Discursive Design | Industrial Design
This project shows my Master’s thesis research’s conclusions on interactions with objects through an exploration of 3D printed zoetropes that puts emphasis to the varying factors affecting one’s perception. With the variation of form, pattern, rotation speed, camera shutter speed, and environment lighting, a small change in any of these causes a different pattern to emerge.
This 3D zoetrope creates a discourse on how unexpected behaviours arise from a multiplicity of perspectives and lived experiences. It acts as a reminder for us to consider a sensitivity to differences in perception, understanding, interpretation, and response to whatever we might design.
This experience mirrored the realities of user interaction design. Designers may envision a specific user experience, but user behaviour often deviates from expectations due to individual differences in perception, reaction, and behaviour.
The project further demonstrated that unexpected outcomes can arise even without human interaction. In this case, the motor slowing down altered the rotation speed and disrupted the intended effect. This underlines how factors beyond user intervention, such as material properties or environmental conditions, can influence the interaction.
As designers, we can learn from this by developing a keener eye for subtle variations in user interactions. By recognizing that personal, social, and cultural backgrounds influence how users approach objects, we can design with greater flexibility and adaptability.
Creating the desired illusion of a growing spiral based on the golden angle using a 3D zoetrope proved initially challenging. Getting all the factors—rotation speed, camera shutter speed, zoetrope form, arrangement, and environment lighting—to work together smoothly required experimentation. This process highlighted how even slight adjustments within a system can significantly impact the final outcome.
The experimentation in this project primarily revolved around being able to achieve a certain outcome. This tedious work towards that end-goal was challenging because of several factors that kept coming up. Being able to understand that these happenstances actually tell the story of how user-object interactions actually are, especially in public spaces with a diverse population of potential users, I started to look at the poetics in the challenges encountered in the project and not just the technicalities. This has brought about an analogy for what my thesis talks about.
This project was one of two final outcomes for my master’s thesis research. You can view the other project, Tales of Moments here.