Five 2016 graduates of Interaction Design participated in the Faculty Summit on July 13, which was part of Microsoft Research's annual Design Expo. These new alumni are Rishi Agarwal, Stephen Coyner, Angelica Cupat, Naoki Hisamoto, and Chloe Lee. They presented Polly, a CUI (conversational user interface) that connects young people with political issues and encourages them to vote and become active participants in the conversation about politics. Watch their presentation. Polly received the Most Socially Aware Design Award at the event.
Polly was developed during winter quarter 2016 in DESIGN 483—Advanced Projects in Interaction Design. The class was taught by Associate Professor Axel Roesler with Nathan Auer, Gino Scarpino, and March Rogers as project liasons from Microsoft Research.
Design Expo is an international showcase of the top Interaction Design programs in the world responding to a broad design challenge. This year’s challenge called for projects that utilize a CUI. Microsoft sponsored a quarter-long class on the topic and invited nine programs to participate.* Each school developed multiple projects led by faculty and Microsoft project liasons. One project was selected from each participating school for presentation in Redmond this summer. This is the tenth year that the Interaction Design Program has been involved.
*The other schools involved in 2016 were ArtCenter College of Design, Graduate Media Design Practices, Carnegie Mellon University, School of Design, New York University, ITP, Umea University (Sweden), University of California Los Angeles, Design Media Arts, University of Dundee (United Kingdom), and University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts.