Color Me Surprised is an experience designed by lsh & tli in which users describes the world around them by tapping to sample the color of that location.
This project explores the ways which we discover the world around us, and how information is stored digitally about our surroundings. Through tapping the screen, one begins to catalog or tag their surroundings, building up to eventually describe objects by color. Very early on, we knew we would want to use the massive color api to express the world around us, but decisions about representation and interaction where what drove this project forward. We originally attempted to use OpenCV to reduce the image and constantly describe everything the camera would see, but even on a laptop, the performance was awful, let alone on an iPhone. Another decision was whether or not to include the world that is being tagged. The decision rests on the idea of the interaction being an emergent experience versus a descriptive tool. Lastly, we had a series of struggles with Unity and Xcode, which are still being ironed out. I would say this project is successful in that it creates a novel experience.