Young Designers 2011

		Young Designers 2011
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Sures Kumar TS | contactsures@gmail.com

Civil Debate Wall

New Media Design | PGDPD
Guide: Dr. Jignesh Khakhar
Sponsor: Self Sponsered

Keywords
Debate
Kiosk
Interaction design
Multi-touch Screen

The objective of this project was to design an electronic forum in which students from diverse backgrounds can debate and discuss some of the most intriguing issues of our time, using new digital tools. The project is essentially targeted at students at the University of Florida, United States.

The Civil Debate Wall is an electronic forum that facilitates constructive dialogue amongst students at the university, which is also one of the politically active campuses in the state. Incidents such as police assaults and fights between student bodies supporting different political camps are common.

The Wall, comprising five multi-touch screens stitched together into one wall at the main university campus, is a media-based interface that fosters debate on different controversial issues both on and off campus. Students can get access to the forum by using The Civil Debate Wall directly or any of the touchscreen kiosks in libraries, residences, sport facilities and coffee shops or from the main website. The conceptualization and the interaction and interface design of the wall were developed in the course of six months. Two alpha prototypes were tested at the site for two weeks and around 315 students participated in the process of user testing.

This project throws light on how new digital tools can be used in public spaces to engage students in debate. It exposed me to the design process and methodology at a design firm to think innovatively and to improve the quality of interaction and ease-of-use in products and applications.