Siena Design Project

The objective is to make of the SDP a long lasting initiative, which will motivate the students, documenting the evolution of information design educational practices, making them available to a large educational audience in Europe.

The SDP08 is held at the Certosa di Pontignano, Siena, from the 20th to 25th of July 2008 (download the .pfd file)

The projects:




Interaction Design Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland Liaison: Liam Bannon, Parag Deshpande Group Members List: Derrick Howard, Holly Kennedy & Louise Keane View the abstract	Public spaces is an optional elective on the Masters in Interactive Media at the University of Limerick. The objective of the course is to combine various use a variety of design methods and tools to assess a particular public space and examine how that space could be augmented using interactive media. Design concepts and prototypes are then developed, leading to a final design solution.



Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden Liaison: Björn Thuresson, Sinna Lindquist Group Members List: Susanna Beskow, Evelina Hedskog, Linda Liljedag, Jens Nilsson, Carl Persson, Thomas Oxendorff View the abstract	The POSPOD project started in Mars 2008 as part of the Cooperative IT Design-course at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. The theme of the year was “Water” and focused on how different groups of people uses the Stockholm archipelago. Our task was to find a specific target group, identify a special need for this group and present a solution to the problem by using user-centered design. Together with the potential end users (professional divers) we created the POSPOD, which is a prototype for a positioning tool. The physical appearance of the product is a handheld display that can be attached to the divers arm, together with light indicators implemented in the mask. Throughout the design process our close cooperation with the end users played a vital role for the prototype. The solution we present today is very different from what we would have accomplished if the design had been based solely on our own ideas and assumptions.



University of Aarhus, Denmark Liaison: Susanne Bødker Group Members List: Morten Bohøj, Lisbet Andersen, Ronny Bruus View the abstract	For the Siena Design Pro ject ’08, we prepared the pro ject through a course called ”Designing Interactive Systems” at the University of Aarhus. We were a pro ject group consisting of one professor and 8 students with very di?erent backgrounds. We decided on a project, carried out in cooperation with ”Skjern °A Natur-park”, which is a large nature park in the western part of Denmark. The people of Skjern °A Naturpark were very interested in enhancing the experience of their park, and we believed that we could help them. We settled on a system that could be used by birdwatchers to plan and follow routes, record their experiences along the routes and share these experiences with other people in the area, or at home.



University of Siena , Italy Liaison: Antonio Rizzo, Elisa Rubegni, Maurizio Caporali, Erik Grönvall, Andrea Alessandrini Tutor: Erik Grönvall, Leonardo Giusti, Giulio Toccafondi, Alessandro Pollini, Andrea Alessandrini, Alessia Rullo Group Members List: Valentina Sanesi, Paola Manuli, Simona Melaragni, Mariateresa Oliverio View the abstract	People have a will and need to express themselves. During the last years, technologies such as Web 2.0 and blogging have made it easier for people to create and make publically available their thoughts, reflections and ideas. However, in contradiction to the Web 2.0 paradigm, this content and its creation is strongly connected to a server infrastructure and still hard to use by laypeople. Me-shirt is an interactive t-shirt that allows text and simple graphics to be visualized, using the fabric as display. A number of interaction modalities have been investigated that makes Me-shirt a distributed, but personal, information system. Me-shirt allows users in real-time to express their opinions and comment on the world around them, in a citizen journalism spirit. Me-shirt provokes, inspire and create a stage for people to share, discuss and to find solutions for local problems and situations. The project initiated with a benchmark activity of enabling technologies, followed by scenario creations, attribute listing and other creative methods. A series of mock-up sessions, both internally and with potential users has been carried out to make the concept stronger.



The Siena Design Project was held in Siena, Certosa di Pontignano , from the 17th to 21st of June 2007. Siena Design Project 2008 Schedule and SDP Internal Commetee Contacts ANTONIO RIZZO [rizzo@unisi.it] UNIVERSITÀ DI SIENA Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione Sede di Via dei Termini 6, 53100 Siena, Italia Tel: +39 0577 48263 http://rizzo.media.unisi.it