Een lichtatmosfeer tool voor deejays (A light atmosphere tool for deejays)

Een lichtatmosfeer tool voor deejays (A light atmosphere tool for deejays)

Kannemans, A.

Van Egmond, R. (mentor)
Van der Helm, A. (mentor)
Pleij, M. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Industrial Design

Master of Science Design for Interaction

2011-08-29

Deejays, video jockeys and light jockeys are responsible for creating a coherent show during a party where lights, visuals and music compliment each other. In small clubs and parties however there are usually no video jockeys and light jockeys present. Deejays play their records and a small computer, called a light controller, controls the lights. Because these light controllers aren’t user friendly, in practice nobody really controls the lights at small parties, while the creation of the right atmosphere with lights at the right moment can be of great value for the total experience for people in the audience. The resulting goal is to design a practical and user-friendly solution that enables the user to control lights in a direct and live way that enriches the experience for the audience. The first step in the research phase was to gather information from different stakeholders. In depth interviews were organized with a deejay, a light jockey, a club owner and a rental company owner followed by short interviews with partygoers and literature study to compliment and support the findings. The most important factors which play a role in the heuristic consumer experience of enjoying a party are the show and the interactions within the audience. The show can be broken down into; music, lights and the interactions between the deejay and the audience. Within the show music is the most important. Light appears to play a supporting role. A significant part of the audience is not aware of the light at party’s. Light jockeys mention however that they can lead the audience with lights and when lights aren’t supporting the music or atmosphere it has a negative effect on the audience. It is clear from the research findings that lights should compliment the music and party. Lights should enhance the atmosphere or mood (1) of the party and the music that’s being played. The timing (2) aspect should be related to the timing of the different elements of music such as the structure or instruments. The transition from break to climax in music is mentioned by all the interviewees. The audience indicates strongly that lights should compliment the music during this transition. Present solutions were studied and an inventory of the lights used at the target (parties) was made to get an understanding of the associated possibilities and limiting conditions. Further research (literature study) was done to analyze the effects of individual light characteristics on the perceived atmosphere such as associations with colors. This knowledge was combined in order to gain further understanding of the creation of specific atmospheres within the context of the target (parties). The findings suggested a radical change in the way light controllers should function. The light timings can be combined with the timing component of music through the use of frequency analysis (1). The user should have some atmosphere buttons which enable them to select colors associated with certain atmospheres (2). This way users could create a basic atmosphere in an easy, effective and fast manner. Also linking information that is sent from the deejay mixer to the light controller could be used to intensify music manipulation by the deejay with lights (3), benefiting interaction between the deejay and the audience. During the initial phase of the design the main ideas for how light controllers should function where clarified and evaluated with a usability test. For this usability test a software prototype was built in MAX/MSP. The results show that the three main ideas for functionality could be combined. Based upon this functionality a number of principles of use were generated. The most promising was chosen to be further developed and evaluated using a second prototype and usability test. The chosen principle of use was that users could control lights from the end goal perspective. This means controlling the lights from the perspective of creating the right atmosphere or mood. The user is given a set of eight different mood presets which could be selected via push-buttons. When a button is pressed associated colors are selected and a variety of light parameters (such as afterglow, threshold and the pattern changing time) are changed accordingly. These parameters were grouped under three different dimensions (attention, activity and warmth) and could be changed or tweaked with rotary knobs according to the exact preferred mood. The usability test was done at a party with 4 different deejays participating. Results concluded that the principle of use fits the user needs and therefore could be more detailed in the next iteration phase. In this phase extra functionalities were added to the design. This resulted in an interface including physical elements (rotary knobs) for controlling intensity, light effects and atmosphere dimensions as well as a touchscreen with four menu’s for the selection of presets(1), the selection of colors(2), changing the settings(3) and connecting the lights through a setup menu(4). This design was tested in a third usability test. This test was done at a small club that fits the target (parties).Three separate tests were done. One with users to find usability problems, another where two deejays performed with the build prototype to get feedback about the using experience and a test where people in the audience were asked to rate different light atmospheres on three different scales. The gathered data was analyzed and showed that the atmospheres were indeed rated differently. The users were very enthusiastic about the performance, functionality and possibility’s of the design and reported the user experience as intuitive. However users did encounter some usability problems. These where taken into account for the final design. In the final design a few extra functions were implemented. The main extra function was that the users can now control the light atmosphere with individual light parameters rather than three atmosphere dimensions. The new concept can be seen as a big improvement in contrast to the current solutions. And the main elements of this design can be applied to a wide range of different light controlling devices.

light
atmosphere
deejay
mood
music
DMX
design
interaction
usability
audience
lights
party
parties

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f5b5d6a8-529f-4eaa-874d-42f83c0c5d9c

2012-08-29

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2011 Kannemans, A.