Anna Larionova

How might we empower mobility-impaired users to engage with the Downtown Santa Monica Farmers Market more comfortably?

The Downtown Santa Monica Farmers Market is an abundant, beautiful space to explore. People value organic produce and supporting local businesses. However, upon closer inspection, the market is riddled with hazards to anyone who uses a mobility device. We also found that the crowded market can be an overwhelming experience even for returning visitors.

During our interviews we discovered that pedestrians feel lost at the large Saturday market and pushed to side-- “...if you were just meandering, like one does, at a farmers market, you're going to get run over.” Mobility-impaired users tend to outright avoid places like farmers markets.

Routed: A stand-alone progressive web app that uses AR guidance along with physical pathways. Routed uses a map of the Downtown Santa Monica Farmers Market created by the market itself to guide visitors to vendors and items, as well as designated safe pathways. By placing signage throughout the market, visitors can quickly find where they need to go without feeling overwhelmed.

The project brief was open-ended: design a table lamp in our Product Design 2 studio class that challenges the traditional expectations of a table lamp.

At the time of the project, I lived in a tiny studio apartment with a tiny desk. I aimed to find a small lamp for my workspace, but even the smallest table lamps I looked at had a footprint. It still needs a place among the pencil holder, computer, and keyboard. This led me to the question: does a lamp really deserve real estate on your desk?

Chema Madoz’s surrealist photography inspired me to imagine interactions as visual metaphors. Along this line of thinking, I encouraged myself to let imagination and play lead the way for this exploration.

Élan is a soft, e-textile lamp. When the user pulls the LED-embedded fabric up from the center, magnets from either side meet to complete the circuit and turn on the light. Flattened out, the light turns off and “disappears,” leaving precious room for other things on even the tiniest desk.

Solve a sci-fi puzzle box with a friend in VR in the game of Spod. Spod uses an asymmetric experience to connect a person using a VR headset with a person without a headset. Rotate a knob in real life to see elements of a puzzle rotate in VR.

Virtual reality can be a powerful tool to connect the physical and digital worlds and connect people in different locations. However, many VR experiences today are limited to the digital world. Many multi-user VR experiences place all users into the same digital world and people in the VR headset are cut off from the physical world.

Cohort 7: Capstone Asset Collection Form - IxD Student Profile Projects (Responses) 100% 10 L5 Play is a very good way to teach new concepts so I decided to frame my world in the context of a game. As players progress through the experience, they learn more about the rules of this world and how to use them to their advantage. A timer instantly creates urgency. Even if a particular task is not very fun, having to complete it in a certain amount of time makes it fun. Technical constraints are an opportunity for creativity and unexpected interactions. Letting technology and mechanics lead the way when creating puzzles can be instructive and inspiration. Play is a very good way to teach new concepts so I decided to frame my world in the context of a game. As players progress through the experience, they learn more about the rules of this world and how to use them to their advantage. A timer instantly creates urgency. Even if a particular task is not very fun, having to complete it in a certain amount of time makes it fun. Technical constraints are an opportunity for creativity and unexpected interactions. Letting technology and mechanics lead the way when creating puzzles can be instructive and inspiration. Turn on screen reader support To enable screen reader support, press Ctrl+Alt+Z To learn about keyboard shortcuts, press Ctrl+slash

You and your friend play as a trapped space traveler and voice-controlled AI to work together to escape from a mysterious alien puzzle box. The player wearing a VR headset plays the role of a voice-controlled AI. They have a control board in front of them with various knobs and sensors. When they manipulate the control board, it changes the VR space in real time. The other player is wearing a VR headset and they play the trapped space traveler. They are inside an alien puzzle box. However, they cannot control their environment on their own. Using each of their unique perspectives, both players have to talk to each other to solve the puzzle.