Project [Table Top]

Responsiblity in this project: Concept and functionality design

Abstract

TableTop is a project to study the meaning of the interface of operating system, such as Mac OS or Windows, and to attempt to redesign these GUI aiming for a special target group. The target group here is fashion design students at University of the Arts London. The project was started by deconstructing MacOS, and developed an original operating system by interviewing the target users, creating a concept, producing a mockup, and conducting a usability test in order to have some feedback from users.

Deconstructing Mac OS

By studying "Mac OS X System Overview", the outline of the technical architecture of Max OSX illustrates that a computer consists of plenty of layers and modules of different media connected and overlapping each other. Between them, transcoding of information is occurring all the time, and this transcoding consists of two types of information processing: data format transformation and concept transformation (*1). It seems that fundamental role of operating system is to provide the easiest way to control the computer and usualy it is done by applying familiar metaphor to users. The objective of "tabletop" will be, then, to transform complicated functionalities of computers into easier tools for fashion design students.

Table Top interface design

Tabletop uses familiar metaphors for fashion design students, such as "Table", "Toolbox", "Sketchbook" and "Tags". The concept of 3D perspective is produced in an attempt to introduce a closer look to their actual working environment, table, and other metaphors were applied to the four functionalities: navigation, customization, orientation and feedback, which I clarified before the design process to distinguish the role of OS from other applications. For example, users can access to application using toolbox, and organize files using tags. Sketchbook works as if they open up each application on each page of sketchbook.The product is visually metamedium of their working environment, and each functionality is supposed to navigate users to utilize the enhancements which are given by computers.

Usability test and further consideration

The usability test revealed that what the product looks like is familiar for fashion students, but how it works is not familiar for them. One example is the Tool box. Although it visually represents their familiar tool, the way it behaves is still same as "the dock", it is still inside the logic of Mac OSX. To make Table Top more powerful, the way it functions also should be something familiar for the target group. One close attempt in this case may be Tags, which were designed to reflect the way the users organize their garments.