Nathan Waterhouse: Improvisational Interaction Design

What is Design Improv?

A new method for Interaction Design. What is Interaction Design? The fact that the objects we use these days are embedded with microchips and technology that change the relationship between us and the device. This allows for more input from us, and content to be dynamically produced in increasingly mobile and context aware situtuations. It's not just about devices either; services and the design of experiences are looked at with the lens of an interaction designer.

For example, portable mp3 players that fit months of music into a pocket size device. What is more important to you, is it the serivce provider that provides your mobile telephony or the phone itself? Is it Orange Mobile, or Nokia that you would switch–out more readily? These boundaries and questions are becoming blurred. Interaction designers attempt to understand the motivations of users to try to define experiences that are engaging and meaningful for them.

This discipline has come about and brought with it people from different backgrounds. They range from psychology, sociology, ethnography, graphic design, industrial design, HCI. Design Improv is a process that has been designed specifically for Interaction Design. It can be done not just by designers and makes everyone feel part of the process.

It gives everyone in the design process a common platform on which to work together to solve the complex problems that we encounter when designing interactions.

It is a method that is based on the ideas and techniques of Improvisational Theatre. When you think of theatre, you might think of a stage, and a strict performance with actors and coreographers. But Improv is not that at all. Improv theatre is much more about playing games to solve problems and involves and engages the audience as part of those games. The audience can make sugestions to the players to become part of the action. If you've ever seen "Who's Line is it Anyway?" you'll know just how engaging the spontaneous quality of improv can be.

I've designed so far 35 games that help us at different stages of the design process. The process I have designed is delivered by a service that is typically hired by design consultancies for a short period during a project's duration. The service might help to contact potential user groups, or to work with the designers' customer.

The service could be hired at different stages of the design process, from Exploration through Ideation, or Delivery of a solution. The service arrives and sets up the space to be used for Design Improv. After explaining how the workshop will work, the instructor opens up the game board.

The board is designed in 6 phases. The outer five are divided into different stages of the design process: Explore, Define, Ideate, Develop, and Deliver. The central section is for games that help us to get into the mode of improvising and help in teaching new comers how to use the process. The board is designed to help your team to decide where you are in the design process with simple questions that mark each or the six phases.

The games themselves are quite big so that you can use them in a group setting. They each feature a simple illustration that helps identify it, a clearly stated goal and time limit on one side, and more detailed instructions ont he reverse for the instructor to follow.

The rest of the kit features tools that support the games in terms of creating a sense of place, placing ideas in a space, recording the process, rapid prototyping, and creating quick personas. There is also a manual for the instructor to help run sessions.