Blog

09 Dec 2014

Shri Hanuman Chalisa 3D App for iOS & Android Tablets

By Sandip Chauhan


The interactive application was a remediation of the animation short film for iPad and Android tablets. The application was playful in nature and also provided a platform for sharing the stories of Hanuman, the Hindu deity. It aimed to educate the user about Hanuman in an engaging, playful, and non-obtrusive manner. It also offered a feature where the user can dedicate prayers. To incorporate all such features in a single app, intensive understanding of user experience and interaction design was required. It was a challenge to design and develop the application in a very short time without compromising on the quality. Various methods of prototyping were used for the communication and testing. Working prototypes were used iteratively for user testing; this improved the interaction design.

 

Availability of the Hanuman Chalisa:

In devotional songs Hanuman Chalisa is very famous. Classically it was famous in media like books, cassettes, CDs , YouTube and now in application format as digital book. In YouTube 6340 search results can be found with viewership of 5 lakhs and above. The digital books which are available in android and itunes have text and audio. In iTunes 13 applications can be found and in android 131.

Why should this app be made?

Though Hanuman Chalisa is widely read and recited very few people know about its meaning and stories associated with it. This application is a novel way of educating meaning of Hanuman Chalisa, mythology storytelling, propagates spirituality in playful non obtrusive manner.

For whom is this app?

The target audience includes Indians, NRI’s as well as international users. It also intends to cater wide age groups from 5 years and above. The younger age group will need assistance from the parents. Not all features will make sense for all age groups for example the faith beads will not be of much significance for a kid who enjoys just playing with the app.

Considerations:

As the application is targeted for international market, the quality of graphics and user experience has to be at par with the applications produced internationally. Some of the design decisions also reflect this, for example the text of Hanuman Chalisa verses and its explanation is offered in English which can be toggled to Hindi. Many of the icons are so selected that they are widely accepted. From many translations available Chinmaya Mission’s translation of Hanuman Chalisa is followed as it is widely accepted. It also provides pronunciation key.

What this app is and not?

This app is celebration of Indian mythology, spirituality and new medium of expression. It does not have any religious or political agendas. It merely expresses 400 years old composition in new medium. It does not want to hurt any religious or social sentiments. All the visuals are interpretation of the artist, Charuvi Agrawal, and thus do not claim that it is the sole way of interpreting hanuman Chalisa. This is also reflected by providing a platform for letting people express their own interpretation.

Sponsor: Charuvi Design Labs, New Delhi.

Role: Interaction Designer

Duration: 6 Months(Internship), 5 Months(Design Consultant)

09 Dec 2014

3D Holographic Projection Installations

By Sandip Chauhan

3D Holographic Projection

Charuvi Design Labs (CDL) created 3D animation short-film. It is a music video of Hanuman Chalisa sung by Amitabh Bachchan and 20 lead singers of Bollywood like Sonu Nigum, Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan etc. They wanted to explore the field of new media with their existing assets of the film. They planned for an exhibition for the launch event of the Film and App. They also planned for the travelling exhibition in India as well as abroad. As the part of promotion and exhibition 3D holographic projection installation was proposed. Two installations with different sizes were created. Both were derived by different explorations of materials, projection techniques, construction technology and prototyping.

By using holographic projection installations, the CDL intended to bring the characters of the animation film alive, thereby, merge the boundaries between digital and physical entities. Different materials were tested to achieve appropriate quality of visuals in holographic projection. To make a safe and reliable structure capable of holding heavy glasses was a challenge. Experimenting with holographic projection and physical objects was interesting. The project has offered an understanding of structure, optical properties of materials, and experimentation with projection.

This project provided me rich experiences pertaining to technology, management and art. Many types of prototyping were learnt, including video prototypes, small scale mock-ups of holographic projection, 3D models, semi-working prototypes and working prototypes. The project helped improve understating of interaction design for different contexts.

Sponsor: Charuvi Design Labs, New Delhi.

Role: Interaction Designer, Project Supervisor

Team: Civil Engineers, Architect, Animators, Sheet-Metal Workers, Glass Workers, Carpenters, Labourors (Team of 20 people)

Duration: 6 Months(Internship), 5 Months(Design Consultant)

09 Dec 2014

Interactive Floor at DigiCorp’s event

By Sandip Chauhan

An interactive installation letting users to play with the keywords of Digicorp. The installation connected and educated the brand digicorp’s values with its audience in a novel fun manner.

Event: 10th Anniversary of Digicorp

Venue: Courtyard Marriott

Space: Reception Area

09 Dec 2014

Interactive Wall at Digicorp event

By Sandip Chauhan

The Passage to the hall was adorned with a playful interactive installation. Greeting and making the guest feel special with its Mascot and abstract animation as they enter the Hall.

Event: 10th Anniversary of Digicorp

Venue: Courtyard Marriott

Space: Passage to Hall

09 Dec 2014

Augmenting Architectural Spaces

By Sandip Chauhan

Every space is associated with certain interactions. The project explores artifacts and interface for interactions of such space. The integration of computation and media into physical objects and spaces results in an augmentation: contextualized, intelligent digital content manifest in the environment, thus enabling real objects and places to communicate with people, creating experiences that retain the best of both domains.

The interface is seen only as a simulacrum of reality, integrated into surrounding reality. Thus interface for such space and experience was designed bearing in mind that interface has to be clean, minimal, and support people attention and curiosity. Persons experiencing naturally interactive artifacts are not necessarily active or willing users, they can just be passing by and enjoy passively the encounter, the interface includes a basic reactive behavior for this situation.

Explorations:

Process of Designing and Progress is shown in video below

09 Dec 2014

Shabdaveer

By Sandip Chauhan

Shabda Veer is an interactive and playful application for teaching Gujarati language. It teaches basics of language and correct way of writing and pronouncing alphabets, numbers, bara-akshari and finally words in an engaging manner with the help of touch gestures and sound offered by your Nokia phone. It can be used for learning as well as practicing resource and is sure to boost your vocabulary and confidence. There are two immersive and interactive touch-gesture based games. You can play single player game or multiplayer with friends by Bluetooth. You will be able to share the joy of learning and scores with family and friends online! All in all with Shabda Veer it is fun to learn.

09 Dec 2014

CONTENT CREATION – DRAWING TOOL(ADOBE)

By Sandip Chauhan

Design Brief : CONTENT CREATION – DRAWING TOOL FOR DESIGNERS AND ILLUSTRATOR

Adobe Illustrator is a desktop application used by Designer and Illustrator to create distinctive illustrations and artworks for design projects.

What will be the drawing experience of a similar tool on a tablet with touch? Or, if select set of tools found in Adobe Illustrator were to be made available on a tablet, which ones are better suited and how will they work? With the various capabilities of tablet form factor, multi-touch, gestures, gyroscope, camera, location-aware, etc.), will it be possible to create a more natural and engaging drawing experience than what is today possible on a desktop? Create a representation/mock-up/work flow to show your interpretation of one such drawing tool on a touch device (tablet or mobiles).

Knead tool:

 

Polygon tool:

 

Rectangle tool:

 

We tried to make polygon tool as intuitive and direct for the user keeping in mind the workflow, occlusion and ease of operation. It was an iterative process many functional and video prototypes were made to demonstrate the interaction. The attempt was to make the tool more user friendly than the previous version with each iteration. The unification of tool to fit as a package also taught many things which can only be learnt in a team environment. All in all the process was extremely educational and fun.

 

 

09 Dec 2014

SINEing GLINTS

By Sandip Chauhan

During our course CPHOA we studied kinetic arts. The creations of artist Reuben Margolin were extremely inspirational. Drawing inspiration from his work we made a wave based on rotation of cams and crank shaft. The artifact invited people to interact and people were delighted by the interaction. We took the concept further.

We used reflecting surface on the rods and projected light on the reflecting surface as a result beautiful reflections were seen on the wall. The rotation itself presented with beautiful patterns. The pattern could be altered by modifying space on the rod allowing desired pattern to be reflected on the wall. Thus we thought of an installation which would show a symbol/ message during its rotation at one particular time and will be lost in next instance in random pattern which would reappear again. This would offer engagement and surprise. This can also guide a person to the artifact if projected far.

09 Dec 2014

Multitouch Table

By Sandip Chauhan

Multitouch table was a team work of batch 2010 of New Media Design Students
 
Learnings: Team work,furniture design,Interface and interaction design
Furniture Design: Construction , Materials, Joineries, Movement of elements, Stability, Ergonomics, Placement
Interface and interaction design: Multi-modal interaction, Occlusion aware interfaces, Programming, Visual Composition
My Role: Setting up, code for multitouch table,  Calibration, Programming Multitouch Sound

 

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