Late again. Oops.

This week began with two days of interaction design work for Good Night Lamp. I’ve written more about that over at their website already. It was a pretty successful couple of days, with lots of new directions explored.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent really pinning down some aspects of the RSC project: tidying up the repository, making the “recording” tool conform to stage aspect ratios, increasing the resolution of recording, and beginning to move towards a final print design.

I also started investigating quotes for print and physical fabrication, and sent the first prototype design to Cut Laser Cut – hoping to get something back early in Week 2.

And then Friday was Playful, which was a really lovely day – one of the strongest Playfuls in years. Particular highlights for me were Einar and Anab, both addressing interesting issues and challenges that face designers not just of games and playful experiences, but almost anything. A great day out, with good company, and lots to take away and chew on.

Next week sees a bit more business development, and hopefully steering the RSC work towards its conclusion by the end of the week. Part of next week’s work is producing the final output materials, and also producing the promotional work around the project – a website and a short film.

I did a few days working with the Good Night Lamp team this week, on some interaction design explorations. A couple of days of talking, thinking and sketching with Adrian and Alex led to some writing, wireframes, storyboards, and animatics.

Alex asked me to write a bit more about the work, for the Good Night Lamp blog, and there’s now a post over there about it.

Out of all this work, common strands emerged; in particular, a focus on the vocabulary of the product. One of the things I find most important to pin down early in projects – and which design exploration like this helps with a lot – is the naming of things. How are core product concepts communicated to an end-user? How are they made explained? Making sure nomenclature is clear, understandable, and doesn’t raise the wrong associations in a user’s mind, is, for me, a really core part of product design. Even though many of the core concepts of GNL were clear in our head, by sitting down and drawing things out in detail, I started having to discover what to call things, often bringing Alex and Adrian back to my screen to discuss those ideas.

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This kind of design work initially appears very tactical. It focuses on small areas almost in isolation from one another, exploring the edges and seams of the product. But by forcing oneself to confirm what things are called, confirm what interactions or graphic language are repeated throughout the product, it turns into a much more strategic form of design, which impacts many areas of a product.

You can read more at the Good Night Lamp site. It was a pleasure working with Adrian and Alex. If this kind of work is something you’re looking for, do get in touch.