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Experiential Design Innovations. Part 01: Interactive Liquid.

Prototyping ideas to spark conversations and push innovation in storytelling is something we are passionate about. We set out to get our geek on to explore new methods of designing and building interactive environments for storytelling. We want to find surprising and innovative ways to trigger digital content that could be used creatively for storytelling, with the potential for use in visitor experiences, education, and immersive storytelling.

We thought we'd have fun with this R&D project! We enrolled sound designer and Bright Side collaborator Callum Easter to come up with a library of characterful sounds, packed with personality, to build a playful and fun experience. Elements of surprise and delight are really important to an experience, making people's memory of that interaction stronger. Therefore we decided to explore using something unexpected as our trigger. Something that we engage with every day without too much thought – liquids.

Liquids are something that we all naturally enjoy playing with. Breaking the surface of water with our fingertips is a simple human pleasure. So we wondered, what if that basic interaction could spark a digital reaction?

To explore this idea we harnessed capacitive sensing and created a prototype in our studio, building a setup with 12 interactive elements. The glass pots had different shapes, colours, and sounds, they each had their own personality if you like. The team experimented with different liquids to get the qualities needed to technically achieve the digital reaction.

THE RESULTS

The experience was multisensory. When the surface of the liquid was broken by a fingertip the pot expressed itself! In this way, the audience could explore the humorous personalities of the little pots, creating their own stories as they played between them.

We found visitors to the studio were drawn to interact with the prototype, and really enjoyed its playful and surprising nature.

Now that we had tested the principle, this idea could be expressed in a number of ways. From the colourful, eye-catching, and humorous, to the creation of something ethereal and mesmerizing on a much larger scale. Your imagination is the limit! 

To sum up the results:
- Innovative storytelling.
- Unique and memorable experience.
- Engaging yet simple method of interaction.
- Can trigger sound, animated content, and much more.
- Interaction for all ages and abilities.

We see the potential for this piece in visitor experiences and museums and look forward to exploring that further in the future.

This project as inspired by our passion for innovation and conversation. If you’d like to continue this conversation please get in touch!

Annual 2022 ShortlistInteractive Liquid - Experiential Design.The Cutting Room Floor Contributor:

Bright Side Studios has been a Contributor since 25th November 2015.

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INTERACTIVE LIQUID

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