A month ago my group’s semesterproject ended and with extremely positive feedback. At the 2nd semester Medialogy study me and six other students have been working on Social Circle, a question-based game where players can get to know each other and have fun.

Link to A/V Production of Social Circle (YouTube)

Particularly interesting was the different topics within media technology I got to work with in relation to Social Circle. Working with the user through a contextual inquiry was insightful and inspired a lot of designs which we kept testing and improving. This project also gave me a hands-on experience with programming the virtual interface in Processing using Eclipse. I really enjoyed working with the interaction design and visuals. Organizing the semesterproject was also less of a hassle for me this time but I plan to continue exploring different tools for this.

First semester introduced us to programming using Processing and Eclipse, second semester introduced us to electronics prototyping via Arduino.

The prototype we created of the designed solution, is composed of an Arduino controlling six player boards with voting buttons and LEDs which it reads. The Arduino is connected to a virtual interface showed on a 19″ screen in the middle of the table. Players receive harmless question such as “Which player would be the best superhero?” and everyone then place a vote on each other using the player boards. Votes are then revealed and points are given to the agreeing majority. If players votes indicate disagreement, a discussion round is started where players have to persuade each other to vote differently.

Final prototype used to evaluate the game design’s ability to let players socialize.

This semester has stirred my curiosity about designing interaction, which I plan to stimulate by working with the GNOME Design Team. Another long-term goal for me is to learn more about programming graphical user interfaces, particularly using GTK 3 as well as on the web. First I have a promotional video to finish and a GNOME conference to attend to, however. Looking forward to both!