ActiGREAT! April 9, 2009
Posted by sarahtompson in Uncategorized.Tags: acti, Activate, alice in wonderland, Friends, fun, Happy Box, Mimes, school, visceral
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Da Bomb!
Feedback: Happy Box
I was attracted to this experience because it was visually appealing as it was a big black structure in the middle of the main entrance area. I waited in line to enter the Happy box. Outside a class mate was standing at the entrance getting people excited to for their experience and controlling how many people entered at a time; three people being the limit. I entered the experience by myself. When it was my turn I was guided through an entrance, which was cloaked with black plastic bags. The inside was also black and was shaped like a cylinder. There was nothing for me to look at as the space appeared to look the same from all angles. Once I was settled an audio track started which started a countdown. As the count got closer to one it started to slow down and become a bit distorted. This started to raise feelings of anxiety as I anticipated what was going to happen. At the count of one, eye slots opened around the cylinder and I found myself standing in the dark room with about a dozen or more pair of eyes staring at me. This made me feel uncomfortable because I didn’t know how I should act. After a couple seconds of staring, a drawer popped out from the wall, which had a small cupcake inside. I took the cupcake and then exited the room through another black plastic bag. The overall experience gave me an over all anxious and uncomforting visceral reaction which is what I believe they were trying to create. After exiting, another classmate was waiting on the outside to guide me over to a table where other members of the class were recording reactions from the experience.
Da Not So Bomb.
Feedback: Alice in Wonderland
As I approached this experience I saw a lot of construction paper; cut out shapes of flowers and grass. I was greeted by members of their group welcoming me to Alice in Wonderland. It seemed unorganized because they were not confident in their experience. I was lead to a table, which had some snacks on it and was decorated like the tea table from the movie. Just from seeing the movie I assumed that I would be seated at the table and they were going to attempt to recreate the tea party seen from the film, but unfortunately it was only there for visual appeal. I was told I could play with a croque game they had made with paper or get my picture taken with a cardboard cut out of the queen from the movie. I enjoyed the tactile aspects of the experienced, that they had parts where I could touch and move things. Overall it wasn’t a HORRIBLE experience, but loving Alice in Wonderland a bunch, I found it to be kind of a let down. I failed to find a use of metaphor or any other tactics that were used to create an awe factor.
Best and Worst of Activate! April 9, 2009
Posted by emilysoo in Exercise 4: Documenting Activate!, Uncategorized.Tags: Activate, affordances, alice in wonderland, experience, feedback, hairdresser, makeover, Project, visceral
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After seeing all of the first year projects for Activate, I think that our class had the best project, but since we can’t pick ours, I think that the Makeover Project inside the Room next to the Butterfield park was the best. It was a great experience as it made the participant scared as you were getting your hair cut. They had real sounds that created great feedback, when they had scissors cutting your hair, and also the buzzing of the razor. Their experience also had great visceral components to the experience, because you could see hair falling onto you as you had your hair cut, and also the hair colour was the the exact same as your own. Not only that but before they started cutting your hair they took a picture of you before you had your makeover. Also they spun you around so you couldn’t see what was being done to you in the mirror. This created an element of curiosity for the participant as they didn’t know what they would look like in the end. The experience was somewhat tactile, because of how you could feel the hair falling down, and also the way the hair dressers were pulling on your hair, pushing against it. In the end of this experience, they provided you with your end result picture, in which someone photoshoped a wig on your head, and it was funny to view in the end. Not only that but they even sent the image to our emails, once the activate event was over. This was a good idea to take the participants email, so they would be able to receive something even after the experience was finished. Overall, this experience was really fun, and it was one that i remembered most!
The worst experience I think of Activate was the Alice and Wonderland project. As I walked into the entrance of the installation, I thought that I would receive something amazing, as it was alice in wonderland. However when I entered, all I received was a group of people saying “Happy Birthday” , sitting down on at a tea party table, with decorations. They also asked us to play a ball game with a stick, and that wasn’t really fun, as there was no real feedback to that game. They asked us to take some cookies, and asked us to play that ball game, that was about it. There wasn’t really anything to experience, and I think they could of done alot better, with this particular theme. Overall this was a bad experience, and I didn’t receive any good feedback from that installation.
Our project however created great feedback, and the affordances were really strong because of the video and sound created when the ball was put into the whole. The participant was able to place themselves in 6 different experiences which were extremely fun. I think it worked our amazing!
Priya’s doers and booers April 9, 2009
Posted by Priya Bedi in Exercise 4: Documenting Activate!.Tags: Activate, favs
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Let me start of by informing you that I didn’t take a break, and it was entirely my option to do so. SO I didn’t get much of a change to go around and experience the other activities that were there.
The one i liked when i heard about it was the Happy box. This is because it had all the experience that I was looking for. It had a sense of surprise and wonder when the eyes can be seen and also an extension which was the cupcake to relieve you of the fear that they had caused.
The one that I disliked the most was Crickey! I thought it was boring and lame right after I put my hand in the alligator mouth. This is because they had an extension but no way to build any excitement leading up to the point.
Well that’s all I got.
Later days!
BEST AND WORSE AT OCAD ACTIVATE April 9, 2009
Posted by Adam Brace in Exercise 4: Documenting Activate!, Exercise 5: Psychogeographics, Project 3: Activate!.Tags: Activate, bad, evaluation, Exercises, good, what the juke
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Best experience at OCAD was Free Beats. I particularly enjoyed this one as it was a really fun way of getting people to engage with the experience by added there own beat into the beat being played by the musicians from the group. Even though it was raining it seemed people were still really enjoying it. I think it worked so well because it was really just a simple idea that incorporated alot of sensoral aspects that people would enjoy.
I thought that the happy box wasnt very good. I didnt really understand what it was all about, making it difficult for me to get any kind of sensoral response to it, other then feeling alittle uncomfortable. There were alot of fun projects I wish I had more time to experience them all
best Happy Box, worst OCAD VAS April 9, 2009
Posted by Yinan in Exercise 4: Documenting Activate!.Tags: Activate
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My favorite one, of course as I can’t choose ours, is also the happy box. The best aspect of it I think is the surprise. Firstly it is totally covered, which is a simple and effective way to hide surprises. And its need of darkness that we know after experiencing it is also achieved by this. Another that raised my curiosity is was that people laughing coming out of dark box. Then thanks to the raised curiosity and probably good feedbacks, the lineup made me guess “this is probably good”. But on the other hand, it also sent away people who didn’t have time to wait. But I guess it’s always more of good thing than a bad thing when you have a lineup, plus my break was really late when many are almost closing so I was really surprise this one still had a lineup, even what the juke didn’t! Then when I was waiting in line, I thought it could have more poster or interesting images on the happy box’s wall, which could prevent waiting people getting bored and not necessarily leak the surprise. The only thing I saw was “Enter Here ->”. After getting inside, the feel was weird but good. I kinda enjoyed the weirdness, dunno why. The atmosphere they created was successfully unusual, by visceral settings and sound (forgot that fancy word for hearing). But finally the surprise was much less than I was expecting. Which made me ask exactly the same question as that I heard when someone else came out of the box “So that’s it?” I think they could’ve done much more interesting things than just a cookie. But overall it was a good experience. My concern is there seems no metaphor, or I wasn’t smart enough to discover it.
I also didn’t see all the projects, tried only a few, many just didn’t seem interesting.
My least favorite is the body painting one, the OCADVAS. I didn’t try it. No surprise at all. There were four or five people standing there being painted. When I got there they were all being painted. So the spots were very limited and once they were full you couldn’t tell how long would you need to wait if you want to. Cuz every user was painting very carefully, maybe scared of making the painted uncomfortable, and there was no one managing the stage, or just I didn’t see. Although it had a metaphor, not really interesting. Behavioral wise, I think they could’ve made it more interesting and unpredictable, e.g. the person’s body being painted slowly moves as the user paints. It just made me feel they didn’t really spend thinking on it and went for a simple solution.
My Activate Experience April 8, 2009
Posted by Gingy in Exercise 4: Documenting Activate!, Exercises, Project 3: Activate!.Tags: Activate, exercise4
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OK first of all I would just like to say AMAZING JOB EVERYONE!!!! Thanks to everybody for pulling their weight and gettin the job done I think it went swimmingly so thanks for the help:)
In the few Activate experiences I went to it was clear that not everyone learned as much in their experience design classes as we did in ours. Affordances, usability, feedback…they almost seemed like foreign concepts to the other groups. The one group that I think did the best job was the “Happy Box”(or at least that’s the name I can remember) which was located in the front entrance way of the main OCAD building. I would say they did the best job because they really evoked a strong visceral reaction in the users. At the end of the experience they did a survey to get the user to comment and reflect on their visceral reaction which I thought was interesting because it gave the user a feeling like they had been the unknowing subject of an experiment. The survey they conducted after the experience was an example of a reflective aspect to the experience. Another reflective aspect was the fact they gave out cupcakes at the end of the experience which left the user happy after being somewhat traumatized . However as far as the function and behavioral aspect of the experience goes, it was severely lacking. The line up was understood thanks to the bouncer out front, once you and a friend entered the box there was a moment of pure black then all these slits opened and eyes were staring at you. My first reaction was to get out ! But with respect I stayed in for a couple more seconds finally I saw a crack of light coming from the curtain at the back and I escaped, the bouncer at the back of the box shouldn’t have let me leave and so he sent me back inside where it lasted another couple seconds then the eyes spoke “turn around” and we saw the cupcakes then finally I could get out of there. Whilst inside the box there was nothing to let the user know how long it would last, no affordances, which made it very uncomfortable and dangerous for people who were claustrophobic. Apparently there was a count down going off while inside the box, but the only reason I found that out was because they asked about it in the survey, I didn’t hear it while within the experience. They meant to build a physical constraint with the use of the back bouncer holding the curtain closed, but because the bouncer failed, the experience was lacking. Although they had some flukes, over all the experience was the best because it was the most engaging and invoked many visceral feelings as well as positive reflective emotions.
Now to move on from the best to the worst. I thought Crikey! was the worst because it had no affordances what so ever was hard to use, and caused a negative visceral, behavioral, and reflective reaction. Crikey was located in room 190 across from our experience so I approached it on my way back from break. I saw these alligators sitting very low to the ground, which was intriguing but I had no idea what to do with them, there were no signs and no affordances to instruct the user. So I asked the general crowd “anyone know what were supposed to do with these things?” And someone, who didn’t look like he belonged to the experience because he wasn’t costumed, told me to stick my hand into one of their mouths. So I attempted to lower my self down to the ground, the usability of these alligators was very awful because they were so low. Finally I’m at the right level and I put my hand in one’s mouth and got bitten by the alligator. After the effort it took to get down there that was completely unrewarding. So the same guy said to try another one, so I did, hoping for better results. This time I got sprayed with water! Finally I said the heck with this and I stood up and walked away after only trying two alligators out of the four. I name this experience the worst because it had unpleasant visceral reactions, horrible usability, which caused me to be very negative when reflecting upon it.
Over all I think ours was the best 😉 but I know we weren’t allowed to analyze our own
~Sandi Wheeler
Final Cast List & Break Schedule April 2, 2009
Posted by Nhi Tran in Uncategorized.Tags: Activate, cast list, schedule, service blueprint
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Giant Cheque
|
Cheque model |
Fran |
|
Interviewer/reporter |
Nhi* |
|
Cameraman |
Ayesha – |
Confetti – broom,
sweeper! – Microphone – Group Break
Love – Speed dating
|
Dater # 1 |
Milica |
|
Dater # 2 |
Dario |
|
Dater # 3 |
Alissa* |
Nametag – Martini
Glasses
Rockstar
|
KISS! |
Adam |
|
Gene Simmons!!! |
Forrest |
|
KISS! |
Sandi |
Mime
|
Mime # 1 |
Sarah |
|
Mime # 2 |
Brenda |
Group Break
King for a Day
|
Peasant # 1 |
Emily |
|
Peasant # 2 |
Lin |
|
Peasant # 3 |
Julia |
|
Peasant # 4 |
Yunyin |
I’d Like to Thank
|
Presenter |
Alissa* |
|
Dresser # 1 |
Wenhao |
|
Dresser # 2 |
Eric |
Group break = Mime & Cheque
Bouncer/Cast Duty: Daniel,
Nhi, Priya
(List of what
we’re supposed to do)
Love: Ring a bell
for speed dating, every minute
Projection: Yinan,
Daniel
|
|
2:00 – 2:40 |
2:40 |
3:20 |
4:00 |
|
Cheque |
Nhi*/Fran/Ayesha |
|
|
|
|
Love |
Alissa* |
Milica |
Dario |
|
|
King |
Julia |
Yunyin |
Emily |
Lin |
|
Mime |
|
|
|
Sarah/Brenda |
|
Award |
Alissa* |
Eric |
Wenhao |
|
|
Rock |
|
Sandi |
Forrest |
Adam |
|
Projection |
|
|
Daniel* |
Yinan |
|
Bouncer |
Nhi* |
Priya |
Daniel* |
|
I switched Lin and Ayesha seeing as Ayesha is handling the publicity and will be recording the event, so now Lin is part of King for a day.
If there are any conflicts please let me know!
Jukeworld Poster March 26, 2009
Posted by Adam Brace in Project 3: Activate!, Projects.Tags: Activate, Jukebox, jukeworld, OCAD, poster, Project, Record, Retro
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Activate Poster March 26, 2009
Posted by Yinan in Project 3: Activate!.Tags: Activate, Jukebox, jukeworld, poster
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Activate Poster
image credit:
http://bmessina.deviantart.com/art/quot-REBIRTH-quot-95467555
Activate Draft Poster March 25, 2009
Posted by emilysoo in Project 3: Activate!.Tags: Activate, ad, Jukebox, poster
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Teams March 22, 2009
Posted by Ruth Silver in Please note, Project 3: Activate!, Projects.Tags: Activate, team
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SET: Emily, Wenhao, Eric, Francesca, Lin
SERVICE BLUEPRINT: Yinan, Daniel, Nhi, Priya
PUBLICITY: Forest, Julia, Ayesha, Dario Alyssa
COSTUMES & PROPS: Sandi, Adam, Sarah, Milica, YunYun
Jukebox March 18, 2009
Posted by Adam Brace in Exercise 3: User Scenario, Uncategorized.Tags: Activate, Costume, Dance, experience, Jukebox, Music, Performance
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I think some of the ideas that are circulating around at the moment are really cool. The 50’s aesthetic would look super rad for a start, though I feel that there should be balance between retro and contemporary.
My idea would be to bring a variety of different styles from times throughout history as a timeline of musical movements. What should be presented in my opinion is flamboyance. I think we should choose musical influences from different styles that have really outlandish costumes, glam rock for example with KISS style costumes, elvis costumes would work, with even more contemporary things like a gangsta rap type fashions etc. Really stereotypical things we can pick up on that would be comical would be a really fun way to approach this. I feel like the emotional aspect doesnt really do as much for me. Something that would be funny and more interactive with the veiwer would work better, the emotional aspect to me would feel more like a performance then an expierence. To make something by invovling the veiwer in some way, with choreography for example would be a better experience.
Finally, for the sake of question I am totally up for dressing up and making a fool of myself! Ill whack on some make up, a wig and some tacky costume for sure! I’m no stranger to the drama thing and I went to my friends 18th birthday party dressed in drag that was made up of my moms old clothes but thats a little too much information!
Activate March 18, 2009
Posted by Nhi Tran in Uncategorized.Tags: Activate, jokebox
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I am definitely pro jukebox on this one and I love, love, love Sandi’s idea of turning it into a 50s diner, I think we can really run with it and make it a wicked nostalgic experience. The room just in front of the auditorium would work best in this case and we can arrange chairs and seating like Sandi mentioned. Rollerblades would also be super fun for acting waiters/waitresses and lots of checkerboard and neon decor, all very doable with coloured paper. We could even offer something simple like soda floats for participants.
In terms of the actual jukebox, if our budget allows I think it would be more impressive if it was made out of wood? but easiest with simple board. I think the button mechanics might be a little difficult but we should have it so whichever song the participant chose a small LED light would light up the title, just so that it functions more like a real jukebox and less like.. a box box. Also! instead of including emotive words like love, anger, etc… we could have songs that encompass those meanings and still have someone act out the emotion and not necessarily impersonate the celebrity, just to add a little of variety.
Activate site plan March 12, 2009
Posted by Ruth Silver in Project 3: Activate!.Tags: Activate, floorplan, planning, show, the best
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Activate site plan
Alright experience designers, here’s your chance – go nuts!
R U Experienced? 