Week 1, Day 2, 06 September 2011

Checklist for the team.

At the start of the day, each of the team member wrote down our understanding and perception about "communication" in a form of mindmap. We've spent almost first half of the day to discuss what kind of installation that will suit with the theme and what is the best way to communicate with someone without using words.

Brainstorming Process.

These are a few key point that we considered:

1. Something relating to Singapore.
2. Bringing Singaporean culture (Eg. Food, Environment, Festival)
3. Use of colors as representation of something.
4. Use of ordinary items to create something unexpectedly.
5. Make use of touch as interaction.
6. Fusion of traditional arts and interaction design.
7. Relate ourselves with students from GAFA (common interest between us).
8. People come together to create something.
9. Use of body language or gesture to interpret something.

Then we decided to narrowed down to these direction:

Culture and Traditional Arts.

It was not easy to fix a definite style as we were given no direction other than "communication".
We also had to think what is the message to the receiver.
However, there were also negative side effect for some of the concept.

Let's take the use of gesture as example:

Different country have their own interpretation of gesture.
In the western countries, forming an 'O' shape with the thumb and index finger symbolize as 'OK' or 'No problem'.
But in Japan, it symbolize as 'coin'.

Hence, it will cause people to misinterpret the message.

The team had come to a agreement that our installation will be made for multiple users and something that they interact, involve and experience.


For the second half of the day, we started planning our gantt chart for the first week and assign roles for each member.



We headed down to the school library and borrowed books and DVDs, hoping to get more ideas and inspire.

Quote for the day:

" Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know. "  Jim Rohn

- Karen Wong