Lecture: gestures within reach- Omek's Grasp TM

In brief:

gesture-based interfaces offer a wide variety of opportunities to create an awesome user experience. on the other hand, it poses significant challenges such as feeling the moment of pressing a button. the lecture shows several examples and possible solutions. we would identify design principles to the design process for the gesture recognition technology.

Done as part of my work as a UX designer at Omek Interactive.

showcased at UX on Beer conference, at May 22nd, 2013, organized by NetCraft.

Human Computer Interaction course certificate

a few weeks ago I "graduated" an online course under the topic Human Computer Interactions by the great Scott Klemmer. i truly recommend this course to anyone developing applications in the modern age.

Bare Knuckles: boxing motion capture game

Bare Knuckles is one of the first game titles of Omek Interactive. It is a classic ring boxing game, only each character has a special twitch. 

Choose your avatar: "D for Dragon" who can blow fire, "the Blob" could swallow his opponent and "Bruce le Sharque" who uses his dead alligator for powerful smacks.

I was one of the two game designers of this title.

created at: 2010


team:
+Eli Elhadad
+Yaron Yanai
+Yinon Oshrat
+Barak Segal
+Bar S
+Amir Rosenberger
+Noam Gat
Edna Nuama

Lecture: Similarities between game design and instructional design

On July 10th 2012, I gave a lecture about the similarities between designing a game and designing a lesson in classroom, at one of the biggest educational conferences in Israel: IUCEL Meital.

the lecture strove to show that educational and instructional design could learn from game design at how to tangle the users into the web of curiosity, challenge and fun.
I talked about 9 main design principals in the game design theory that can be used also in instructional design:

1. the player as the Messiah. let the user feel that without him the session cannot be over. if the user will not make the right move, nothing will happen. make sure you put it all into a good story.
2. rules. setup rules for the game/ lesson. only when you have rules, the users will try and break them. without rules, they will try and break the teacher... 
3. feeling of control. let the user feel they are in control, but actually you should control all the possible routes and choices they could make.
4. immediate feedback. give feedback as fast as you can, as precise as possible.
5. goals. setup big goals and smaller goals to keep the users on track.
6. balance the amount of content. no content is boring. too much content confuse.
7. balance the challenge and the ability. don't be afraid to challenge your users, just make sure they feel competent to the task. 
8. develop the feeling of success. make sure your users succeed. after a hard task, give an easy one.
9. reflection. always assist the user to reflect their performance.

my presentation for download (hebrew).
all other lectures' from the conference can be downloaded as well (hebrew). 

Adventure Park: motion capture video game

Evil Master has taken over the famous adventure park and the Dragon family come to the rescue. Evil Master has a plan to capture the family of heroes in order to be able to take over the world!

Play the family heroes in six different levels, from entering the park, capturing the huge evil Mage and fighting Evil Master. six different gameplays, combining: boxing, magics (fireball, shield, etc), sliding on rails and more.

The game is now available as a part of a new Chinese TV and game console, called CT510, from Eedoo, a publisher from Lenovo.

created at: 2009-2011


team:
+Eli Elhadad
+Yaron Yanai
+Yinon Oshrat
+Barak Segal
+Bar S
+Amir Rosenberger
+Noam Gat
Edna Nuama
and the rest of Omek Interactive

Galactic Surfers: motion capture game

concept: motion capture based video game. created by the Omek Interactive studios where I work as a game designer and level designer.

released at: 2011

team:
+Eli Elhadad
+Yaron Yanai
+Yinon Oshrat
+Barak Segal
+Bar S
+Amir Rosenberger
+Noam Gat
Edna Nuama

and the rest of Omek's team

Lecture: Challenges in Designing a Menu System with Depth Sensor Technology

on February 22nd, in a conference meetup of the Israeli User Experience group, I gave a talk about designing a menu with the depth sensor techonology.

here's the abstract:

Touch-less technologies, such as augmented reality, depth camera sensor and voice recognition, are entering our lives. They confront user experience designers with the challenge to invent new interface and control scheme to allow users to interact with a simple menu system and select items.

This lecture would analyze the menu system and its UX guidelines; then we would describe the properties of the depth sensor and emphasis the challenges around it. Possible solutions would be offered and demonstrated.

Omek Interactive Studios create games and applications with the power of depth motion sensors. It has  deals with Intel, Lenovo, Panasonic and more market leaders.

here is the presentation of the lecture

The Drawer - Short film

Short movie based on the Matrix's Plot. Only with socks.
Miko the sock tries to figure out what is the Drawer. Termious the sock shows him.
Like any other good student film, someone dies in the end...

In hebrew but can be partly understood with watching only.

concept by: Sarit Hayat, Ori Grundshtein, Hila Amit and myself
created at: January 2007

Green-Fields, Instructional Short Movie

concept: short, funny & instructive movie that explains how to use the new free fitness facilities scattered all over Israel by Green-Fields.
the script, filming, editing and lighting was made by Sarit Hayat, Ori Grundshtein, hila Amit and Myself. Green-Fields company has no hand in the making of the movie.

created at: January, 2007

"Living in the Holy Land", Educational Video Game

concept:
making the learning the bible more fun by playing the history of the biblical stories instead of reading it in the classroom. the game is a role play adventure game, where the student is playing characters from the biblical story and face the same problems and issues they needed to face. Living in the Holy Land is rich in full 3D graphics, similar quality to AAA known video games, in order to allow the student see every small detail in the biblical world. the game stages are parallel to bible chapters, in order to be easily adapted into the school's curriculum. learning the story is not the only thing the game teaches. a more thorough paper will be translated into English soon.

created at: February 2009 (project in process)

Augmented Reality Business Card - your portfolio inside your card!

Concept:

Have your business card present extra information about yourself to complete the picture about who you are and what can you do.

Use-cases:

- Real-time portfolio: show-off with your previous work.

- Show yourself and your agenda: record yourself on video or sound.

- Stay connected: link to your websites and social networks.

What can you do with your card:

- Add many types of media: video, photo, sound, Swf animation. In the future you could add 3D objects.

- Define the way your users will interact with the card. See all available options below.

- Each media can have one web link.

- Spread and embed the application wherever you want.

See it in action:

1. Print one or more of my business cards. each presents different example of design and interaction.

2. Scroll down to the application, and allow it to access your camera. Connect a webcam if you don't have any.

4. Hold one card in front of the camera.
5. Watch and interact with the content: videos, images, SWFs and sounds.

if you wish to have a card of your own- please contact me on:
shachar . oz @ gmail . com

created at: 2009

Simple Jigsaw Pazel Maker in Flash

concept: a simple jigsaw pazel maker. the only thinng left to do is to add the pazel pieces into the right place. an FLA file will be uploaded soon (as soon as i finish the usage instructions).

created at: 11 June 2008

how to create multiple choice question in Adobe Flash- guiding movie

concept: there are many guide movies about Flash in english but a few in hebrew. this movie takes the user, hand-in-hand, through all the steps they need to make in order to have a multiple choice question. it is ment to remind an instructional technology developers this issue.

created at: March 2008

program: viewlet builder

100% for me- short movie (in hebrew)

5 min movie

will be added soon

here is the script of the film (in hebrew)

created at: January 2007

created with: Yaniv Aroch, Roni Rozin

"mankind is the virus of the world"

the idea that the mankind is setting the grave for itself is well-known.
here are some pieces of work we made using photoshop editing and photography to present this idea.

created with: Yael Kaftory

created at: February, 2007

De Click Game: learn spelling

concept: the main goal is to teach young kids (ages 3-6) how to spell. it tries to use a simple menus and fun gameplay in order to attract players and motivate them. the player has to click the letters in the name of the animal presented to him and reach a specific number of total clicks. reaching that number will stop the score from dropping, and setting it to the player's score. 

the gameplay was inspired by the "click the spacebar game".  

created at: January 2008

MusiKritical: combine music and food

Concept:

an interaction design project that deals with the connection of food and music and tries to combine the two. the music changes itself automatically in direct connection with the food served. moving the salt and pepper changes the volume. 

How this works:

this works with the RFID technology using a Flash platform and Phidgets chips. the project was created during the course IDHO 2008 (interaction design hands on!) at Holon Institute of Technology, Israel. 

here's a link to the IDHO 2008 course website for more similar projects. 

date: March, 2008

in cooperation with Alex Lupayev

Skype Chair

the skype chair sets a more intuitive interface with the program. just lean backwards to answer incoming calls, lift your legs to make a call and more. it is all working...

in cooperation with Eyal David

February 2008