Henri

// with Áthila Armstrong, Flavio Carvalho, Ian Bach, Daniel Nacamuli, Melissa Martin & Tim Meador, 2015

UX Awards Gold Prize
2015: Best UX for Non-Screen Interactions
‘Henri: Creating Languages for Objects’

Method hosted a workshop for the IxDA15. We designed, developed and manufactured a tool (Henri) that creates languages and removes the noise of interactions for non-screen based objects. We realized in the environment of IoT and devices without screens, we’ve lost empathy and emotion as tools for design.
 

We assigned groups a persona of simple objects, such as an iron, door, plant, etc. and challenged attendees to produce emotions via light, sound, color, rotation, and pulse.The workshop successfully saw teams work together in a very short amount of time; most participants had never thought of infusing personas into an object. They began to think from a unique perspective where the product needs to communicate more information to a person than just on, off or idle. What if it was angry, sad, or excited? Henri allows those concepts to be tested real-time, and enhance the overall capabilities of both the designer and the product. It helped people literally think outside of the box, and be productive while playing.