As many of you know, my current capstone topic is about Discovering Local Music in a Digital Age. Upon glancing at the cover of today’s IDS (local student newspaper) I found this article, which covers a local music festival that was held just this weekend. However, I wasn’t in attendance. Why, because I didn’t freaking know about it!

image courtesy of amboo

My initial reaction is that I’m already failing at my capstone topic. If I was really interested and passionate about local music, wouldn’t I have know about and gone to the show? What does it say that I had no clue this was going on, and worse that I had no clue about the local music label Crossroads of America (XRA Records)? Does this mean that I’m really just not that into local music? Does it say that I’m not working hard on my capstone?

Or, does this show a really great design opportunity? What if more people (like me) had known about the ‘festival’? More importantly, why didn’t I hear about the show? What things could have helped me to learn about this event? Was this poor promotion on XRA’s side? Or am I really just out-of-tune with what’s going on in local music?

I don’t have the answers here, but this certainly frustrates me and stresses me out. It makes me re-think my feelings about my current capstone topic and question my commitment to it.

What do you think?

Note: I’ve decided to scrap this idea in favor of something I feel more passionate about, photography and critique. You can read about my new capstone topic, Online Photography Critique, in a newer post.

For my final capstone (thesis) project of my master’s program, I’ll be working on the topic of discovering local music in a digital age. Below is my initial plan for the project. I’ve narrowed my focus just a bit from just Local Music in a Digital Age because I believe it will be a more interesting space within which to work. I’ve always been a fan of music and local music but I’ve had the hardest time finding new music which I might enjoy.

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Golden Questions is a technique used by designers to invigorate and stimulate thinking on a certain topic. They are typically used in or near the beginning of a process. Furthermore Golden Questions help to explore the depths of a problem space and all the little details that might surround it.

Nokia's Ovi

For my capstone (thesis) project in my masters program, I’m working within the problem space of Local Music in a Digital Age. In an effort to spur my thinking and uncover some of the deeper issues surrounding local music, I’ve come up with the following list of Golden Questions. I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject, Golden Questions as a technique, and my particular list of questions.

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Over the last week and a half in our prototyping class we learned about and started working with foam. We learned about the many different types of foam, their uses, and how people have used foam before. After conducting research on foam with my presenting partner Wes, I started thinking about what design I might want to prototype. I began by sketching out some basic ideas in a very rough format. I then decided that I would prototype an interactive iPad dock that would be used with Adobe software and could double as a tablet with a pressure sensitive pen. I selected this concept because it would force me to use foam in ways that I haven’t before, as well as integrate different materials into the foam.

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Over the past two weeks I participated in a local event called Dev Derby. Dev Derby is an event where developers come together to “code for change”. The event was held during the first ever Bloomington, Indiana tech conference called The Combine. For the event I was part of a three person design team. We were challenged to design something that would be useful for non-profits and that developers that could build within 6 hours.

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by Song Catcher Girl

For my last year in my masters program (HCID) we have to complete a 1 year long capstone (thesis) project. In thinking about what I might want to design, I’ve come up with the following problem space:

Local music in a digital age

When I was growing up, I was very much into local music. Back then the internet was still pretty slow but people were getting some music digitally. At the time I was doing concert photography for many local bands. I would show up at venues and photograph all day some times. This really put me deep inside the local music scene in Indianapolis. I knew most of the band members, I was friends with the sound guys, the venue owners, promoters, etc. Most people knew who I was. While part of this community I was exposed to tons of new music, both local and non-local. It was a really great experience for me.

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Below are notes from my quick critique of the new iTunes Ping social network. These are in a rough form, but I thought it was important to get this out there so that people can think about and discuss these issues. I think Apple could have caught many of these issues had they done some simple user testing. This was done in a quick and dirty format and I had only briefly looked at iTunes Ping before.

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