PortfolioBen Akkari

I’m a UX Designer interested in building experiences that enrich people’s lives by getting users involved often and early with things such as participatory research and co-design.

My approach towards design is focused around building on our inherit sense of discovery. This coupled with my passion for innovative and emerging technology has lead me to create a number of both physical and digital projects that focus on how a user interacts with objects and the way they make you feel.

Hello,I’m Ben

Ben Akkari

Design Graduate

ben_akkari@yahoo.co.uk

07742615108

Objects such as, souvenirs and family photographs are grouped together to demonstrate how close the family is, but these objects can be generic and not represent how significant the context is to different people.

Hearth is designed for both parents and children to work together to create an interactive diorama based around their own stories and memories.

Collaborating with one another to explore the stories behind some of your favourite photographs will leave you not only with a display piece you are both proud of but a better understanding of how significant that story is to one another.

HearthWhere the story continues

Summary

Discover Design Develop

Overview

As children begin to withdraw into technology at a younger age than ever before we are

begin to see the negative effects this can have on integrating family values and a sense of

community. As a result, parents are finding it difficult to relate

and connect with their children on an emotional level.

Providing both children and parents a platform so that

they can reinforce important moments together and learn how each other views these

memories.

Honours ProjectUX Design

Product Design

DesignerResearcher

Problem Solution Type Role

Co-design, Experience Prototyping, Cultural Probe, Workshop Hosting, Ardunio

Programming, CAD Modelling, AR Prototyping, Physical

Prototyping

Skills

DiscoverAs this was a very open brief, I decided very early on that I wanted to create a project around storytelling as this is a passion of mine. Starting with this broad topic kept my options open to creating either a digital or physical product which I felt was important as this would allow me to explore different avenues and technology I was interested in.

After researching into current storytelling apps and products on the market I felt that working closer with who I was design for would provide me with more significant insights. Leading on from market research, I started observing some crafting sessions with my niece and nephew were I found that ownership over their stories and creations is extremely important for children and their parents. Having ownership means that children are less likely to get bored of what they have made. With parents, seeing their children take pride in something makes them want to be a part of that which encourages cooperation.

Taking this cooperative approach further, I conducted more co-design and provided families with a cultural probe so that I could see how they work together without me there and so that they could provide me with information that they felt was important.

After getting the cultural probe results back I found the way parents and children used the materials I provided surprising. My assumption was that parents would lead the children to creating things but that was quite the opposite. Children often talked about what they were going to make and parents either copied or followed the theme. Taking this into account I began sketching ideas that I felt provided a platform for stories to be created but allowed enough freedom for self expression as this leads to ownership.

However, one notable insight that came up was how initially hard to get started creating something from scratch is. To solve this I felt that having a visual prompt that would display along the side of the product would give the participates a nudge and get them thinking about things that relate to the prompt. One thing I wanted to make sure was that the prompts I made were not too specific and associated with a place so it was easy to create multiple things relating to a theme.

At this point I also mocked up a CAD model for a Mark 1 prototype that’s main goal was to house and demonstrate the technology used.

Design

After the CAD model I moved on to creating the physical form. As mentioned the main purpose of this physical mark 1 prototype was to demonstrate the interactions and the technology I would use in my final product. During this time I had realised that even for my final product the led matrix I was using for the prompts would not work as it was difficult to make out what was being displayed. So I changed from displaying prompts to using photographs as prompts. This allowed participates to create a physical scene of their own photographs. This had the benefit of reinforcing important memories for both participates along with replacing the boring old photo-frame with an interactive diorama highlighting how one another remembers a specific memory.

As I moved more towards recreating memories rather I figured testing how this would work was important. So, I done a quick workshop were I got the participates to create something they remember from the last time they went to the zoo. This proved to be very good as the more people got into it the more the collaborated together and reminisced about their last trip to the zoo.

Design

With the interruption of Covid-19 I was not able to iterate on my project and create a physical mark 2 prototype. As we I was stuck at home without the necessary tools to create physical I decided to improve my CAD model and put it into an Augmented Reality environment to showcase how it was suppose to look and work. My reasoning behind this was that if I could not make it physically, I’d fake it digitally.

Develop Idle

Prompt

CreateProcess Booklet

Storyboard

Video

Sketchbook Folio

“X Marks the Spot” is an interactive AR experience that focuses on adding a more social element to sightseeing through the use of user created content. This project looks at playing on sightseers natural interest in exploration and build on their sense of discovery.

Through first hand site visits and observations I came across the interesting interaction of couples leaving “love locks” on the railings.

Using this as inspiration, I began to explore different ways that people could leave mementos behind so that they could share their experience with others.

My project lead to a sightseeing photography app that worked in-tandem with a central AR product to look out over the city and explore the photos.

X Marks the spot

Summary

Discover Design Develop

Overview

Sightseers struggle to pick out other places of interest when they are looking out over the

city of Dundee.

Providing sightseers with the opportunity to share their

experiences locally around the city so that others can enjoy them and create a sense of

community.

University ProjectApp Development

AR TechnologyUX Design

DesignerResearcher

Problem Solution Type Role

Field Research, Interviews, Digital Prototyping(App),

Database design, Android App Development, CAD Modelling,

AR Prototyping.

Skills

DiscoverFor this project I wanted to do something about the sightseeing in Dundee. I started off by visiting a bunch of sightseeing locations ranging from the Law Monument to the penguin statues in the city centre. (See Research 1 - Setting)

However, one location that stuck in my mind was the Law Monument which is an amazing view that looks out over the rest of the city. Whilst on top of the law I realised how significant a place like this can be to sightseers and residents alike. For sightseers this view provides a way to note where things are in relation to one another and plan accordingly. Whereas for residents it provides a good place to clear your head and also point out places of interest.

In addition to people, I was also looking at what objects are at the top of the Law Monument and came across a set of “Love-locks“. These padlocks are used for couples to commemorate a special moment and also share their moment with others by leaving a memento behind.

DesignWith the only real restriction, aside from a deadline, being that we had to incorporate a box for in the final concept I found this to be an excellent opportunity to explore technology I had not used before and improve in areas I lack confidence in, like sketching.

Something I kept in mind when sketching was that my object should not take away from the view or disrupt the environment so I began sketching ideas that relate to sightseeing such as binoculars, tower optical and telescopes. As I began to sketch more I started to move away from more obvious objects and instead focus on gamifying the experience. This is when I decided on X marks the spot as sight seeing is fundamentally travelling to specific places and then moving on to the next much like a pirate treasure map.

For the digital side of this project I drew a lot of inspiration from Pokemon GO as it was extremely popular at the time. I made two different apps that worked in tandem with one another. The first app was a photograph app that allowed users to take pictures of places or things they found interesting and save them to a database. This database was then used on the second app which was housed on top of the Law Monument overlooking the city.

DevelopDuring the development stage as I was creating two apps, one used to create user generated content and the other to display it, I found I focused more on getting the technology right rather than the physical housing unit for the second app.This was the first time I had used augmented reality and the first time I had created two completely different applications that were suppose to work in tandem with one another.

Using AR for the first time proved to be quite a difficult learning experience as I had intended this to be housed outside and it would have to recognise objects that were a significant distance away.

In my finalised project all the technology and interactions worked completely as intended, you could take an image it would be saved to a database then displayed on the separate AR app.(See Video)

VideoResearch 2 - FunctionalityResearch 1 - Setting

Critical Reflection

The most prominent insight we gained from our field research at John Lewis was the continuous positive atmosphere across the store. This draws customers into the store rather than shopping online.

However, we realised that the staircase/fire exit that people were using to go between floors burst the bubble of shopping in John Lewis. One wrong step and the atmosphere seemed to have disappeared.

We asked the question, could we add a subtly interaction that would not effect the serious nature of the fire exit but still keep the sense of discovery that was built up throughout the rest of the store?

This Journey would take the form of a story controlled by the customer. These stories would showcase the origin and process a product has been through to end up as a featured product.

JourneyD&AD New Blood Entry 2018

Summary

Discover Design Develop

Overview

The main travel between floors, the staircase, completely broke the immersion from the rest of

the store and this unintentionally effects customers reason to

shop in store rather than online by breaking the immersive

shopping experience.

An interactive experience that keeps customer immersed in

the atmosphere by focusing on products in the store when they

are in go-between areas.

Collaborative Project (Team of 2)

Service DesignUX Design

DesignerResearcher

Problem Solution Type Role

Collaborative Work, Field Research, Experience

Prototyping, Storyboarding, Visual Effects, Cinematography,

CAD Modelling.

Skills

DiscoverWhen exploring a John Lewis store we felt that the most prominent insight we gained was that the continuous positive atmosphere across the store plays a major factor into why people will choose to shop in the store rather than online. However, we found that there was places that broke this immersion such as the stairway which seen a lot of foot traffic as it is a place to travel between the different floors.

When we were exploring we noticed that a lot of customers enjoyed interacting with the product a lot more that we would have expected. We felt that this was an interesting insight because this is something unique about buying in the store rather than buying online.

In addition, I also noticed that John Lewis has a lot more interactive displays than other stores so thinking about adding another interactive experience would not feel out of place.

DesignAfter our site visits we decided to focus on a digital interaction rather than a physical one as we would be designing for the staircase which was also used as a fire exit. Having a digital interaction means that in the case of an emergency the interaction can be automatically turned off as to not get in the way of protocol.

To get a better idea of suitable interactions we decided to do some experience prototyping on a staircase we found similar to the one in the store. We done this by recording and observing how different people would use a staircase and move in between the different floors.

When doing these observations we noticed that the one constant place that was in use was the stairs. Some people would use the banister, others would and some people would skip steps or run up them but they would ultimately have to step on a stair to progress. So our input would be stepping on the stairs but what would the content and interaction be. We looked at using image mapping to tell a step-by-step product story of origin and process of creating a product that was in the store.

DevelopAs this was for development we focused on creating one example of a product story (see Video) to showcase how the interaction would play out as you stepped between the stairs. We also mocked up a few different product stills that demonstrated other areas where we felt the atmosphere is lost and could benefit from our service. One interesting development we came up with was that as the interactions are unexpected we tried to interrupt how people would react to find them and felt that they would be some kind of Easter egg hunt throughout the stores were people would share their experiences through social media.

Design OutlineVideo

“Peace of Mind” was an installation that allowed busy commuters to have a quick five minute break from the daily rush.

Our installation done this by first drawing commuters in with the glowing aura emitted from the bottom of the soundproof dome. This helped break people out of their daily slog to and from work especially on busy and crowded areas such as train platforms.

With the inclusion of soundproofing the dome, commuters will be able to make phone calls or simply unwind away from the noise of others.

In addition to the lighting provided inside there is a speaker system that will play arrival announcements so that the commuter inside can relax knowing that stepping inside this installation will not affect them by missing important journey information.

Peace of Mind

Summary

Discover Design Develop

Overview

The daily commute is often a busy rush and some find it hard to relax or find a minute to take a break. This can set up the day

in a negative way and lead to worse reactions like heightened

anxiety or frustration.

An interactive installation that lets commuters take a quiet

5-minute break and reset their thoughts & feelings.

Collaborative Project (Team of 5)

Product DesignUX Design

Multidisciplinary Team

Technology Developer (Ardunio)

Interaction Designer

Problem Solution Type Role

Collaborative Work, Experience Prototyping, Electronic Development (Arduino),

Accessibility Design

Skills

DiscoverWith a big group split among three different disciplines Digital Interaction Design, Product Design and Interior Design we were tasked with creating a physical installation that would help the journey of a commuter. After bringing our research articles together we found that a common interest we all had was helping commuters with traveling anxiety and revealing the stress of the daily commute. (See Magazine Article)

As we were looking to create a physical installation we began with body storming some ideas and dimensions for a hanging object that people could step into to take a minute out of their daily commute.We also went through a different versions of forms and were heavily influenced by the shape of a tear drop as when we thought about commuting one thing that came up over and over again is how much worse it is whilst it is raining. As my responsibility was focused on the technology and interactions that would take place inside our object I began by looking into seamless inputs.

DesignLeading into the design stage I was focused on getting the interaction correct and hiding the technology properly. For our interactions we decided on using a distance sensor(ultrasonic) to notice when a person is walking closer to it. As a person gets closer to our object the light increases in brightness until the point where a person is full immersed.(See Lighting Interaction) Another interaction we had in place was a speaker system that worked for announcements and we also allowed people to record their own messages so that they could leave something behind.

As I mentioned my main role was working on the lighting interactions and Ardunio coding however I was also tasked with setting up the technology so that it was a minimalist as possible. We felt that having this minimalist inside along with the exposed framing would feel more relaxing than a bunch of graphics, text or branding.

DevelopFor the final development we actually done a class exhibition and our object called Peace of Mind was central part of the exhibition. This was also the first time I got to curate my work and speak about with people who had never seen it before. This was a pretty daunting experience to start off with but as the night went on I got more accustomed to it and enjoyed talking about the work my group and I had put into it.

As we were having it in an exhibition we made sure to make everything accessible to as many people as we could. For example, I made sure the lighting was not at eye-level for wheelchair users and children. I also made sure that the lighting would not flash by adding a delay to the time it would take to increase in brightness. This was done to make sure that people with epilepsy or people who are prone to seizures from lights would not be affected.

Lighting InteractionPeople Using it

Magazine Article

Aiming to highlight the rich history of the Verdant Works and its contribution to the Jute industry that was so

As the hosting city we were given the responsibility of acting as the hosts and showing all the international visitors and participates throughout the city of Dundee and the facilities the university provides.

GIDE is a culmination of eight international higher education establishments bringing together 150+ students once a year to collaborate in a week-long workshop with an exhibition at the end.

GIDE 2018Group of International

Design Education

Summary

Discover Design Develop

Overview

The historical significance of the women working in the jute

factories is not widely known to the outside public.

Using pop-up installations scattered around Dundee that

each highlight a specific part of what the women done in the jute

factories.

Collaborative Work(Group of 8)

Service DesignInternational collaboration

Design Sprint

Team LeaderApp Developer

Problem Solution Type Role

Collaborative Work, Field Research, Interdisciplinary

Collaboration, AR Prototyping, Leadership, Exhibition Curation.

Skills

DiscoverAs we were in a group of international students getting to know each other and the city we took a tour of the Verdant Works to explore the history behind Dundee’s Jute industry.

When we were exploring I made sure to take pictures of objects of interest and also exhibits that interested us like the massive black and white photographs depicting how the factory looked when it was in its prime. One thing that we discussed was how significant women were in the running of the Jute factory and how little known this was outside of the factories.

As for my own research, I was tasked with working on how we would display information so I looked into ways that we could provide a more up to date exhibition experience whilst at the same time keeping it portable enough for its purpose of a moveable museum. So I settled on making use of what the majority of people will have and that is their mobile phones. I looked into how some graffiti artist make use of mobile devices to add animation to their art works and figured we could do the same.

DesignAs the team leader and being from the hosting university I was in charge of showing all the visiting students in my team where they can go to either buy the stuff they wanted or use the facilities that they were allowed to use. In addition, the visiting students did not have the proper inductions to wood workshop and the make space to use the laser cutters or 3d printers so I had to be present whenever we would want to use them to answer any questions and supervise.

As for my own job, I took inspiration from the massive photographs that we saw in the Verdant Works and created an application that when you hovered over the image with your phone it would automatically start playing a video with an narrator talking about what was going on in the video. (See picture)

Doing this would allow us to make hexagonal pods we were looking to create as portable as possible because we would be able to eliminate TV screens and a lot of extra electronic equipment and relay on people carrying their mobiles as they go from pod to pod.

DevelopFor the final development we had to pitch our service to the other 140+ students and lecturers which was an extremely daunting but exciting experience.

For our service we pitched the idea that we would create a kind of treasure hunt around popular spots or historically significant spots in Dundee. The first pod would be set up in an obvious spot and after you took in all the information you would be given a key-chain showing you the spot to the next pod then the cycle would continue until you ended up with a full key-chain and a final souvenir made out of Jute which had the name of our service, “Hexa“, on it.

As for the content of the pods, there would be large info-graphic style images that changed into videos when you put your phone up to them. These images would tell the individual stories of woman who worked in the Jute factories and show how significant they would be to the success of the industry as a whole.

Video