Lab+5


 * As part of 'Experience Prototyping', bodystorming has been developed as a method of enquiry for interactive design. Research the definition of 'bodystorming', and write three paragraphs describing its characteristics. (3 paragraphs)**

Bodystorming can be described as the practice that is developed by natural extension of the mode of participatory design. Bodystorming is a form of prototyping which requires the embodied storming. Embodied storming is based on the theories of the embodied cognition and it only works when one puts themselves in the situation where the product can be used on. It has been said that the Bodystorming ought to create the experience of physical performance for any individuals that is participating in the matter so that they can have the experiential awareness. Furthermore, it should provide those individuals the tangible understanding of the situation that they are in when using the product and should have obtain the real world experience. Bodystorming is used in several different ways: working the space or place in which the product that you are designing will be used, strong prototyping, use case theatre and stimulate experiences. Strong prototyping for the bodystorming means that it is used to test one’s handheld in the replicated environment. Bodystorming is used in the case theatre in a way that it is prototyping the space and place of the product’s use by employing living actors and props.

There are limitations to the experimental experiments. One of those limitations would be creating the simulations that do not express the elements of experience design. Furthermore, it does not address the core problems that it should be doing; therefore, it is ineffective at rapid communication. Due to that limitation, bodystorming does lack the ability to generate forceful ideas. Moreover, it is tended to be believed in the fit that it is our conceptually brainstormed ideas when they are generated into a synchronous group setting. There are a few scenarios that are being used by the bodystorming. The scenes are being created by the design troupe. The stories and themes are being created out of the things that we observe in our daily lives, things that we perceive. People are people and they engage with one another in stimulating experiences and processes that are designed through the joint acting and improvisation. Personas can be considered as the services that must be designed and be specified to enable as an unforeseeable range of individuals. There are a few qualities that make a bodystorm good. A good bodystorm has an immediacy and intimacy that engages clients and participants at a direct level of experience with respect to the real world situation for which the team is designing. Furthermore, a good bodystorm engages the clients and participants at the product and service and the needs that define them. Bodystorm forces a team to attend to perceivable need states. It demonstrates the satisfaction of the conditions of these need states that matter most. It focused on the meaningful things and it capture the need state, highlight the breakdowns, and shows how the change in the process satisfies the perceived problems. A good bodystorm allows one to actually see and understand what is going on. It gives the clients and participants to take the advantage of the enactive approach to cognition and engagement in the world while allows them to have the perceptually guided action. One needs to act in order to know reality otherwise one will be constraining by our perception. As a result, there will be a faster and better collaboration with the participants but also clients and sponsors. One of the first steps taken in the problem definition stage is to act it out to prevent us from over thinking it. Furthermore, it is considered for new purposes which result in the context of the performed situation.

There are a few benefits to the brainstorm. Those benefits are: see and feel, explore new users for things in the context of the performed situation. Like any other products, bodystorm has a few general guidelines that need to be follow. Each group must have at least five participants and a maximum of eight participants. Those groups that are formed can be considered as the troupe. Every participant must have a role. The props that are used can have feelings, thoughts, and the ability to express. Large cards are labelled with the roles that each participant in the troupe is playing. Thought bubble cards are needed and there has to be a narrator who explains things to the observers. The narrator has the privilege to stop, rewind or fast forward any scene. Everyone should participate due to the fact that embodied storming engages participation at a physical level of experience, process enables the expression and exchange of tacit knowing.

**With a partner, develop a use-case theater scenario and describe how you would use bodystorming and video to help you analyze the design of an artifact. This artifact is a medicine bottle for a woman who is 80 years old, arthritic, partially blind and partially deaf, and the system to design is the system whereby she finds and takes her medicine.**

**It is helpful to keep this method in mind as you work to design your group project.**

**On this section of the tutorial, include both names for marking. Use a pen and paper to develop your use-case theater scenario as a mind map. You can scan and upload this diagram to your wikispace tutorial page as part of your answer, if you would like. (25 minutes, 2 names, 4 paragraphs, one diagram)**

**Victoria Leong and Kenneth Szeto**

Before we start on our bodystorm, we need to determine the environment where she will be living in. Will she be living by herself or will she be living in a retirement home where people are able to bring the medicine to her? We decided to have her live alone in a small apartment.

Since she has arthritic, she would have trouble moving. It would be wise to have the medicine bottle near her. We would want to create a small medicine bottle that can be hanged around her neck and be worn as a necklace. This medicine bottle would be big enough to fit a week's worth amount of medicine.

The elderly may have trouble in remebering when to eat the medicine. An alarm clock would not be a wise idea because she has trouble seeing or hearing. But what we could do is set a mini alarm clock on the necklace, so whenever it is time to eat the medicine, it can virbate and let the woman know.

We can do a bodystorm of having a few 80 year old participants testing out the necklace for 2 weeks and see their reaction. It would be wise to conduct this experinment in two different environments; elderly living in a retirement home verus living by themselves. This necklace would lessen the caregiver's workload.