USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE – AN APPLICATION WITH ARDUINO

Abstract

User experience design, which provides the emergence of user-oriented designs, while meeting the needs of users functionally, also deals with their emotions and perceptions. With this interactive design approach, personalized design alternatives can be offered in accordance with the expectations of the users. At the same time, the flexibility with changing conditions, demands and pleasures ensures that designs are sustainable. Architecture is one of the disciplines where user experience design can effectively use. The inability of changing of buildings in traditional architecture causes another inability that to respond user’s current needs and demands. Thus, in modern architecture many researchers and designers investigate for a solution to create different spaces. Moving, flexible and interactive spaces, which are shaped with demands and needs of the users, give importance to the user experience. In this context, a tent was designed as a temporary shelter with caring the user experience and changes depending on the demands and needs of the user, by using the Arduino Uno microcontroller development board. The prototype experiments of the tent design, which was modeled with SketchUp and rendered with Lumion, were made with the Fritzing program. Arduino Uno, sensors, lamp, relay module and servo motors were used in the tent design and the space was enabled to interact with the user's different senses. Two different sensors, temperature-humidity and sound were used in the study. The temperature-humidity sensor interacts with both the user and the environment. Since precipitation occurs when the relative humidity in the air reaches 100%, the program is coded to turn off the panel on the top of the tent when the humidity in the air reaches 70%. With the help of the sound sensor, predetermined colors are lit on the front panel of the tent with the user's hand clap. In the study, it is aimed to create different experiences by providing the interaction between the body and the space.