Designing Immersive Experiences - CIID IDP 2025

“We live today not in the digital, not in the physical, but in the kind of minestrone that our mind makes of the two.” 

— Paola Antonelli, MOMA Design Curator

Dates: December 1, 2025 - December 12, 2025

Faculty: Joshua Walton & James Tichenor

Keywords: Sensing, Environments, Immersion, User Centered Design, Mixed Reality, Prototyping, Design Thinking

Course Description Document

Summary:

This course combines previous courses in interactive spaces, designing with emerging technologies, and mixed reality user experience. Students will explore how spaces fuse the digital and physical. In this course we will explore how to craft meaningful interactive spaces through practical, hands-on prototyping and scenario building. We will introduce and explore concepts from the design of internet connected objects to the worlds of virtual and mixed reality. To augment the world we first have to understand what we are augmenting and special attention will be paid to the development of new sensing approaches. A focus will be placed on rapidly prototyping and exploring these topics together.

Week One

Day One:

• Breakfast

• Introduction to the Course

• Discussion about favorite public places

• Introduction to Design Frames used in the Course

• Shared part of UX for Created Realities slides that discuss the design process

• Brief Hotel Lobby Design Challenge

  • Documentation Videos here

Day Two

• Shared the rest of the UX for Created Realities slides

• Discussed Prototyping Emerging Technology presentation

• Talked about All the Realities

• Discussed the idea of Creative Sensing

• Jose Chavarría shared his final IDP Project and how he thought about sensing

• We introduced the Week One Creative Brief

Day Three

• We worked with our first Emerging Technology: The Arduino Uno Q

  • We created shared notes with our experiences on this technology

• We introduced the MQTT protocol and using it for our projects

• We discussed bringing projects through the Discovery, Concept, and into the Design Development phase

Day Four

• We introduced development for Unity, learned the interface a bit and then started programming GameObjects with the ability to turn them off and on, change their color, or rotate them.

• We rounded the corner in our Week One project to complete Design Development and most of the way through Production

Day Five

• We learned the basics for how to develop for the Meta Quest 3 headset using Unity

• We presented our Week One projects at 3:00pm

• We talked about Projection Mapping and introduced a few tools

  • Keystone for Processing

    • CornerPin - Basic Example included with the library

    • Two Surfaces with MQTT events example

  • ShapeMapper for Processing

  • Resolume Arena Projection Mapping

  • Disguise for Theater / Professional Production

Team 1 Project (Nihkil, Andres, Davide): Understanding Air Quality and Pollution as an Actual Human Sense

Team 2 Project (Maryam, Diana and Prianka): Sensing people emotions by human voice sounds

Team 3 Project (Haley, Ella, Daniela): The Hug Sensor: Reconnecting in a Digital World

Team 4 Project (Naman, Ali and Hitesh): Fruit Freshness Sensor

Team 5 Project (Pedro, Kabir, and Cassandra): Read The Room Using Ambient Sound

Week Two

Day One:

• Feedback Session on Week One

• Introduced Creative Brief for Week Two

• Worked on Discovery and Concept Process for Week Two Project

Day Two

• Introduced three different approaches to critique / criticism

• Worked on Concept and Design Development for Week Two Project

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Team 1 Project (Haley, Hitesh, Kabir) Touch Base

• Space: Library

Team 2 Project (Maryam, Pedro, Diana, Cassandra) The Enacting Computer

• Space: IDP2

Team 3 Project (Andres, Daniela, Nikhil) speakAR

• Space: Space in front of Library or downstairs classroom

Team 4 Project (Davide, Naman, Prianka) The Byte Room

• Space: Media Equipment Room

Tema 5 Project (Ella, Ali) “one fading minute”

• Space: Pop-up room

Location:

Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID)

Via Astino, 16, 24129 Bergamo BG Italy

Learning expectations:

• Learn basic concepts, constraints and opportunities for Immersive Experiences so you can put these ideas into practice in future design work.

• Develop a critical view of XR/AR/VR experiences and develop design principles for successful uses of this medium.

• Get familiar with tools for the physical and virtual creation of immersive experiences

• Write about your thoughts, process, and experience throughout the course as part of a documentation process

• Learn how to apply the Design Frames introduced in the course

• Using your hands – learning to make physical prototypes of all scales, starting at the analogue level, and working up to integrating digital components

• How to use analogue and digital tools to create interactive experiences

• Deepen prototyping skills and develop an understanding of how and when to use each technique

• Learning basic methodology to create an experience through user journeys, research, prototyping, user testing, body/brainstorming, workshopping, etc

• Learn practical idea generation and critical thinking methods

• How to create & use physical affordances, and how to design for action

• Experience and develop a vocabulary for Virtual and Mixed Reality interaction design

• Develop an ability to find and expand insights related to interactive environments

• Prototyping communication skills – learning how to create and use prototypes, and when (fidelity vs. content, contextual use)

Downloads and Links:

• Learn Python

• XCode on the App Store

• Download Unity

Unity Resources:

• Unity Manual

Other Resources:

• Game to Learn the Terminal