Change of Plans
I have begun working on my thesis again, but this time as an online student. My career path has also shifted rather drastically over the last year, as I've found a stronger passion for interface design, considering human experience primarily. This being said, my thesis topic has also changed and I am effectively started from the beginning. The difference is that my timetable is virtually halved, as I am in Studio II now, and my 45 hour review is within the next 8 weeks.
My topic is now Three-Dimensional Material Design, pulling from human factors theory, psychology, and Google's Material Design documentation. Material Design is a fascinating topic, as it is effectively a blueprint for designing two-dimensional applications, websites, or software. The limitations come from treating the "z-axis" as a single point in the three-dimensional space, which could be because interactions from the user are on a two-dimensional plane when interacting with applications, websites, and general desktop software. The playing field changes in game software and virtual reality environments, where the user can interact in a three-dimensional scope. My thesis will be primarily experiments, determining whether Google's Material Design holds fundamentally sound in a three-dimensional space, and if users are able to properly maneuver through these three-dimensional interfaces.
My thesis statement is still under great flux, but the current statement is:
Utilizing Interface Material Design and Human Factors theory, we can create more engaging user interfaces for three-dimensional games and applications.
Below is the timetable I am currently functioning off of, as I plan to complete my 45 hour review in the coming weeks, and use the Summer months to bolster and conduct many of the prototype work and user testing.
Links are for reference, will be creating academic sources out of them in the future.
Current Sources
https://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=80&q=3D+user+material+interface+design&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C1
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr&id=A8TPF_O385AC&oi=fnd&pg=PA355&dq=3D+user+material+interface+design&ots=flXJiShP1g&sig=m0lIwlc6YN_l526t4rbu-a5vQkY#v=onepage&q=3D%20user%20material%20interface%20design&f=false
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp&arnumber=601270&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D601270
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=191652
http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/cg/2008/06/mcg2008060020-abs.html
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr&id=JYzmCkf7yNcC&oi=fnd&pg=PT15&dq=3D+user+material+interface+design&ots=aLaTfc7UhW&sig=7CgWNjAmGBwBi7R1QlWQXf1imYA#v=onepage&q=3D%20user%20material%20interface%20design&f=false
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1979575
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr&id=RC9faRWAqTkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA2&dq=user+interface+design&ots=BuuUbtJmSj&sig=9iUv7ZruAjyAXWGyi16-aKYlKqE#v=onepage&q=user%20interface%20design&f=false
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/105474601750182342#.Vv1OLkf5_c5
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01449290500331156
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr&id=0s3el8sDjHsC&oi=fnd&pg=PR6&dq=human+factors+and+games&ots=jEBPiYUShu&sig=cImlRJM-BwQcaxSyXCqmTEv6ItU#v=onepage&q=human%20factors%20and%20games&f=false
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1071581999903257