Created for SparkJam, a design jam for students from all around the Vancouver area, Current was made following the prompt of "Digitize the Past". For this, we researched old methods of interpreting time, looking for ways in which they could benefit us today.

Through our research we discovered event-based time, a way of planning where tasks are planned to happen before or after external happenings, not times on a clock.

People who plan their day by the hour often spend a lot of time watching the clock, thinking about how much time they have left rather than focusing on the task at hand. On the other hand, many people naturally think in a way that is similar to event-based time, intuitively choosing when to switch tasks, but available planners don't support this way of thinking. Current was built to address this, offering a new way of planning tasks without the pressure of a clock.

Working as a duo for the event, this project was made entirely by myself and Max Chen in about 10 days. We collaborated on the concept, research, and interface/interaction ideation for the first week of the event. For the last 3 days we split our tasks, where I worked on the pitch video and Max finalized interface screens and wrote our process document.

The days spent working on the video were rewarded, with our team winning the Best Motion Design Award for this project. While the motion design was a big focus for me, I learned the most through the challenges we had in our interface and interaction design.

Working within a different idea of time was not easy, as we had to balance conflicting ideas. As a more flexible and hopefully intuitive planner, it was difficult for us to create a system that was simple and easy to understand, while also trying to include all the functionality that was necessary. This took a lot of planning and careful interaction design to get right, with us often needing to stop and return to our research to understand what would best align with our goals.