About me
My name's Niklas Blomqvist and I have just finished my master thesis at KTH. I have a bachelors degree in Computer Science and a master in Human-Computer Interaction. I'm currently awaiting my last results so that I can apply for my diploma.
My bachelor degree has given me a broad background in Programming and Math and during my masters I've studied courses like Interaction Design, Game Design and related areas such as Human Perception and Computer Graphics.
I have a strong interest in how to make things work flawlessly for the user in new and innovative ways. Game design is something I'm very interested in, not only because I've been a passionate gamer since I was little, but also because it is oftentimes the forefront of new and exciting ways to interact with technology.
If you scroll down you can find some of the projects I've been a part of during my time at KTH or you can read my blog for my master thesis work here.
Portfolio
Here you can find some of the work I've done during my time at KTH
Fugue
A Horror Game
Homework Planner
A schedule app for children
Trashies
The Interactive Trash Cans
Angry Asteroids
A Space Shooter
Leisure with Mobile Devices
Interaction Design 2
Computer Graphics
3 labs and a project
UniTea
Our solar system in WebGL
Home Sweet Home
A furnishing application in VR
Other projects
A collection of other projects
Contact Me
Feel free to contact me here, I would be happy to hear from you!
Other Projects
A collection of other projects I've been a part of at KTH
ICDeep 10
We worked on assignment from the Department of Oncology at the Karolinska Institutet to create a system for clinical trial eligibilty. You can find more information about the project, the report and the final prototype on the project's website below.
Netflix vs Viaplay
We conducted a comparative study to compare the usability between the video-on-demand streaming services Netflix and Viaplay. We investigated the degree of user-friendliness in the interfaces with the help of the software Morae. You can find more information in the report below.
Color Diagnosticty
In this project we investigated how color influences object recognition. You can find more information in the report below.
Home Sweet Home
A furnishing application using Virtual Reality and Voice Recognition
We created a furnishing application using Virtual Reality (VR) and Voice Recognition. In the early stages of the project we looked into how to scan your own home easily into the application using for example a Kinect but we didn't have enough time to look into this in depth. The idea of the application is to re-furnish your current home or designed homes you'd like to move into. Using VR you walk around in the house and furnish things exactly the way you want AND you get first hand impression of the outcome. Voice recognition is used as a secondary modality so you can look at, for example, a sofa and say "Change the color of that to red" or "Look up other models".
We used a keyboard as the walking controller but given more time that would have been adapted to a hand-held controller. The video demo shows how this application could work but keep in mind that the project was still in a prototyping-phase in the end.
In hindsight, we should have put more emphasis on making a great video demo in good quality which shows all the features of the application but as almost always, we were stressed for time.
UniTea
WebGL Visualization of the Universe
In this project we worked as a large team on a WebGL visualization of the universe. We got the assignment from the company SCISS who we worked closely with during the course of several months.
Below is a demo of the project that works directly in your browser. Keep in mind that WebGL needs to be activated in your browser. If you are having problems, try Firefox.
Computer Graphics
3 labs and a project related to computer graphics
This course consisted of three labs where we got to create computer graphics in C++ using GLM and SDL. We also did a project where we improved the last lab assignment, implementing it in OpenGL instead.
This is a video demo of the project in OpenGL.
Leisure with Mobile Devices
4 projects related to leisure with mobile devices
The course Interaction Design 2 was divided into four projects with different focuses; Explorative Design, Responsible Design, Commercial Design and Discursive Design. The theme of the year was "Leisure with Mobile Devices" which meant that all our projects had to have something to do with that. Each project had different end goals. For example, in the first project, Explorative Design, we were to create three posters of three individually different ideas in relation to explorative design. Each project lasted about four weeks (part time) and we had weekly iterations where we gathered feedback and presented our findings in class.
Explorative Design
Shaker
The most interesting aspect of this design concept is that it is simple but still elegant. We believe there’s a huge need for these types of “leisure”-apps where you make it very easy for the user to explore something new. The name "Shaker" comes from the fact that you can shake the mobile to disregard the profile you have and explore something completely random.
This idea already exists as a web applications in various forms but we haven’t seen it in an app format - which we believe is much more suitable for this type of need. Along with the assumption that having it in an app format would better meet the need together with a simple and elegant design, we believe people would use this if the idea is designed and executed well.
The biggest challenge to make this app work well is to create the algorithm that can learn what you like and don’t like. To implement this app, you would need to do a lot of back-end programming.
DRNK
The most interesting aspect of the DRNK concept is that it is a social game. We wanted the users to talk to each other instead of staring at the screen for the entire game. We acocmplish that by having a “setup section” of the app where all users write and answers all questions that will be used during the entire game. After that, the game is ready and only one person at a time need to use their phone. DRNK is inspired and a mix between fun drinking games like “Spin the bottle” and “Have you ever..”.
One of the biggest challenges to make this design work is to get people to understand the game rules. The app itself is pretty straight forward, but if you do not know the main rules of the game before starting you may misunderstand how to play the game. Each game is played with people sitting next to each other, preferably at a table in a bar, and that makes it easy to start playing because you do not have to wait for other players to join the game like you would have to do with an online multiplayer game.
Picspiration
Everyone has a smartphone today, and with it, a camera. A lot of apps utilizes this function; snapchat, instagram etc. A problem with these, according to us, is that there’s a lot of the same photos - selfies, food, babies. We try to diversify that, to help people come up with new things to photograph, in an interesting and fun way. We believe those already using services like instagram and snapchat would really like this idea and that people that doesn’t use these services might actually use the app as well.
The challenge when executing this idea and creating this app is to reach people, how to promote it. But also about how to design the usability. If the app is designed well, we think people would absolutely use this. By having a system of sharing with both the whole community and with friends we think much of the promotion would be word of mouth marketing where someone starts using it and then tells his or her friends about it.
By having a rating system and a fun way to take pictures you can compete with your friends or the community and collect upvotes which is a popular means of incentive to use this app.
Responsible Design
The goal of this project was to create a prototype and a paper in regard to responsible design. Responsible design focuses not on being commercially viable but rather designing for people. We chose to go with the route of helping the environment by getting people to pay interest in the things around us.
EcoCatcher
A mobile app that takes your photos of plants and animals and uses image recognition as a search method. You "catch" things by capturing them on photo and will then get points depending on what you've caught. The content is created by users and monitored by users and the higher your rank, the more responsibility you are given in the app.
We believe that the more you know and the more you acknowledge your surroundings, the more you care about it
You can find the paper and read more about it here.
Commercial Design
The goal of this project was to create a prototype but also a brochure. The focus was commercial design and therefore we needed to think about actually getting this app on the market and making money from it
Moviefindr
Today we have a huge number of movies available to us. Only the service Netflix has over 60 million subscribers. But how do we decide what to watch when there's almost and endless supply of movies?
Well, you use Moviefindr!
The app utilizes The Movie Database's API to give you personlized suggestions for movies to watch. After you are given a suggestion you want to watch it tells you where you can see the movie.
Below you find the contents of the brochure created for this idea.
Discursive Design
Discursive Design is about starting a discussion about design. Why are we doing things the way we do? Why do we design in this specific way?
We created a video of "Skype 2.0" to question the way microtransactions in game development is the norm way of creating mobile games and how the focus has changed from creating really fun and interesting games to making the most money out of them.
Skype 2.0
Shaker, DRNK & Picsprication
3 alternative inspirational design concepts presented as posters
The most interesting aspect of this design concept is that it is simple but still elegant. We believe there’s a huge need for these types of “leisure”-apps where you make it very easy for the user to explore something new. The whole idea is centered around this but it is named “Shaker” - as though people would shake it to use it. This idea is just to get a memorable feeling of the app but maybe won’t be used as much as the name suggests.
This idea already exists as a web application in various forms but we haven’t seen it in an app format - which we believe is much more suitable for this type of need. Along with the assumption that having it in an app format would better meet the need together with a simple and elegant design, we believe people would use this if the idea is designed and executed well.
The biggest challenge to make this app work well is to create the algorithm that can learn what you like and don’t like. To implement this app, you would need to do a lot of back-end programming.
The most interesting aspect of the DRNK concept is that it is a social game. We wanted the users to talk to each other instead of staring at the screen for the entire game. We acoplish that by having a “setup section” of the app where all users write and answers all questions that will be used during the entire game. After that the game is ready and only one person at a time need to use their phone. DRNK is also a mix of a lot of different fun drinking games like “Spin the bottle” and “Have you ever..”, that makes the app a lot of fun for everyone that like these games.
One of the biggest challenges to make this design work is to get people to understand the game rules. The app itself is pretty straight forward, but if you do not know the main rules of the game before starting you may misunderstand how to play the game. Each game is played with people sitting next to each other, preferably at a table in a bar, and that makes it easy to start playing because you do not have to wait for other players to join the game like you would have to do with a online multiplayer game.
There is really no technical problems that would make the app hard to develop because there is no new untested technology involved.
Everyone has a smartphone today, and with it a camera. A lot of apps utilizes this function; snapchat, instagram etc. A problem with these, according to us, is that there’s a lot of the same photos - selfies, food, babies. We try to diversify that, to help people come up with new things to photograph, in an interesting and fun way. We believe those already using services like instagram and snapchat would really like this idea and that people that doesn’t use these services might actually use our app.
Another thing we thought about when coming up with the idea is the trends like planking that became extremely popular a while ago. This can be something that happens with the help of this app as long as the right theme is presented.
The challenge when executing this idea and creating this app is to reach people, how to promote but it is also about how to design the usability. If the app is designed well, we think people would absolutely use this. By having a system of sharing with both the whole community and with friends we think much of the promotion would be word of mouth marketing where someone starts using it and then tells his or her friends about it.
By having a rating system and a fun way to take pictures you can compete with your friends or the community and collect upvotes which is a popular means of incentive to use this app.
Another challenge is to keep this app fun in the long-run because people might get bored of the idea of taking photos of specific things everyday. Adding new functionality and new aspects to the app could be needed to help it stay alive.
About the project
In this project we had weekly iterations where we presented ideas to class, were given feedback which resulted in updates to our designs. After our ideas were finalized we created ideas of posters for them. At this stage we split up and I created the Shaker-poster while Richard created the DRNK- and Picspiration-poster. We gave eachother feedback and presented the posters and updated the posters one last time. If we were to implement any of our ideas, we would implement the DRNK app. It feels like a fun app that we can see ourselves using. It wouldn't be that hard to implement either.
The posters were created using Photoshop.
EcoCatcher
Responsible design is about adressing issues that are otherwise neglected by the commercal market. In this project we created a prototype and wrote a paper discussing the design
The app
A mobile app that works a little bit like wikipedia but you take photos and use image recognition as a search method intended for animal and plants. You "catch" things by capturing them on photo and will then get points depending on what you caught. The content is created by users and monitored by users. A higher rank gives you more responsibility.
We believe that the more you know and the more you acknowledge your surrounding the more you care about it.
You can find the paper and read more about it here.
About the project
This project can be divided into three parts. The first being the sketching phase where we brainstormed ideas and created sketches of designs. The second was the first iteration of the prototype and the third part was to finalize the design. We worked closely together throguhout the project but divided ourselves when we gathered feedback from sources outside the class. We also had weekly presentations where we exposed our design and got feedback from our fellow interaction designers. We divided ourselves when working on the prototype and took turns working on it but upheld a continuous conversation about it so we would be on the same level. We finalized the prototype together.
Something to take from this project is that as an interaction designer you have a responsibility for the people you design for. It's a good idea that from time to time, to focus on issues that are otherwise ignored by the market. Instead of trying to make as much money as possible, you design with the main purpose of helping people.
The prototype was created using Axure RP.
Moviefindr
An app that helps you find what movie to watch
Today we have a huge number of movies available to us. Only the service Netflix has over 60 million subscribers. But how do we decide what to watch when there's almost and endless supply of movies?
Well, you use Moviefindr!
The app utilizes The Movie Database's API to give you personlized suggestions for movies to watch. After you are given a suggestion you want to watch it tells you where you can see the movie.
Below you find the contents of the brochure created for this idea.
About the project
Me and Marcus created the prototype together. He did the video demo of the prototype and I created the brochure. It was fun to focus on the commercial aspects in this project. We focused on creating an app that is self-reliant, by utlizing already existing API's and websites, most of the work creating the app is to put together a nice looking layout and implementing the algorithm for providing movie suggestions - one we already figured out how it should work. By lowering the development time and by tapping into an exisiting target group (people watching movies through services like Netflix) we try to lower the risk.
The prototype was created using Invision and Photoshop.
Skype 2.0
A mobile app to trigger discussion and reflection regarding the norm way of developing mobile games
About the project
We started brainstorming ideas together and we discussed how mobile games development is focusing a lot on microtransactions and how that can cause problems for the game itself. I created a working prototype and then we created a video script and started filming. Shuo edited the video together. It was really hard to create a nice video that would cause discussion and be provocative but it was an educative experience.
The prototype was created with Justinmind
Fugue
A Horror Game
This horror themed game is inspired by games such as The Stanley Parable, Amnesia and Silent Hill P.T. You start of exploring the house you're stuck in and try to figure out what's going on. You can affect what's going to happened and depending on what you choose you can finish the game in three different ways. It's a shorter demo and a playthrough takes a few minutes. The idea for the finished product is several mini-horror-stories where each takes about 30 mintues per playthrough with a great replayability. One of the mini-stories would be free for everyone to play, sort of like a demo, but the rest would come with a smaller price tag.
Go to Fugue's website.
Download the game here.
We used Unity, Photoshop and Git for this project
Homework Planner
A mobile application helping children plan their school week
Homework planner is an app intended for children to help them plan their school week. The teacher creates the school schedule and deadlines and the children can then drag-and-drop homework-sessions when they will study. Their parents can oversee the schedule as well so they can help but also to get insight in what their children needs to do in school - because often, parents have no clue about this.
This is a screencast of an earlier version of the mobile application.
The app was developed using Android Studio, Photoshop and GitHub.
Trashies
The interactive trash cans
During this project, we worked with and developed “Trashies”, which is an interactive trash can pair that can talk and make expressions with their eyes. From the beginning we were talking a lot about an interactive park with several different interactive elements and a mind of it’s own. After some feedback and discussions, we minimized the project and focused on one element in the park, the trash can. We got the idea from “The World’s Deepest Trash Bin” where they add sound to a trash can in Stockholm to make it more fun to throw trash. It felt like an awesome idea to give people a fun experience while at the same time having a hidden purpose, namely to make the park more clean.
Early on we created a moodboard to get us on the right path
We created an interactive interface in HTML, CSS and jQuery to gather feedback on what the trash can pair should say and how the interaction between them and the user would be like.
This is a 3D-printed physical prototype created in Google SketchUp.
This was our first physical prototype.
Angry Asteroids
A Space Shooter
This was probably my first project at KTH. In our first programming course we were tasked to create some sort of game in Java. We decided to go for a space shooter inspired by the old games and out came Angry Asteroids. The idea is to shoot asteroids from your space ship and survive as long as possible. We created everything ourselves, from the gameplay itself to the models and sound.
You can download the game here.
You need to have Java installed on your computer for this to work.
The game was created using MSPaint, Eclipse, Java and Slick2D