Week 12&13

Research For design: ideation & PRototyping

Details

https://www.figma.com/board/3pgmmhxBJz3vE9DLSIVt13/Just-playing--You-learned-sth--%E7%8E%A9%E7%9D%80%E7%8E%A9%E7%9D%80%E5%B0%B1%E5%AD%A6%E4%BC%9A%E4%BA%86?node-id=0-1&t=YgL25uDxRkQUfdhb-1

In week 12, we consolidated all previous research findings, including insights from interviews, academic literature, and case studies. To further strengthen and verify our understanding, we invited a colleague with a music background to participate in a face-to-face co-creation session.
Instead of building a high-fidelity digital prototype, we used sticky notes and quick hand-drawn sketches to explore various interaction concepts. During the sketching process, she continuously provided responses based on her music learning experience, offered practical feedback, and helped us identify the gaps in our understanding - especially in aspects related to music theory and learning structure, which we had not noticed before.
Through this collaborative meeting, two clear design directions gradually emerged.
The first concept is called "Iconic Sound Challenge", which focuses on using adjustable sliders and parameters to reproduce familiar sounds, encouraging users to listen carefully and identify the sound structure.
The second concept explores the combination of food and sound, particularly those that require selection and combination, such as hamburgers, skewers, or hot pot. This direction emphasizes interesting creation through actual combinations. For these two concepts, we discussed possible game goals, feedback mechanisms, and longer-term learning paths.

In week 13, I decided to further deepen the design concept of "Food and Sound", and specifically focus on "Hamburger Music Maker" as our main design direction.
This hamburger metaphor provides an easy-to-understand and fun structure for sound creation. Each ingredient represents a note or rhythm unit, and users create sound sequences by stacking the ingredients vertically on a long pole. Thus, users can create through assembly rather than abstract symbols, shifting the learning process from correctness to exploration.
The important thing is that this system does not require users to follow preset rules - ingredients can be freely combined, which reinforces the idea that the creation of sounds can start from intuition rather than theory.
I first carried out the prototyping of this concept by creating the initial interface and interaction logic, focusing on how users select ingredients, assemble the burger, and receive audio-visual feedback. The prototype was designed as a minimum viable product, prioritizing clarity, immediacy, and interesting interaction rather than technical complexity.
After completing the prototype, I conducted a preliminary user test for the target users. She interacted directly with the system, and we discussed her understanding of the interaction logic, the intuitiveness of the relationship between the sound and the ingredients, and which aspects could keep her interested.
Furthermore, during the class period, I also received constructive feedback from my classmates and mentors, which helped to optimize the interaction process and confirmed the value of using the metaphor of tangible food as the starting point for the study of sound awareness and music.

Open link
Coding
Physical Model

Reflection

During this project/

The meaning of "Persona" - it is not a fictional character image, but a tool that helps in understanding and Through this project, I came to understand that meaningful design does not start with a solution, but with listening to the users, listening to the materials, and listening to the problem itself. In the early stages, I was eager to determine a clear result or form, but the research process taught me to slow down and let the insights gained from interviews, literature, and case studies gradually emerge.

One of the most important lessons I learned is that experience often precedes explanation.

The communication with those students related to music changed my previous view that learning must start with systematic knowledge or theory. Instead, I began to recognize that participation, play, and intuition can be reasonable entry points into complex systems (such as music). This fundamentally changed my way of thinking about interaction design: reducing cognitive pressure and leaving room for exploration is often more effective than teaching rules from the beginning.

I also realized the importance of collaborative creation and low prototyping. During our collaborative creation process, using sticky notes and hand-drawn sketches was much more efficient than directly designing a beautiful digital interface. These rough tools facilitated open discussions, rapid iterations, and candid feedback. More importantly, they helped me discover my own deficiencies in understanding music theory and learning structures - these are difficult to detect in more rigid prototyping processes.

Another important gain was the significance of metaphorical thinking and material thinking in design.

Exploring concepts such as audio systems based on food made me realize that common items in daily life can serve as bridges to the abstract realm. By converting sound into tangible and interesting elements, this design becomes easier to understand, especially for non-professionals.

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