SKETCHING
As always, I started off with a sketch of what I wanted to build using a few sheets of blank Munny templates.

Harry Potter? Nah. Dumbledore? Yeah!

WIRE AND CODE
Afterwards, I moved onto building the circuit, which consisted of the following:

• 1 Arduino Duemilanove
• 4 green 5mm LEDs (in the photo below, imagine the fourth one being there)
• 1 white 10mm LED
• 1 10KΩ resistor
• 1 momentary switch
• 1 5mm phototransistor

This part of the process required me to move back and forth between wiring up the circuit and coding in Arduino.

Dumbledore's Brain on Arduino

Diagrams of the different sub-circuits within Dumbledore's brain

The link to the code is below. Also, keep in mind I had like a day to do this so be gentle! With that said, I do encourage you to pass along any changes or suggestions in the comments section below.

Dumbleduino V1.0 Code

After running through the code, I switched back to sketching on the Munny doll. This gave me a better idea as to where I’ll be cutting and drilling holes to fit all of the necessary components.

Pencil Tatoos

Making space for the Arduino

TIP: The great thing about slicing the head in half was that I reused the top of the head to shape Dumbledore’s hat later on.

In the next photo, I drilled four holes for the four green LEDs. These LEDs would eventually be used to inform users about the current timer the night light is set to.

Drilling holes for the LEDs

SCULPTING
I was so inspired by Sera’s use of Sculpey that I decided to take a stab at it myself, but before moving ahead, what is Sculpey? Sculpey is a clay that you can mold to your liking. Once you have your form figured out, toss it into the oven and let it cook for 15 minutes for every 1/4 inch of clay (I think that’s what the instructions said) at 275°F.

Being that I was new to sculpting, I started off with the easiest part, Dumbledore’s arm pads.

Arm pads

I realized that I also had to install some of the components, e.g. LEDs and some wiring, into the body before baking. Fortunately, I did some testing and the LEDs can definitely withstand 15 minutes of 275°F.

The LED time preset indicators

Dumbledore's back side with LED indicators and toggle button

Baking Dumbledore's hat

Tanning booth

Done!

The beard that you see above was a part of the accessories that came with the Munny doll. For a moment, I was relieved that I didn’t have to construct a beard from scratch, but after a while, it just didn’t seem quite right. According to a friend of mine, the beard was just a tad wide. I abandoned the premade accessory and decided to roll my own beard, literally.

After an hour or so of playing with clay and making beards, I discovered that the best way to approach this was to roll each section of the beard at a time and then place it onto the face. Once I had set the clay, I flattened it so that the beard started to fill up the surface.

Section 1: Hulk Hogan

Section 2: "HURRRRR"

Flattening out the rolls

I also included some wizard-like eyebrows, wapow!

PAINTING
After I finished up all the necessary sculpting and baking, I let it solidify overnight and started painting the next day. The paints that I used was a combination of Liquitex (Soft Body) and DecoColor Acrylic Paint marker.

Do not do small details at 3AM and yes, that's a toothbrush in a champagne glass

Face paint

Gold symbols and tassels!

Helping hands help with hands

While painting, I also had to figure out how to set the Arduino properly into the head. Using a container left over from the X-Men costumes constructed from last Halloween, I created a platform that propped the Arduino up at an angle so that the USB cord could plug in from the bottom half of the head.

Plastic container found at the 99cent store

Powered by Arduino

Here’s a list of painting tips that I think might be helpful if you decide to do your own doll.

• Helping hands – I highly recommend the thing in the photograph above that looks like it belongs in a science lab. Instead of your shakey left hand holding something up as you paint with your right hand (or vice versa), helping hands helps to hold things steady.
• Always have a towel handy – When painting, always gently smudge your brush against a piece of towel after dipping it into paint. It prevents  excessive paint from pooling up on the surface.
• Paint in layers – The first layer that you apply will not always come out looking awesome. Let the paint dry a little and then apply additional layers.

WRAPPING IT UP
I left the hardest part last, which was getting the wires from the Arduino board through the body and into the right arm where the wand would be. The wires would then go through the arm and connect to two contact points that were embedded inside the hand. In order to accomplish this, it required additional holes in the arm so that I was able to hook the wires through. It also required a ton of patience.

As for the contact points on the hand, I made two holes on the palm of the hand using an Exacto knife. I then connected the wires to two pieces of tin, which I managed to intricately wrap around the wires. In order to get the contact points (tin) to stay in the holes, I stuffed some leftover Sculpey into the holes and placed the contact points on top. I then used a hair dryer to heat up the contact points (approximately 30 minutes) until the Sculpey hardened.

And lastly, the wand or some of you may call it, the wrench.

In order to connect this to the rest of the doll, I had to have two contact points, which would connect with the corresponding points on the doll’s hand. I carved out the bottom portion of the wand so that I was able to fit two tin brackets, one on each side. I then connected the brackets to the LED via two narrow strips of tin.

LED, tin, wand

Connecting the bracket to the LED

Voila! The Golden Wand of Illumination

DUMBLEDORE AND THE GOLDEN WAND OF ILLUMINATION
And finally, the finished product!

Dumbledore and the Golden Wand of Illumination

Dumbledore's timer preset controls

Illuminate!

After completing the doll, what intrigued me the most was the separation of the wand from the body. By keeping the construction of the wand to something as simple as two contact points and an LED, a whole slew of wands can be created for a single doll to wield. This opens up an opportunity for people, specifically DIYers, to further customize their toys without having to wait on toy manufacturers to create additional accessories. Hopefully we get to see some of this within the coming years as customization takes hold of the toy market.

During my early childhood, I remember him making household repairs using whatever he was able to muster out of the family toolbox. He referred to these pieces as the ‘cuffah.’ I’m not exactly sure if it was a Chinese word or some Chinglish that he managed to hack together, but the cuffah represented the missing piece to the puzzle. These pieces were usually spare parts that he collected over time, ranging from nuts and bolts to bigger pieces like brackets and unused caulking guns.

Halloween 2010 (last year)
I managed to piece together a Mega Man costume, which involved a Japanese lantern (cuffah!), a disassembled LED flashlight, a snowboarding helmet, and of course, blue tights. My two rommates followed suit, Will as Quick Man and Dave as Zero.

Snowboarding helmet converted to a Mega Man helmet

Mega Man helmet finished!

Me as Mega Man

Who would have ever thought it’d be so much fun to relive your childhood? Besides laughing at each other, we were in our own world, jumping around, blasting our plasma cannons and humming the Mega Man theme song.  People that crossed our paths were also reminded of their early favorite early 90s video game.

“OMG, it’s Mega Man!” Moments later, my brother comes around the street corner, “Oh shit! It’s … the Other Man!” The guy was almost in tears even though he didn’t recognize Will’s character.

Will as Quick Man

Epic Battle - Quick Man vs. Mega Man and Zero (Dave)

Halloween 2011
Building off the fun from last year, Derek Chan and I managed to get together a handful of our friends to go as X-Men characters this Halloween. To help carry on the tradition of hacking from last year, we required one constraint, materials spent on an X-Men costume needed to be under $50.

With a total of eleven X-Men and a Magneto, there was certainly going to be some variation in fidelity of the costumes.  To tie us all together as one cohesive group, I decided to build out the X-Men Communicators for all eleven of us.

The communicator is a simple circuit, which consists of the following:

• 10mm red LED
• 2032 coin battery (battery holder, optional, but helpful)
• a switch
• red cellophane
• foil
• Scotch tape cylindrical plastic container

How to wire the X-Men communicator

To house the entire setup, I used the plastic cartons that came with the electrical tape. I lined the inside with foil and covered the outside with red cellophane, which enhanced the red glow of the communicators.

Tip #1: When making this is to point the LED downwards towards the foil surface for maximum reflection. I heard there are other ways of making the LED shine even brighter, but I’ll leave that up to you guys.

Tip #2: Never buy 2032 batteries from a regular store like CVS, Blockbuster, etc (2 batteries for ~$4). Go to your local 99cent store and get 5 for ~$1.29.

Scotch eletrical tape container makes for great X-Men communicator shells

Not as clean as the diagram above made it out to be. With that said, I highly recommend the battery holder.

Functioning X-Men communicators!

After making several communicators, I got bored and decided to help Derek make his optic blaster. Optic what? It’s the visor that Cyclops wears that prevents him from taking everything down when he opens his eyes.

The parts required for this consisted of the following:

• a pair of Jersey Shore sunglasses that he picked up from St. Mark’s ($7)
• 2 10mm red LEDs
• 2 2032 batteries
• 2 2032 battery holders
• tiny momentary switch
• red cellophane

Disclaimer: I’m not going to go into much detail about this, but if you know basic electrical circuits, this should be cake. Else, if you know a friend that knows basic electrical circuit, you will probably have to get them cake.

Wiring the glasses ala whiteboard

Derek showing off his new specs

Red cellophane curled over the lens area

In order to get the cellophane to curl around the lens, cut a slit in the center of the cellophane. This will allow it to bend. This will create some space on the sides for the LEDs.

Make way for battery holders

Next, melt holes into the side of the glasses so that they match up with the back side of the battery holder. Also make sure to have a hole for the wire coming from the momentary switch, which will be placed against the battery holder.

Tip #3: Create a template of where the pegs on the backside of the battery holder are located. Then map the pegs onto the side of the glasses.

Battery holder mounted onto glasses

Next, do the same thing to the other side minus the hole for the momentary switch since you already did it to one side.

Tip #4: Hot glue gun works best when mounting plastic pieces together.

Battery mounted alongside the momentary switch

Tip #5: Helping hands (the maniacal lab looking object in the photo below) are super helpful. They help (duh) with keeping wires in place as you solder the night away.

Almost done!

Finally, place the red cellophane back over the opening and you have yourself a pair of sweet looking optic blasters.

Here’s a demo of Derek nerding out with his new pair of blasters.

What's a prototype without some... user testing?

The Finale
Halloween 2011 was a success! All the costumes turned out to be frikkn’ amazing. Here are some pics from that night. Before signing off, I’d like to thank the following people for taking part in this: Wally, Jess, Derek, Jane, Sera, Will, Dave, Chris, Ryan, Vicky, and Shelley! What’s on the plate for next year?

Will as Professor X and CereBro (see what I did there?)

Wally as Gambit with cardboard abs! (photo cred: J. Choo)

Vicky as Jubilee and Jane as Storm (photo cred: J. Kwon)

Dave as Nightcrawler with elf ears made out of band-aids (photo cred: J. Kwon)

"We're like the inverse of each other!" (photo cred: J. Kwon)

X-Men: The 2nd Class (photo cred: J. Kwon)

Overall Strategy
By emphasizing on scale and contextualization of the data provided, we can tell an effective story that informs the public and government on why they should invest in education and how this would boost the overall economy.

Process
Sketching
The ties between education and government are pretty complex. As designers not fully involved in this specific sector, we were limited in our understanding of how the different actors within the system work together. This has both its advantages (not getting drowned in minute details, being able to see ‘out-of-the-box’ to some extent) and disadvantages (possibly missing key points, making the wrong assumptions). With that said, to better understand the system, we mapped the education/government relationship to something we’re familiar with… second-order feedback loops.

What the hell is a second-order feedback loop, you ask?
The second-order feedback loop does two things: 1) It’s basically a system with built-in feedback that informs how close the system is to achieving its goal; 2) and if it’s not meeting its goal, it attempts to change it (stick with us here). In our case, we wanted to map out the economic ripple effects of investing in education. Then we wanted to see if there was a step or goal that needed to be changed to make this system more effective. All of this, we hoped, would be conveyed in our final infographic.

The Role of Wolves in Regulating the Yellowstone Ecosystem (Paul Pangaro & DDO)

Based on a real-world example, the model shows the nested relationships and influences on many levels. Even without any quantitative details, the model is instructive in showing the complexity and interdependencies of the nested system. (Pangaro & Dubberly Design Office)

To map out the second-order feedback loop, we had to first establish the actors within the system.

Initially, we were tempted to personify the actors

After a few rounds of Post-It exercises, we realized that in order to tell a strong story, the actors had to be quantifiable. It would require the “quantitative detail” that the second-order feedback system lacked (shown above in the Yellowstone Ecosystem).

Final Set of Actors within the System

Fortunately, the data set (Education and Economy) provided by the Alliance for Excellent Education had already quantified each of the 8 economic indicators, which were used to project the economic effects of higher graduation rates.

1. Combined annual earnings
2. Investment
3. Spending
4. Tax revenue
5. Home sales
6. Vehicle sales
7. Jobs created
8. GDP

These indicators eventually ended up being the actors within our system. After establishing an overview of the relationship between education and government, we then tied it to the provided data.

2nd Order Feedback Loop Mapped Out

How Storytelling Might Tie in with Data

Data Exploration
Now that we had a better understanding of the overall system, we were ready to dive into the dataset. We spent some time in Processing generating the data into standard bar graphs, then further analyzing those through line graphs. Our initial goal was to explore how the GDP growth breaks down in two ways, by state and by race.

States vs. Population
States with the biggest returns also happened to have among the highest state populations, which leads us to our next point.

GDP Growth by States

Population vs. GDP
Looking at the data in groupings only revealed the obvious (i.e. the bigger the population of a state, the greater the GDP – in most cases). From our perspective, this didn’t really argue for the need for more investment in education in a compelling way.

Race vs. GDP
Ethnic groupings was misleading in terms of scale. From our data output, it looked as though the White, Non-Hispanic and Hispanic groups would yield the most GDP growth. But this is misleading. If the racial groups are broken down to the individual level, it actually shows that Hispanics have higher GDP return on an individual basis, followed by White, Non-Hispanic and with Asian/Pacific Islanders very close behind (a difference of approximately $1000). Our initial graph showed otherwise, positioning Asian/Pacific Islanders near the bottom.

GDP Growth by Race

Basically, when visualizing the economic benefits via groups, our initial research revealed very little insight. Patterns were pretty much consistent and similar across all indicators. If anything, the visualizations were misleading. We were looking for something else… an anomaly or some other revelation that would compellingly argue the case for investing in education.

Given that the scale was deceptive, we decided to visualize the data on the level of an individual. We also hoped that doing so would humanize the story, as its more compelling to relate to the potential of one person than to the potential of the masses.

Bringing It Together
After gathering all the necessary data points, the next and final step was to tell a story. Starting off with a system map that shows the overall economic effects of education, then indicating the current state of education (including how many students are dropping out and who these students are), and finally, what investing in education could yield economically for the US as well as the individual student.

How the Story Flows within the Infographic

This visualization explores the systematic impact of investing in education, including the economic results when no child is left behind. It’s clear that economic benefits are evident for both students and their communities at large.

The Economic Ripple Effect of Investing in Education

Data Sets Used

• National Center for Education Statistics: Common Core of Data
• Education and Economy (Alliance for Excellent Education)
• Education Week: Diplomas Count 2011

Thanks To

• Sera Koo for working with me on this and also contributing to this blog post
• Visualizing.org for putting this challenge together (our entry at Visualizing.org)

Interesting Reads

• No Child Left Behind? Why Schools are Giving High Achievers the Shaft

I agree that it’s tempting to want to write about an infographic that looks interesting, but it’s also really important to consider the way the data is presented to your readers.

In a recent post by Fast Company, Facebook is Winning Silicon Valley’s Talent War, the writer assumes that Facebook is “stealing the most talent away from others” in the Valley. Briefly looking over the infographic that’s shown in the article (below), I can see why he would make such an assumption:

Facebook has the most arrows pointing to it. Facebook’s notoriety may have also played a role in the author’s conclusion.

Talent Traffic Infographic from Top Prospect Data Labs

When I first saw this, I was a bit skeptical since it didn’t convey the data that it was trying to show. For example, the lines are all equal height even though their magnitudes differed from one another. According to Edward Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, this is known as “a distortion in a data graphic.”

A graphic does not distort if the visual representation of the data is consistent with the numerical representation. —Edward Tufte

Another problem was the “1 to 1″ connection between LinkedIn and Apple. Technically, a green arrow should be pointing towards LinkedIn from Apple and a cyan arrow towards Apple from LinkedIn since both of these companies have the same ratio. This would have upped LinkedIn from three inward facing arrows to four (one short of Facebook).

As mentioned in Fast Company’s post (in the comment section), I wanted to take a stab at redoing this infographic based on the points mentioned above.

For starters, I pulled the small set of numbers into a Google spreadsheet and right off the bat, the numbers didn’t support the article’s assumption that Facebook was winning the talent war. It turns out that LinkedIn, and NOT Facebook, was the top drawer of talent, even if it was only by a small margin.

Ratio Totals for Each Company via Google Docs

I then pulled these numbers into a bar graph, which shows the breakdown of hires for each company.

Talent War Bar Graph Breakdown

According to the article,

Google is drawing most of its talent from the stodgy halls of Microsoft; Facebook, meanwhile, is drawing from other hot startups.

Based on the bar graph above, it is apparent that Facebook has drawn more employees “from the stodgy halls of Microsoft.” 25 more than Google to be exact. My assumption here is that in the original infographic, the red arrow that points from Microsoft to Google along with its close proximity might have visually deceived the writer.

The next step was to bring all this information together into the final infographic, which is very similar to the original graphic except that the lines are now proportionate to their respective magnitudes.

Talent War Infographic revisited

In the updated infographic, there is without a doubt that LinkedIn and Facebook are head-to-head in acquiring employees from other companies in the Valley. To better illustrate this, I removed all the other paths except for the ones associated with LinkedIn and Facebook.

Talent War - Facebook vs. LinkedIn

Conclusion
As infographics become more prominent on the web, we should be mindful about what is being presented to us. No matter how pretty an infographic is, always question the way it positions the data for our consumption.

Related Links

• Top Prospect Blog (source of infographic)
• Job Migration: Talent Traffic (infographic reposted on Forbes)
• Infographic Of The Day: Facebook Is Winning Silicon Valley’s Talent War (infographic reposted on Fast Company Design)
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward Tufte

Lens 1: Discovery

Clint Beharry – Orbit

Kristin Graefe – Postgeist

Angela Huang – Hobnobber

Gene Lu – Story Forest

Lens 2: Connections

Jeff Kirsch – Bookish

Evinn Quinn – Homebase

John Finley – Locus

Katie Koch – Cultivate

Lens 3: Mindfulness

Colleen Miller – Food for Thought

Stephanie Aaron – Oasis

Michael Katayama – Seneca

Beatriz Vizcaino – Slow Eats

Eric St. Onge – Obtract

Lens 4: Play

Carmen Dukes – Springboard

Chia-Wei Liu – Secret Mission Me

Derek Chan  – Superzeroes

Russ Maschmeyer – Motiv

When GOOD magazine challenged its readers to come up with a system that encouraged hand washing within the context of a hospital, this hand wash tracker was the first thing that came to mind. Of course, it needed to be modified in order to satisfy the needs of a hospital.

Prior to figuring out how exactly I was going to apply this project to a hospital setting, I briefly interviewed a couple of hospital employees and also did some research online. From that research, I came up with a following set of questions that this new system had to answer:

1. Doctors and nurses know that they are supposed to wash their hands when engaging with a patient, but what about visitors? How can we encourage them to wash their hands?
2. How can we quantify the level of hand washing so that doctors, nurses, and visitors are held accountable for their hand washing habits?
3. How can we better inform families and friends about the cleanliness of a loved one’s hospital room?

The proposed system that is shown in the sketch attempts to answer most of these questions by making information transparent to both the hospital staff and to relatives and friends of the hospital patient.

Proposed Hand-Washing System within the Context of a Hospital

HOW IT WORKS
Starting in the lower left, visitors are informed via a digital display about the level of cleanliness (approximated percentage) of the room that they are visiting. As they enter, a motion sensor detects the number of people entering the room.

In order for the level of cleanliness to be at 100%, each visitor must wash their hands at least once. This system does not take into account scenarios where there may be more than one simultaneous visitor, which is why the percentage on the display is an approximation (one visitor may wash their hands more than another during a visit).

Similar to the system that we prototyped, the hand wash pump and the hand sanitizer both have sensors connected to them. Once the pumps have been pushed, the system acknowledges that a visitor’s hands have been washed. There may also be a motion sensor attached to the faucet that complements the hand wash soap pump. This would be set up to detect the recommended 30 seconds of hand wash required to fully disinfect one’s hands.

The accumulated data is pushed out to a server/database where it is then passed to family members and friends that may be tracking the status of the room. it is also forwarded to the nurse’s station within the ward. If the level of hand washing drops below a certain level, people tracking the data are sent a notification either to their mobile device or to their desktop.

This proposed system is an attempt to make everyone visiting a patient’s room accountable for their hand washing habits. By quantifying this activity, actors within the system are made aware of how they affect the system. As mentioned by Katherine Ellingson,  an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, “If hospitals can identify wards that have problems or wards that are doing very well, they can learn where the gaps are or how people have found a way to get adherence up. And when people have data, they pay attention. The CEO may pay attention. The health workers themselves will pay attention if you provide data on their performance.” (NYTimes, “Better Hand-Washing Through Technology”).

Presenting on stage with a slide clicker and a mic (Photo Cred: Kristin Graefe)

On May 5th, after countless days of practicing my presentation in front of a mirror, on the phone (to prevent awkward stares from other pedestrians), in the shower, and in front of friends, I got up on stage and did my 7 minute (a lot longer than it sounds) presentation. I would typically place a link of the video to the presentation here, but it’s still being edited. Open IXD presentations. now available. Fortunately, I do have the process capture document available.

Rather than having you (if you choose to) click through all the thesis blog posts that I’ve accumulated from the past year and a half, I’ve compiled and summarized it all onto one page (link below). The document consists of the following sections:

• Preface
• Introduction
• Thesis and Purpose Statement
• Audience Definition
• Diverge, Converge, Repeat
• Questions, Answers, Insight
• Competitive Review
• Prototyping
• User Journeys
• Requirements
• Design Evolution
• Final Design
• Looking Back
• Reference List

Ok, enough talking, here’s the link: Story Forest Process Capture Document.