine a future space through the needs and uses that will have for them. This graphic intervention is meant to be etched into the existing wooden blocks. This would allow for a resident to shuffle them around, just as the architectural design allows the same in the planning of the future living space.

Customization is at the core of the architectural system. As a response, a movable graphic system could facilitate dialogue with community members.

The graphic system helps community members understand more about the workings of the architecture strategy.

Endless possibilities allow for a sense of ownership and belonging of one’s individual layout.

This is the presentation shown at the studio critic.

PROJECT CREDITS _ NC State Graduate Design Studio: Fall 2007 Prof. Denise Gonzales Crisp