The Neighborhood
Client
Our client was Fred Rogers Center. We worked closely with Roberta Schomburg, who is the Interim Executive Director, and Karen Meyers, who is Associate Director and Director of Development of the center. As a co-producer of this project, I was in charge of communicating with our client, including setting weekly meeting with them, as well as making sure our design and implementation works well with the center and satisfies their requirement. We had online meeting with them and at same time, we went to the center several times to talk with them in person and measure the space for our installation. I really enjoy working with people from Fred Rogers Center because they always offer us useful information, for example how Fred works everyday and how he conveys his ideas to children as well as adults. We leaned a lot from our client, who are experts in the aspect of Fred's legacy. By communicating with them, we got to know Fred more as a person, instead of the character Mister Rogers on screen. |
Intro
The Neighborhood is an interactive, collaborative experience that enables you to create a neighborhood from memories of people who have positively impacted your life. This project was aiming to build an installation at Fred Rogers Center (Monastery Rd, Latrobe, PA 15650) to help commemorate and celebrate Fred Rogers and his legacy. |
Design
We first talked to Karen, who works for the center, to understand their need for this project, and then we did a brainstorm within our team. Since their requirements was asking us to build something which could celebrate Fred legacy in their center, and they did not require any specific platform (for example VR or AR), we got plenty of ideas including virtual tour of Fred's life, helping Fred in VR, as well as making puppets and playing piano with tablets. Then we made a big brainstorm board and put them in categories to have a clear understadning of ideas. |
Design- First iteration
We talked with our advisors and picked three concepts which we believe conveys Fred's philosophy best, and present these three ideas to our client: 1. Appreciate others, and make a virtual gift for the person who is using another kiosk, named Giving Kiosk. 2. Make your own puppets and commemorate Fred about how he willing to share his feelings. 3. Helping Fred packing up in VR word, which he just finished his performance as Mister Fred. Our client picked the first design, and they liked it because it is more about Fred himself, not Mister Rogers. Thus we narrowed down our ideas to pay more attention on Fred, and our design pillar is the man behind the sweater. Second iteration
Design- Third iteration
After talked with our clients and obtain more information about our audience, which are those visitors to the center, we finally changed our design to a three-side kiosk with a center projection screen. For each small screen, guest will go through one to four interactions according to their choice, and the final result will be shown at the project screen. Most visitors are Fred fan with their family, thus our final design help them build a neighborhood together and sharing with their family members as well as other visitors, which is interesting and coherence with Fred's ideas of being kind and commutating. We were referencing Fred's speech of inviting gust to recall and reflect upon the special people that have made positive impacts in their lives, and used "smiled you into smiling" , "talked you into talking", "sung you into singing", "loved you into loving" as our four interactions. |
Giving Kiosk, design concept
Design- Second iteration
After we showed our design concept to more professors, we figured out guest will only looking at the screen but not paying attention to the other people using another kiosk. But one of Fred's ideas is communication face to face, thus we need to change our design. We decided to change to use a big screen which people will all look at, thus they will have some shared experience at the center. |
Art
As an artist in our team, I was in charge of design the art style, as well as making assets for interactions. We decided to use a hand-drawing style which likes a children's story book because it works well with Fred's concepts and Fred's work, we also asked our client to make sure they like this style. For art assets, I was working on the "smiled you into smiling", "sung you into singing" and "loved you into loving" interactions. Within these three interactions, I also designed the interface, and made 2D animations for the assets, including blowing up balloons, flying birds, folding envelope, and rolling a slip of paper. |
Playtest
We did several playtests with our target audience, which are Fred fans with their family members, and we made changes based on their feedbacks. For example, we changed the UI lot to make sure guest could go back to experience with another interaction, and we also changed some of the difficult words to make sure children can read them. We really felt good when we saw families playing together and sharing their feelings with each other, because this communication is what we want them to achieve. Our client also believe our kiosk fits the center well. |
Fabrication and Installation
We also designed and built a kiosk for our project by ourselves, and in the end of the semester, we went to the Fred Rogers Center to install our kiosk. We talked to school faculties who have experience in fabrication, then we also asked proficient to check our design and make sure it is solid for the installation. The plan for the exhibition is to start at August 2019 and last for about one year. |
Client's words
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