Digital Commons Network^™

We Fish: An Interactive Information Design Mobile App For Local Fishing, Liyang Wang

Theses

Fishing is a popular hobby in today’s society. People enjoy fishing to relieve stress, create social bonds, and find it fulfilling and challenging. In order to fish effectively, a fisherman needs to know the real-time weather, location information, and have basic fishing knowledge. There are many ways we can help fishermen by providing this information in an easily accessible manner. For fishing beginners and fishing amateurs, the best way to help them catch fish is to create a tool that solves their needs.

Mobile applications have quickly become a useful tool and are widely used today for its diversity and …

Weekly: A Design System That Combines Graphic And Interaction Design For Scheduling Student Events, Kaige Liu

Theses

A common need for students is scheduling events efficiently. Students using various methods for scheduling events. Some prefer a physical paper calendar, while others prefer to use a mobile device. Several problems can occur when students schedule events. For example, it may not be clear when a student’s free time periods are, especially when trying to meet with a team or group members. Also, user’s preferences are different on how they schedule events.

To address the issue of inefficiency in scheduling events, a design system that focuses on print, interaction, and user experience design is created. The design system includes …

Bomber Boy, Biying Xu

Theses

Bomber Boy is a 2D animation thesis with a length of three minutes and 44 seconds. It is a story about finding a better way to control temper to avoid causing harm to others. It happens in a world that people blow up when they are angry. All the people in this world have a fuse on their head. While the main character, Thorn, has a very short fuse. He blows up quickly because of it. He blows up several times in school, which makes other students afraid of him. He hates himself and runs into an illusion that he …

The Misconception Of Social Anxiety Disorder: Creating Understanding Through Motion Graphics, Kaijun Qu

Theses

This thesis project explores Social Anxiety Disorder, by showing emotions and feelings of the person who suffers from social phobia to help his/her friends and classmates to understand them.

The symptoms of a person with social phobia can be seen as being afraid of communicating with other people, appearing in public, and/or being the center of attention. In such situations, others may easily misunderstand them, so the patient can lose the chance to communicate to others. As a result, the patient's condition will be getting worse. Therefore, it is very hard for people with social phobia to make new friends. …

Sohni Mahiwal Preserving South Asian Cultural Heritage Through Animated Storytelling, Anem Syed

Theses

Majority of Pakistani youth is not enthralled by the country’s rich cultural heritage. There is less public knowledge on the subject. This translates into less appreciation or interest. The academic system is largely responsible for this. It imparts a conservative history of undivided India, focuses on politics, ignores its nuanced culture. Unless students venture into specialized fields of art and humanities, most do not get stimulated to study history. Additionally, today when digital learning is on the rise, there is a lack of relevant sources on the subject. This thesis is creating a digital source. It is re-packaging an Indian …

Deer: Creating A Realistic 3d Animal Using Photogrammetry, Karie Carita

Theses

Creating a 3D animal using the process of photogrammetry can bring more realism to a user’s game experience.

In the 3D world, there are various ways for creating animals in video games. Specifically, quadrupeds are known to be very challenging. Since technology is evolving every day, there are always newer ways of creating video game assets. It is challenging to have complex model details and also have smooth real-time rendering in a game engine.

Photogrammetry can capture exact details of a real world animal and incorporate them into a 3D asset. The purpose for using this process is to create …

Black Behind The Ear: Using Motion Graphics To Encourage Self-Awareness And Embrace Racial Heritage., Carolina Lopez

Theses

Black Behind the Ear is an animated visual representation of Elizabeth Acevedo’s poem “Hair”. This poem uses hair as a metaphorical element to represent the internalized racism and racial amnesia predominant in the Dominican Republic, a place that owes African slaves for much of the island’s racial, and cultural heritage.

This motion graphics piece intends to encourage self-awareness in a time when embracing one’s culture and race can break the ossified schemes passed through generations about personality standards based on physical attributes. Understanding where one comes from helps people see why certain ideas are worth standing for, and consequently results …

The Soul’S Speaker: Give Your Eyes Some Rest, Fuye Zhang

Theses

The students studying in colleges often fix their eyes on books, on computer screens and archives for a long time to gain knowledge. As a result of this, their eyeballs often turn red out of fatigue. Researches have shown that college students lack the awareness of the benefits of giving their eyes some rest. However, there are few of eye protection advertisements which suggest the need for students to give their eyes some rest. As a designer, I need to let people know the important roles that eyes play in the human body. I feel it is important for designers …

Dzone: An Interactive Platform For Designers Seeking And Sharing Ideas., Yidie Xue

Theses

The principle of design is to create something both beautiful and effective. However, not all designs are created equal. There are plenty of inefficient designs in existence. The reason is not because of bad designers, but because of the lacking platforms for designers to communicate and test their designs.

There are many tools available, both application and website, for designers to express their ideas. However, the majority of these resources are focused on sharing project on the social media and treat it like an element of personal portfolio. Platforms for designers to actually test their project, gathering critical product-developing feedback …

Discover Yixing: Using A Mobile Application To Promote Tourism And Marketing For A Small Chinese City, Hanxi Xie

Theses

Tourism is an indispensable domain for many cities’ successful economic development. For tourists who are exploring popular cities and major resorts, there are a variety of mobile applications and websites can provide detailed information and instructions. It is convenient for independent travelers to use these tools to visit large and well-known cities. However, travel agencies, tourist applications, or multi-lingual travel guides do not cover some lesser-known cities. Although such cities may be underdeveloped in terms of economic conditions, some of these cities have potential to become valuable tourist resorts.

Many lesser-known cities can’t provide professional travel agencies and/or multiple language …

Audialtext: Improving Communication Accessibility For The Deaf Through Automatic Voice-Recognition And Wearable Smart-Technology., Ernest Roszkowski

Theses

Whether you are ordering food at a restaurant, asking for directions, or receiving a phone call from a family member, it is apparent that human communication is an important part of everyday life. Those who are deaf have limited communication accessibility compared to their hearing counterparts, and by default, obtain less public information and face more obstacles during social interactions.

This thesis project will attempt to bridge this communication gap through the exploration of human interactions with user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design. The goal is to design and develop an application concept for wearable smart-technology that will …

The Impact Of White Space On User Experience For Tablet Editions Of Magazines, Fanyi Cheng

Theses

After declining for six years (Wang, 2016), printed magazines are facing the dilemma of a paperless era. As magazine publishing emerges into the digital world, it needs to achieve the degree of readers’ desire that is comparable to or surpassing print publications.

Limited research has been done regarding white space in digital magazines. This thesis aimed to investigate how user experience is affected by white space in the layout of digital editions of food magazines designed for the Apple iPad.

The study focused on the evaluation of white space as the factor influencing the quality of the user experience. White …

Better Fit: A Conceptual Solution For Seamless Exercise Experience, Hongwei Huang

Theses

The development of fitness technology has changed the way we exercise over time, and each technology has allowed people to exercise independently in various ways, such as wearable devices, fitness apps, game consoles, and even social media. The consequence is that more people get used to exercising solely with their digital device and get motivated from virtual communities rather than in a real environment. However, the research shows there can be even more benefit for people by exercising with others in a physical space.

The thesis utilizes UX design methodologies to develop a seamless-workout experience that enables a user to …

Re:Act A Three-Way Communication Interactive Design System For School-Family Partnerships, Yoon Jin Lee

Theses

Using interaction design to create conversation to help create a personalized learning environment in and out of elementary classrooms for achieving students’ academic and mental success from a three-way communication between teachers, students, and parents

Many elementary school teachers encounter problems interacting with each student individually. Also, many parents are losing chances to track their child’s development and achievement closely in both physical and mental perspectives because of their busy schedules. There are several web and mobile applications to assist with these issues, but most of those are too focused on grading students’ positive and negative behavior and two-way communication …

Industry And Academics, Dan Rucker

Theses

My thesis containts the story of the design management and programming of a major industry design manufacturer and a group of college students.

I was able to build a partnership with Herman Miller and RIT while I worked in R&D at the organization. The metaproject04 effort was what myself and my design team members at Herman Miller were involved in, allowing myself to model design management techniques and connecting two well-established entities in a way that felt like a natural fit for both. The stories of the process and challenges, including the end result work embodies my thesis submission.

Avant L’Appétit: An Augmented Reality Interactive Menu That Elevates The Gourmet Food Experience, Emili Koui

Theses

Restaurant businesses try to come up with ways to increase and maintain their clientele. In many restaurants, images of food often misrepresent the quality and quantity of the menu item. The results are a disappointment on the customer side, and a loss of clientele on the business side. Gourmet restaurants have the ability to provide consistency, which helps in maintaining their client numbers. However, new customers are hesitant in trying this experience due to reasons of portion size accuracy, ingredient identification, language barrier and dietary preferences.

This thesis investigated how the digitization of a traditional printed menu, can better enhance …

Searching For Color In Black & White: Epistemic Closure, The Rit Archives, And The Colonial Roots Of White Invisibility, Andrew James

Theses

When examining an image, a viewer often focuses on what they see and less often on what they are able to see. Nowhere is this as true, and as problematic, as it is with the visual representation of persons of African descent. This study describes how problematic photographic representation was used as a powerful semiotic tool in the Victorian age conquest of the other, was exported to early Hollywood (creating a lucrative hate-based industry), and was then pushed back into the cultural recesses, settling finally into systemic forms of modern oppression, empowered by the invisibility of whiteness. Images from the …

The Real Face Of Arabic Symbols, Leena Yahya Sonbuol

Theses

This is a brief insight into my thesis: "The Real Face of Arabic Symbols". I have examined in depth the artwork I completed for my Masters of Fine Arts degree at Rochester Institute of Technology, the work for which was exhibited in the Bevier Gallery for two weeks during March 2017.

The aim of this study is to explore differences in symbolic language between the Eastern and Western cultures in visual arts and explain the misconception of Arabic symbols in the western world. It examines Arabic cultural symbols in contemporary art, and the creation of a symbolic language for a …

Fixino 1.0, Sultan Alshehri

Theses

Fixino 1.0 is 3D short film that explores the contrast between a lazy human and an efficient robot in a comedic visual-gag style narrative. Produced at the Rochester Institute of Technology, this 3D short attempts to take the audience on a journey of contrasting spaces and characters. On one side, we have the efficient robot, Fixino and his well-kept operation space. On the other, we have the careless and lazy human, Charlie, and his disorderly environment.

I wanted this story to comment on our current world state, as well as the near future, where humans become a liability in the …

Synapps: Children’S Asd Management Through A Mobile Application And An Interactive Biofeedback Exercise, Elizabeth Richardson

Theses

This thesis explores how to provide better access to alternative treatment options through an immersive biofeedback exercise and mobile application for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This thesis also seeks to connect children with ASD to medical professionals and treatment facilities.

This is done through a motion graphics piece depicting an abdominal breathing exercise and correlating mobile application. Users participate in biofeedback exercises in which their real-time biofeedback is monitored, transmitted to the mobile application, and reflected to the user. The mobile application analyzes and identifies physiological signals and detects what feedback is most useful to help the individual …

Tech Mds: Improving User Experience Of Electronic Health Record System, Rootwa Sagar

Theses

Electronic Healthcare record keeping can be daunting. The available software does not usually allow for clinicians to input information concordant with their clinical work- ow. This disrupts the clinician-patient encounter and can lead to frustration for both clinicians and patients. Because of this, the organic interaction between the patient and the clinician is not accurately recorded with available EHR systems. For example, the idiosyncrasies of individual patients—how and why they present certain information—as well as the clinician’s response can be signi cant but are ignored by the demands of EHR data entry. Patient

or person-centered care is increasingly recognized as …

Measuring Social Engagement Within A Triple Helix Cluster Consisting Of The Academic Institute, The Innovation Centre And The Public Authority Using Sociometers, Shay Ryan

Theses

This thesis examines tools used to measure social engagement in a Triple Helix cluster. Triple Helix members were identified in the following areas: Academic Institute, Innovation Centre and Public Authority. The main objectives of the study were to; 1) Identify how formal and informal communication occurs in a Triple Helix Cluster; 2) Measure and analyse communication within and between groups using sociometers and 3) Use qualitative techniques to establish the communication experiences of Triple Helix members.

A critique of the literature is presented pertaining to Triple Helix theory, Knowledge, Social Engagement and Measuring Social Engagement. The empirical approach involved using …

Akchessima: Latin Type Design For Digital Chinese (Seal Script) Typefaces, Xuan Zhang

Theses

As multi-language text layout and Chinese/Japanese/Korean typefaces has become an important topic in modern day typography, the visual match-making between Latin and Chinese writing is a very important issue in type design.

For this thesis project, Latin letters are designed based on a Chinese seal script style typeface, in seek of a design principle of matching Latin letter forms for Chinese calligraphic styles, originating from different writing tools and traditions.

There is not one universal principle that would apply on all different Chinese typeface styles. However, based on research of writing habits and technology, multiple methods have been developed in …

Alphabot: Using Interaction Design To Help Children With Reading Disabilities Through A Multi-Sensory Approach, Chao Luo

Theses

A reading disability is one form of learning difficulty, caused by neurological factors. Young children with reading disabilities are recognized as having trouble with spelling, reading, writing, and other academic activities. Even though there is no cure for reading disabilities so far, there are many things we can do to help these children. For young children, the best way to help them learn is taking advantage of all their senses.

Multimedia has been widely used in education today. Designers use various formats of digital multimedia to enhance user’s experience in learning. It provides an excellent opportunity to help children with …

The Adoption Of Project Based Learning In Graphic Communication Programs, Aezzaddin Aisyah Zainuddin

Theses

Project Based Learning (PBL) is widely recognized as an effective teaching method when compared to traditional lecture-based approaches in the classroom. Recognizing that the graphic communications industry needs employees with requisite skill sets and the established efficacy of PBL as a pedagogical technique for teaching those skills, the researcher examined the implementation of PBL in post-secondary institutions serving the graphic communications industry.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted to solicit information from educators in graphic communications programs in the United States. The questionnaire was designed to examine the factors which comprise PBL utilized in the classroom. PBL factors were derived from …

Fundoggy: Using Gamification And Social Network Services To Create A Mobile Fundraising Application For Helping Shelter Dogs, Yu Ri Na

Theses

The proliferation of new media is rapidly changing the world of philanthropy and more effective methods of raising funds and developing donor relationships must be sought. Furthermore, today’s trends indicate that the amount of giving by individuals has increased gradually, but the generation gap in donors is increasing.

Fundamentally, this thesis project seeks effective ways to attract young donors and show how to maintain a continuous connection with them by using today’s trending business and marketing buzzwords, “gamification” and “social network services.” Employing a game’s entertainment, problem-solving challenges, interactive experience, and customer loyalty improvement is expected to create significant synergy …

Mdd, What And How: A Motion Graphics Short Film, Yi Zhou

Theses

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a growing mental health problem these days as it creates more social issues and creates problems for families and individuals. However, people still do not know enough about this mental disorder. The purpose of this short motion film is to provide people with a quick and effective introduction to MDD. This film explores a way to deliver essential information in a short amount of time and in a clear way for the audience to understand. It tells a story through the point-of-view of those who have friends or family members suffering from MDD. This story …

Mobile App Of Food Combinations- Medley For Mom, Xun Zhao

Theses

“There were variations in the types of dietary intervention and the effect of specific nutrient components. There was no heterogeneity for dietary intervention components, but considerate heterogeneity for all dietary interventions combined.” With the development of the society and the improvement of living conditions, people’s eating habit has become much more diverse. However, some food combinations could potentially bring discomfort, such as indigestion, constipation and so on.

Due to the individual differences of the human digestive system structures, improper food combinations lead to various harms to different groups of people, among which pregnant women suffer the most.

“There is little …

From Character To Characteristics, Yen-Ting Chen

Theses

Through my life experiences, the way my family raised me, and fostered my thoughts, I have developed a strong connection to my native language. Taiwan is a country where the traditional Chinese characters are still widely in use, alongside with Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore. In fact, traditional Chinese characters can carry specific meaning individually, or further create various meanings when used in combination, which is profound and intriguing. Focusing on the form and structure of Chinese characters and their relationship with literal meaning, I wanted to design and create furniture that brings together culture, family, and personal vision.

As …

A Passionate Journey: Info-Motion Graphics Video Exploring Why And How To Find Work You Love., Jia Zhou

Theses

Benjamin Disraeli, a 19th century British Prime Minister, once said, “Man is not a rational animal. He is only truly good or great when he acts from passion.” Passion is the fuel that can power you toward the realization of your dreams. To live a truly satisfying and purposeful life, it is important for every individual to know what their passions are so life will be fulfilling.

Teenagers choose their career after they graduate from high school. They begin to wonder what they will become and what contributions they can make in the future. It is important for people to …