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Sid

A projector-based console for social gaming and video chat

Overview

This project was an accumulation of three classes; Product Design, Project Management, and Interaction Design Studio 2. The project began at the start of the COVID-19 quarantine, which lead to our class separating into teams to create products that could combat different problem areas of being stuck inside all day. Our group tackled social isolation.

Timeline: 7 weeks

Role: Research, userflows, UI design, (some) concept art

Teammates: Casey Montz, Gaby Castro, Porfirio Ortega, Ross Meredith

Tools: Figma, Google Slides, Miro

Research

Secondary Research

Outside Simulator
This sim has a selection of first-person videos at different places around the world. Surpisingly effective!

Mozilla Hubs
Hubs is an open-source VR chatroom that can run through your browser.

Spatial
Spatial emulates real life group meetings through VR/AR technology.

Primary Research

Our team kept a journal for a week and documented our findings.

What I found was that taking classes and doing work wasn’t nearly as difficult for me as I would expected. For purposes of tutoring and classwork, zoom did the job just fine. However, meetups with my friends online paled in comparison to our old get togethers. The “new normal” would be exceedingly difficult to adjust to without solid social interactions.

Product Design

Sketches

Sketched by Case Montz

3D Models

Modeled by Casey Montz (Console) and Porfirio Moreno (Control)

Physical Model

Created by Casey Montz and Julia Engfer

UI Design

UI Design Iterations

Final UI Design

Reflections

I’m very glad to have had this project to distract me during those first couple weeks of quarantine. At the same time though, this is the sort of project that would really benefit from a live prototype, as the qualities of a projection depend on many different factors.

Also, we later learned that SID can stand for “Sudden Infant Death” Syndrome, which is... unfortunate.