Author: Christoph Bartneck

Visual Story Telling Course

Visual Story Telling is an important skill for designers. It is necessary to illustrate scenarios, create meaningful instructions and product explanations on posters. The rapid developments in the area of 3D modeling and rendering move the focus from classical illustrations to animated stories. Examples of such work are animated building instructions and product presentations.

Being able to actually SEE each scene and every detail within it, including the perspective of the camera, the lighting and the flow within the movie requires great attention. To gain sensitivity for these aspects, the tempo of the movie needs to be reduces. Stop-animation is the perfect way to enable the students to design and perceive every scene in detail. Continue reading “Visual Story Telling Course”

Design By Numbers Course

Most art and technology projects pair artists with engineers or scientists: the artist has the conception, and the technical person provides the know-how. In this assignment you will be both, an artist and a computer scientist. You will learn to view the computer not as a substitute for brush and paint but as an artistic medium in its own right. Design By Numbers is an assignment on both the philosophy and nuts-and-bolts techniques of programming for artists. Continue reading “Design By Numbers Course”

Visual Design Course

Visual Design is a fundamental skill for Industrial Designers. It is important for the design a graphical user interface, to communicate their ideas to a customer and create visual appealing products. The recent developments of computers and software enabled the designer to express his or her creative ideas faster and more precise, given sufficient knowledge about the software tools and techniques. The students shall develop a visual sensitivity that enables them to perceive and create visual designs. This includes awareness of colors, typography and composition. At the same time they should learn the technical foundations that enable them to use visual design tools effectively and efficiently. The activities include the creation of several visual designs, such as a product information flyer, a report and a magazine article. In a final bigger design the students will demonstrate their visual design skills. More details will be available at the start of the assignment. A sequence of obligatory discussion sessions will accompany the assignment. Continue reading “Visual Design Course”

Design and Science Course

To know that we know what we know,
and to know that we do not know what we do not know,
that is true knowledge. – Copernicus

Understanding the status of design as a form of research is both important and problematic.The National Science Foundation’s Science of Design program, which highlights the role of design in the development of interactive systems, and the First International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology both point to the need for a community concerned with articulating different visions of design science and design research.This module will shed some light on the underlying concepts of design and science and their inherent conflicts. The students will reflect on their role as a designer and the methodologies they follow. In addition, the quality criteria that are used in design and science to evaluate the value of the produced knowledge and artifacts will be considered. This documents compiles relevant literature for the Design Science module. Continue reading “Design and Science Course”

Affective Design Course

A true gentlemen is one who is never unintentionally rude. Oscar Wilde

Emotions are important for cognitive processes, decision-making, guiding actions and controlling resources. They play an important role in human-machine interaction since people tend to tread technology as social actors. It is impossible to not communicate emotions, since absence of affect in communication may be perceived as not caring. It is therefore necessary to carefully design the affective communication between humans and artifacts.The interaction cycle consists of first sensing the environment including the affective state of the user. Next, the artifact needs to reason about its own affective state before it can express it and adjust its behavior accordingly. Evaluating the artifact’s affective system is crucial to guarantee successful communication. Continue reading “Affective Design Course”