Study Journal Ya-Chu Tsai
Content VRenice II - Leave your body at the door Mid term project
Steal with Style
Short term project
Post (My) Waste
Short term project
KISDtalk: The Net Textile & Criminalizing Design Gute Stube AG My time at KISD
My Start at KISD Me as an intergrated Designer Those Weird Germans Me and KISD
VRenice II - Leave your body at the door Image and Motion Mid term project
Introduction
In this project, we explored the field of human perception and how it can be tricked by creating out-of-body experiences using VR technology. The course was divided into two phases: Fingerübung and out-of-body experience. Since most of us lacked 3D / Development skills, the Fingerübung’s purpose was for us to initially get in touch with Unity and a VR environment. After understanding the software and hardware, we started to create the final out-of-body experience, that we were going to present. For that we were working with Unity3D and HTC Vive headsets that were provided for us.
KISD Portfolio
Mid term project
Out of Body Experience
Our initial idea was to let the player experience and realize the feeling of "Out of body"in VR. Firstly, when we walked through a certain boundary in VR, the body would be left aside. While the other side was the world where only the soul could cross. And then we think about: What is different to "in body side" and "out of body side"? We searched for some information and articles about "Near death experience", which mentioned the feelings of many senses when leaving the body, such as 1)seeing a light, heaven or hell, your body and 2)hearing thunder or pleasant music, 3)feeling peace and calm or fear, etc. As a reference, we combined with the elements of touch, vision and hearing and designed this "Out of body" experience.
KISD Portfolio
Mid term project
Process
The content we had to prepare was divided into setting up in Unity and in reality. In Unity: Virtual body Scene of Photostudio Boundary Scene of out of body side Music Voice Instrution
In reality: Carpet Boundary fabric Fan
Since we were not really familiar with all the possibilities of Unity at this point, the project-leaders Michael and Willem provided great help and explained concepts such as background settings and effects to us. We expressed our ideas and they helped us manifesting them. Our tutor, Willem had prepared a detailed virtual replica of the photo studio that we were working in, that would serve as the starting point of our experiment. Our thought process behind this was that letting the player start somewhere familiar (in this case, right were they were standing in reality) would serve as an anchor. My teammate, David, had experience with music programming so he dealt with the music transformation that would happen if the player would cross the border. By increasing effects like reverb and distortion, the atmosphere would go from easy and relaxed to intense and unknown. The same was done with visual effects that would be visible once you cross a certain border in the room. I went to find a fabric that would create a feeling of slight transition without affecting the sensors. This was achieved by using a grid/ net kind of fabric that was barely noticeable on the skin. For the feeling of wind we used a big fan that we would turn on once the player was past a certain point in the room (in VR: through the barrier).
KISD Portfolio
Mid term project
Result/Story board
Video:https://youtu.be/U0LdyE8MwYo VR
Reality off
off
off
on
on
VR
Reality
KISD Portfolio
Mid term project
Reflection
In this project, I learn that Unity is a powerful programming that can create realistic or abstract scene and experience but also complicated to learn especially when I don't have any experience in coding. In this process, we encountered many technical problems. Thanks to the help of teachers, we can finish this project eventually. I appreciate that KISD has the space, equipment and course to make me know the VR. For me who was learning VR for the first time, this course is very fresh and rewarding!
KISD Portfolio
Mid term project
Steal with Style Service Design
Short term project
Introduction
The project Steal With Style revolved around the study of the relationship between Service Design and branding, made in collaboration with the consultancy agency Publicis Sapient. The four teams taking part in it were given four companies as clients, with the goal of solving some specific problems that affected each one of them. Our team was assigned to Yello. Yello is an energy provider based in Cologne. It provides electricity and gas to about one million customers all around Germany The problem that was given to us by Yello was stated as follows: ÂťThe company is losing a significant amount of money from customers calling about their bills. The goal is to reduce the customer calls concerning their bills and support them in their payments
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Research
The first step taken into the research process was to get to know the context into which Yello stands. We explored the different energy providers that exist in Germany and tried to understand how they are structured, how they operate in the national energy system and also how they are seen through the eyes of the customers.
Older customers
They usually have a clearer idea of the billing system and usually pay little attention to what is happening around this service;
Younger customers They are typically less experienced and tend to
encounter troubles in understanding the system and the most convenient payment methods to them;
Company
They are also customers of energy providers, but they have not been included in the making of this project since it focuses mainly on the normal customer experience.
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
The team had multiple ways of getting to know Yello. We conducted interviews with employees from the company, who helped to understand how Yello's payment system works and the overall structure of the company. We also asked the company's Customer Service for some information about the reasons why customers usually call them and this gave us some great additional insights into interesting ways to solve the problem.
The problem as stated in the brief received by the company didn't seem customer centered. We then thought that it could have been useful to reframe it in order to get a better perception of the whole situation. The new problem was then stated as follows:
"Frustrated customers call the customer service due to issues with the payment of their bill".
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Process
Hunt workshop The "Hunt Phase� of the project took place at the Publicis Sapient's office in Media Park (Cologne), through the span of one day. Here we could learn and put into use the different methods that the consultancy company often uses during their design process. Thanks to this workshop, we were able to focus on the specific problem and, through their methods, we came up with several solutions for it that we would have selected, developed and tested in the days that followed. As the first step, thanks to the research made, we got to two insights that became the basis of the design process.
"Customers are struggling to understand the payment system" "Customers are getting too little/confusing information"
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
How Might We This statement helped us to determine several solutions for the previous insights. After having an important amount of "How Might We", we categorized them into three different topics:
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Value Proposition The value proposition is a statement that includes the target audience, the statement of needs, the proposed solution (product or service) and the benefits that it carries.
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Result
According to our examination, there was room for improvement in different moments of it and we proposed some solutions.
Better understanding. Use of automatic systems.
Maintain rationship with the customers.
Stress free experience. Handling mistakes
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Onboarding The first part of the team's outcome aimed to create a better understanding of the Yello's system and to inform the customers about the different opportunities that are being offered. We designed an improved landing page, in which is explained the way the whole system functions with few and clear steps that are understandable for the customer. This could be achieved by both a static conceptual map and a motion graphics video
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Monthly notification In order to maintain a relationship with the customer during the course of the twelve months preceding the coming of the yearly bill, it was designed a message system that would have sent monthly text messages to the customers with information about the payment, energy usage of the month and a small reminder to use the app. This service can also be used to announce the coming of the final yearly bill, together with some additional information and quick explanation of the correct steps to take.
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Yearly bill In order to solve the first problem, the team redesigned the experience of receiving and reading the yearly bill. Both from the online and from the printed version, the customer would see notes and suggestions explaining with a friendly language the meaning and the functioning of the important parts of the bill. This would have reduced stress and improved the whole experience.
In case of the reception of a wrong bill, it was designed a service called "Agree or Disagree button". When "Disagree" is pressed, the site will automatically send the customer’s data to the Customers Service, which will examine the problem and communicate with the customer only after having a solution for it. This would not only reduce the calls, but it will also provide important statistics to the company and enable a more organized way of assisting the customer
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Reflection
This is my first time to learn Service design and participate in the group of four people in KISD. In the beginning, I felt confused and frustrated. The first reason was that my English ability is not good so I struggled to understand what they were discussing and how to expressed my thoughts. The second reason was that I had never heard Yello before and totally didn't know the energy supply system in Germany. These challenges push me to grow up and learn new things. Luckily, my teammates are really nice. They understood me and respected my opinions. I am so glad that I can work with them. For me, this short term project was substantial. Through the Publicis Sapient instruction, I experienced and learned the process of service design in one week. In the end of the project, we had a nice room for final presentation. Moreover, Prof. Mager invited the employees of company to attend our final presentation to communicate with us. It was a precious experience to me! By the way, I made a new friend who is an UX designer in Publicis Sapient and he had been an exchange student in my home university ten years ago. What a coincidence! After the presentation, we discussed a lot about the differences of design between Taiwan and Germany. KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Post My Waste
Ecology & Service Design Short term project
Introduction
Post (My) Waste was a short project led by Ayelet Karmon and David Spectre, professors from Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Israel. Nowadays, there already are some successful works that create new materials from waste to re-use. In this project, we also try to use our daily waste to re-use and create something new on common approach: to embed and assimilate waste materials into existing products and systems as a way of hiding, covering, and disposing of excess. There were three parts in this project: Tactile Journey, Waste Journey and Synthesis.
Process
At first, Tactile Journey make us conscious of the material we touched in one day. How does it feel? Smooth or rough? Hot or cold? And then the Waste Journey make us focus our attention on materials that we define as waste for one day. We looked at the defination and found out that waste is something unwanted and use this as a guide line.
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
The waste I use Waste Journey This statement is that we think about potential interactions between the waste inside of objects and the outside, in order to proposed a hypothesis depanding on our waste journey. According to my waste, I found an interesting point: If tissue get wet, we will throw it and won't use again even after it became dry. However, when we re-produce the paper, we need to add water to mix the pulp Therefore, my conclusion is: Water can make something become waste but water can also gives waste a new life. After that, I tried to mix some of my waste which get wet and then create the new hybrid material.
Actived carbon Ion-exchange resin
Tea
Balea capsule
Cotton pad
Pulp
Eggshell
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Process of creating new hybrid material
Wet
Dry
Add water
Air dry
Add water & heat up
Warm dry
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Hybrid material
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Synthesis
This workshop allowed us to propose a hypothesis, which based on speculative imagined technology instead of model. Thus, I considered "How could the material be in the future?" And then I think this material totally can be used for planting because of following points: - Pulp and cotton can keep water
- Actived carbon is nutrient to plant. - Eggshell can adjust the soil PH.
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Next, in my imagination, it could be the material of buiding or plant wall if we have amount of this plant. It would be environmental because we re-use the waste and create the green life. KISD Portfolio
Short term project
Reflection
This is my first time to try to create the hybrid material. It was interesting as if I would find something new anytime. I love this project because our teacher, Ayelet and David, shared some projects about ecology design and I also learned a new field such as Speculative design. The process of discussing with the teachers was successful. They gave us a lot of space to develop and concrete suggestions. After communicating with teachers, I deeply felt that they really cared the process. "The process is valuable", a teacher told me in class. I am very happy to be in their class and hope to have the opportunity to meet them again in the field of design.
KISD Portfolio
Short term project
KISDTalk
The Next Textile &Criminalizing Design Ayelet Karmon & David Spectre
There were two topics in this KISDtalk and the lecturers are Ayelet Karmon and David Spectre respectively. They are also the professors of the short term project I participated, "Post my waste".
The Next Textile
Ayelet Karmon is a researcher focusing on textile structures and the ways such structures are informed by digital fabrication processes and material specifications. She shared and introduced some of her projects to us, functional fabrics, color customization in textiles and fish leather. In these projects, Fish leather is the most impressive to me. The first reason is that I am surprised this material will not have fishy smell and the second is that it's sustainable and logical during the process of development. For example, if we use crocodile leather, we need to feed crocodile with a lot of meat. However, feeding pig and cattle in big scale is harmful to environment. Nowadays, more and more people eat fish for many reasons: health, environmental protection, popularity of Asian food, etc. We throw out the fish skin and it becomes waste. Why not try to develop it into a material? Finally, they develop the fish leather as fabric successfully and it's colorful and beautiful. After this speech, as a product designer, I will think about the characteristics of this material. Is it soft or hard? Is it flexible? How can it be used in our daily necessities? As much as I know, fish leather is being increasingly used by makers of handbags. Now, the fast fashion causes amount of waste and damages the environment so we have to find the way to reduce damage and solve it. Therefore, It is really excited that they develop the environmentally friendly material.
KISD Portfolio KISD Talk
Criminalizing Design
“What service design can learn from criminals?� David proposed the relationship between service design and criminal and how he used this approach in his product design and service design projects. He compared the service design to the process of criminal investigation, step by step to understand the situation and system. His project was to solve the problem of delivery in the countryside lane. He was not only design the cart but also observe whole system such as the behavior of the delivery man(behavior mapping), the route of delivery(route mapping) and all those involved in the process(personas). To the research, they went to the countryside and communicated with local residents. David also mentioned the skill of communicating with locals. "Humor" is important for communication of reducing the locals' wariness and get their trust. In addition, you can't tell the locals that you're the designer and come here to help them because locals would think they don't have any problems. I listened the speech before about the "Park renovation" in Taiwan and I find there are some similarities to this criminal design because they both mentioned interaction with locals. From this speech, I know the communication skill is really important to designer and I think the criminal design can be used as a technique for product design after I go to observe the user, communicate with the user, and finally can solve the problem.
KISD Portfolio KISD Talk
Gute Stube AG
Gute Stube AG is the most interesting part in my exchange student life in KISD. I never thought that I would learn how to make coffee and milk foam here because I seldom drank coffee. Before this experience, I only ordered latte in cafe because that's the only one I know. But now, I know the differences between these coffee and even make it. Working at the Gute Stube made me have more opprtunities to make new friends and communicate with other people. I think except for the coffee cups always hot my hands, everything in Gute Stube is lovely. KISD Portfolio Gute Stube AG
Semester Report My Start at KISD
To me, studying in KISD is my start of stepping out of comfort zone. This is my first time to study abroad and leave my family for such a long time. I think KISD is very friendly to exchange students. In the beginning, Welcome day let everyone know each others. There were Intro project and KISDessential let us get familiar with KISD and communicate with each others. The problem I encountered in my school life is language. I was not used to speak English because I didn't have the chance to speak English a lot before. I was even worried about how to answer "How are you" naturally. I needed to try hard to understand what the other students were talking about and also needed to tranlate the Mandarin to English in my mind when I spoke English. At first, I felt frustrated, however, I thought this was a good place to practice and improve my English skills. Therefore, I tried to understand and expressed my thoughts. In addition, I had three projects in this semester so I had more opportunities to communicate with other people and present; I can feel my English improved and better than before. Before coming Cologne, I couldn't speak German. Thus, I chose the basic German class in KISD. I consider it is not easy to learn a new language and German has a lot of grammar rule and is hard to pronounce. It's a little bit difficult to me even is the basic class. Therefore, I will recommend other strategies for visiting exchange students, it is better to learn German basically and practice English a lot before coming here.
KISD Portfolio
Semester Report
Me as an integrated designer
When I applied the exchange student plan, I already heard that the style of KISD is free. After coming here, I totally agree it. There is no one to ask your work and the schedule of course is not intense here. I find KISD focus more on the process of thought, it doesn't matter if there is no physical outcome. The teachers usually praise the students' thoughts and then give some suggestions according to students' thoughts and it's fine if the students don't follow the teacher's suggestions. That's very different to my home university. In Taiwan, I think that we also care about the process of thoughts but the high-quality model is the most important thing. I consider these two styles are both fine but to reach a balance between process and outcome. I like that there are projects in the short, mid and long term in different fields in KISD. I can choose courses that I interested in and have more enthusiasm to participate in the course. I chose a med-term VR project and two short-term service design projects this semester. The quality of the class is very good, I also learned a lot of knowledge in different fields that I have no chance or time to learn in Taiwan. Last but not least, the knowledge I have learned here will become the nutrient for my design work after I go back to Taiwan.
KISD Portfolio
Semester Report
Those weird German
During this six months in Germany, I think that Germen talk more straightly than Taiwanese and sometimes are demanding, because of my experience of living with the German roommate. To be honest, I still not get used to it. I found that Germen somehow really like Japanese culture more than I think, because there are so many Japanese restaurants in the town and they even hold the Japanese Festival! Moreover, the Germen I met, my roommate and my karibu buddy, both of them had been exchange students to Japan before.
Me & KISD
About selecting course, I will recommend the short term project to the student about to study at KISD. According to my experience, I think the quality of short term project is great and you will have a result in 1-2 week. Thanks to KISD, I alreedy have a experience and basic impression of studying abroad. I'm not sure if I will study Master degree after graduating because I want to have working experience first. I think I have to improve my English ability before studying abroad again. Eventually, I think KISD is a good school but somehow if I study abroad again, I won't choose KISD for Master degree, it's only because I want to expand my perspectives and experience different thing in other country in the future.
KISD Portfolio
Semester Report
Thank you