Brief
Chassé theatre asked us to create an installation which would both educate & entertain their visitors before shows & during intermission.
Context
Most adults can be ashamed to experience new things outside of their social bubble. Children don’t have this social obstruction, they dive in head first. Omega encourages people to recover this child-like wonder by playfully interacting with ‘floating water' designed to stimulate exploration.
Result
The key vision behind Omega was discovery by play. Using an optical illusion, created by sound and movement, to draw people’s attention. Using motion tracking technology to give users the ability to interact with the flow of water by gradually giving them control over the intensity, direction (up or down) and amount of water.
The installation was nominated for candidacy on Playgrounds Festival. Kids loved the installation and adults, after a careful first approach were playing enthusiastically with the water & inquisiting about the technology.
Direction of the flow
By moving their hand up and down next to the stream, users are able to control the direction of the water flow
Shape of the water
By waving their hands next to the water user can control the shape of the stream.
Intensity of the stream
The more people interact with Omega the more heavy the flow of water will become.
The process of Omega
Prototyping
Using light and audio Omega creates water drops which seems to float mid-air. For this effect to work, all parts of the technology have to work perfectly in sync, otherwise the illusion would fail. To ensure this wouldn’t happen we created a lot of small scale prototypes in a dark environment to be free of constraints.
Interaction Design
The technology needs a low light environment to work, the coders on the team vouched for a closed box with curtains.
This would create an obstruction for the user to approach the installation and interfere with the overall user experience.
To explore other options I created different cardboard scale models of the installation to see how the surrounding light would influence the base of the installation
User testing
To make the discovery mechanic of the installation feel as natural as possible, multiple user tests were conducted.
Experimenting with different shapes of the stream and ways of interacting with the water. During this phase I worked closely with the coders to ensure the interaction would be easy to implement.
Key learnings & role
During this project I took on the role of UX designer. Ensuring the installation was approachable and the interaction with it would be optimal. I worked closely together with the coders to explore possibilities. Most of my time was spent conducting user tests and experimenting with the interaction flow.