Habit habit final paper

Final Paper | ​ Jiyeon Kang

Major Studio 1 Associate Professor. Anezka Sebek December 21, 2015

I checked the evaluation rubrics from critics and realized the overall scores of contextualization was low.

So, i thought i should rethink about the context of my project, considering critical social issues which are related to my project. For creating well-designed contexts, I need to consider cultural aspects as well as human behavior patterns. So, I contemplated about some critical problems of our current society related to my project within the context. From the critical issues, I rethought about the way of designing the user experience that creates a harmonious living system and meaningful relationships between family members by considering a new type of families and new forms of lifestyles in our current society.

The evolving technology can affect negatively on young children as they grows in this age of hyper connected era There is an example that shows how evolving technology raises monsters in society. Written by Ray Bradbury and published in 1950, “The Veldt” is a science fiction story about how the life that made out of technology have negative impact on child development when they grow up. ​ The Hadley family lives in an automated house called "The Happylife Home," equipped with machines that do everything for them from cooking meals, to clothing them, to rocking them to sleep. The two children, Peter and Wendy become fascinated with the "nursery," a virtual reality room that connects with the children telepathically to reproduce any place they imagine. ​ However, these cause serious problems such as their children ignoring their existence. George and Lydia realize that something has gone wrong, and ask a psychologist for advice, but it is too late to escape from the tragic death.

When the children grow up, they end up killing their parents because the they don’t need parents anymore. Also, this situation shows that the children have already imagined a way of killing their parents by playing simulation games. ​ This is not the fictional story anymore, the automated home technologies in the story reminded me of “Songdo Smart City” in my country, South Korea.

Home automation system of a smart home in Songdo Also, ​ Evolving simulated reality or virtual reality are enabling to bring these kinds of science fiction stories to reality. ​ In brain-computer interface simulations, each participant enters from outside, directly connecting their brain to the simulation computer. The computer transmits sensory data to the participant, reads and responds to their desires and actions in return; in this manner they interact with the simulated world and receive feedback from it. The participant may be induced by any number of possible means to forget, temporarily or otherwise, that they

are inside a virtual realm. While inside the simulation, the participant's consciousness is represented by an avatar, which can look very different from the participant's actual appearance.

It is true that there are many benefits from the evolving IoT technologies, but the story of “Veldt” predicts how technology can also cause abnormal mental states, degrading humanity especially for young children who are growing up. This ethical problems are actually occurring in our current society as well. I have also read articles about parents being killed by their own children. ​ The BBC News reported that in 2007, Daniel, a ten-year-old boy, killed his mother because his parent didn’t allow him to play the video game Halo 3. Mark, who is Daniel’s father, took the video game away from him, and put a lockbox. One month later, Daniel opened the lockbox, and took a game with his father’s 9mm handgun. Before game shot his parent, he said, “Would you guys close your eyes? I have a surprise for you.”​ While there are many benefits of modern technology, violent content on the internet is easily seen ​ by children which interrupt logical thinking. Also, children have difficulty distinguishing between right and wrong.

Their parents should better manage their children and keep them under control such as making the rules and allowing them to follow it in order to prevent disaster. Regarding these facts that technology can easily mislead young children and degrade the humanity in their early developmental ages. This shows the IoT technologies should be utilized for enhancing humanity, not degrading the human nature.

In contrast to the extremely dreadful case of automated home in “The Veldt,” I have imagined an automated home environment managed by internet of things that creates peaceful coexistence and meaningful interaction between parents and their children. It is no doubt that an automated home environment and everyday data already enabling us to provide a healthier life for our children. Based on the fact that connected things can track data in real time in everyday life, I imagined the automated water intake calculation system that is connected to a button on the fridge. To establish children’s drinking water habit, I designed this system that a child push the button to document the time whenever they drink water. Ultimately, their parents can monitor and check their children’s water consumption per day and their habit formation progress in real time. The most important part is to give children a compliment and a reward when they accomplish the amount of water intake that they promised with their parents in advance. This process will concrete a trust between parents and their kids. Because dual income households are rising today, this scenario is necessary for the new type of family and my design proposal is promising future of lifestyle in the age of Internet of Things. Even if their parents don’t usually not stay at home due to go to work, they can check their children’s water intake condition or other dietary habits at a glance after they come back home. This simple UX system allow children to follow the process easily with a joyful experience.

Demo Video: ​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7FwAEJsRaQ So, in this sketch that a child and her parent push the button together, shows a possibility to create meaningful interaction between parents and children through the user experience of the hyper-connected smart home appliances. Also, to create a playful experience for children and to give them a reward during the habit formation process, I created a toy machine that is also connected to the push button. By using this toy machine that is targeted young children, kids can easily interact with the automated home environment while they play with the toy machine. I think this can be a future smart toy for kids that is connected to Internet of Things system at home.

User Scenario

Demo Video: ​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHJUcU58Iow

Design Values: the Basics Theme What is the piece about? How does the piece present this to the audience? Through a story? Metaphor?

Model of a larger system?

Habit Habit​ is a habit building kit including a toy machine, wearable bracelets for children who are 4-6 years old to help them form healthy habits such as washing hands, brushing teeth, drinking water, eating vegetables, exercising regularly at a younger age to evoke feelings of self-efficacy, patience and self-control, while awaiting delayed gratification. They will then become aware of the importance of good life habits through a joyful experience. Most people believe that it would be difficult to build good habits and building habits is a boring job. My toy ​ Habit Habit​ toy machine will give children actual chocolates as a reward when they complete their mission for wearable band. In addition, in order to manage their children’s habit, their parents can check their progress on a website that is connected to the ​ Habit Habit​ machine.

This toy machine could be a model of a larger system of toy design that has a possibility to be mass produced. Also, the interface of the monitoring website for parents looks like a modern dashboard.

Children need to remember to push button whenever they keep the habitual behaviors. I think that they just enjoy pushing the button. They need to set a goal or mission first as their future habits, and then they will intentionally do the behavior and document their activities by pushing the button, and they will look forward to getting chocolates when the mission is completed. Their parents can monitor their children’s progress in the sets of process of building habits and give them compliments when they finish the mission. And then they will look forward to completing the mission and getting a reward. They will be aware of some healthy habits in their daily lives. The behaviors would be very simple things like brushing teeth, eating vegetables, saying hello to others and so on. I think every child deserve to get compliments from their parents even though their accomplishments are very small and trivial.

Reflection What concepts, perspectives or experiences might the player encounter during play? How are these delivered? Through story? Systems modeling? Metaphor?

They will encounter the habit habit toy machine at their everyday places especially at home. They can use the product when they keep on making healthy routines such as brushing their teethes, drinking water, doing homework at time, eating healthy vegetable and so on. Their parents can assist them depending on their ages and when they set up some a mission (a goal) for the first time.

Basically, I want the children to learn how to build some habits in their daily lives and be aware of the importance of healthy habits. Also, they learn how to have patience in the situation when the rewards are delayed. They also can develop self-efficacy (one’s belief to complete something successfully by oneself) by accomplishing habit missions along a series of process, achieving little senses of accomplishments. In a similar vein, These experiences can improve their self-control ability and sense of responsibility in early development age that effects on their entire lifetime. I hope that they are proud of themselves to succeed in achieving very simple accomplishments in ordinary lives and control themselves.

Point of view What does the user see? Through what kind of perspective? From what cultural reference point or political position?

My project will educate children to have healthy habits in daily life is important and let them have a perspective that excellence is not an act, but habit. Also, children should be aware of they need their parents’ direction and assistance when they use technologies. This is because, If they don’t acknowledge their parents’ role, it will harm the harmony of the relationship between parents and kids.

Challenge If the piece is meant to provoke or challenge: Is it critical? Speculative? Pushing the boundaries of form? If it’s something meant to accomplish a goal and solve a challenge: What kind of challenges does the piece resolve? Mental challenge? Physical challenge?

Usually, people believe that building habits is complicated and difficult way, but my ​ Habit Habit​ toy machine will allow children to form habit naturally by playing with the machine. ​ My target audience needs to know how habits are important and build healthy habits with a joyful experience. The history of this problem is started from the fact that many children have a difficulty in building good habits by themselves and don’t be aware of the importance of habits, even though early development habits are very important and have effect on a person’s entire lifetime like an idiom “old habits never die.”

In the short term, children’s mental attitude can be changed by using the habit habit toy machine.

In the long term, it can improve their physical state with repetitive daily routines like drinking enough water a day, eating healthy vegetables regularly, a healthy amount of exercise that can be helpful for their physical development.

Perception How is the piece and the information within it represented? What visual and aural styles will be used? Why?

Basically, I think this experience has to be an enjoyable activity. So, I hope they will voluntarily play with this machine whenever they want to set a mission for building healthy habits and keep on doing the habits in their daily lives at home. To motivate this internal needs, I will develop the appearance of the toy machine as the style that children prefers some certain appearances in terms of colors, design and feel. So, based on a study that proves children love smiley emoji and face, I made smiley interface of the machine and I chose pink and sky blue color schemes of toy by referring a study that shows boys usually prefer blue and girls love pink color.

Decision-making

How and where do users make decisions? How are decisions presented? Is the information space perfect or imperfect?

In my user scenario, parents will decide to buy the “Habit Habit” toy machine because they need to find a way to encourage their kids to build a good habits in daily life. This is because their children would not follow their requirement if they force them to have good habits. So, at the toy market like Toys”R”us, they will purchase the “Habit Habit” toy machine with their children.

Context Who is the audience? Where are they encountering the piece and how did they find out about it? When are they interacting with it? Why are they interacting with it?

The audiences of “Habit Habit” toy machine are both children and their parents.

The children as a target audience will be whom would range from 4 – 6 years of age. The children who are in the scope of my target audience need to build good habits in their early age through a simple user

experience and joyful activities. ​ Children will encounter the toy machine at home after their parents bought it. It will be put on their desk, and then the children will receive the direction how to use the toy machine from their parents and will be getting used to the toy. Parents will activate the toy machine first and allow their children to use the machine.

The children will do the same behaviors which is a mission they promised with their parents like drinking water during the day. They will remember they have to press the button on the bracelet after they drinking water or other missions. The combination of habitual activities and pushing button plays a role as a cue to concrete the habit loop.

Their parents will monitor their by checking the toy machine’s LED numbers at home or if they are in their workplace, they will be able to access a website, that is linked to data from the toy machine, via cell phones or laptops.

Finally, when the children and their parents are together at the end of the day, they can check the habit formation progress together and parents will give them a compliment and encourage them. The kids will end up receiving an actual reward too. Even though the reward is small, they will be proud of themselves because they wait for it and complete the daily mission. They learn having patience in the situation when the rewards are delayed. So, they have to make a decision whether they would continue to do the behaviors and they would wait for the rewards or not as well.

Emotions What emotions are you hoping to generate in your audience?

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)

Joyful, fun, playfulness - using the machine itself will be a joyful experience because kids usually enjoy pushing the button on the bracelet and see the change.

Pride, ​ Excellent​ - the children will be proud of themselves when they complete a task and receive a reward.

Efficacy - the children feel self-efficacy by experiencing goal completion continuously.

Hopeful - the children will be expecting to get a reward until they finish an entire process of activities.

Satisfied - when they complete the mission, they will get a reward and compliments and it will make them be satisfied.

Cheerful - The rewards and compliments that they will get encourage the children.

Humorous - the smiley face that consists of LED lights has a humor and wit.

Self Evaluation

a. What are the specific questions you are attempting to answer in your prototypes?

1. How can technology help children build good habits?

2. What should designers consider when designing user experience for young children?

b. What the five strengths of your project?

1. It can be a critical design piece which addresses the importance of building good habits in early childhood.

2. My project suggest the new way to educate children with an interactive toy.

3. My project can highlight parent and child relationship in the context of a new type of modern family.

4. My project shows how to gather children’s daily health data within the Internet of Things system.

5. My project has a good intention to enhance the quality of life and humanity by building good habits and parent ­ child relationship in daily life.

c. What are the five most critical issues for your project?

1. To prove that the habit formation process really works for children.

2. To set specific good habits that parents want their child to build and their children need to form.

3. To articulate the user scenario by predicting expected situations when children interact with the toy machine.

4. To specify the guidelines of the overall user flow from their parents give a direction to their children to the children follow the process.

5. To contextualize the product within the current society by considering why it is necessary for society

d. What can you do to address these issues, and to solidify the strengths?

I should collaborate with professional psychologists in behavioral psychology field in order to continue to proceed this project. Also, I have to consider children’s cognitive development as they grow as well.

Because habit formation is relatively long­term process to be proven, it need to be settle in an actual home setting where kids and parents stay. Also, to enhance the positive interaction between parents and children, I need to study the power relationship between them. There should be lots of unexpected scenario other than the ideal user scenario that I imagined. I need to set a specific guideline for users.

To specify the habit list, I interviewed some parents and got a habit list that users actually need to build.

Instead of a simple behavior like drinking water, It will be better to do other activities like cleaning their own room that their parents and children can do together.

Good Habit List (What Parents Want) 1. Brushing teeth 2. Say thank you and please 3. Organizing toys the after play 4. Washing hands after coming back home 5. Reading a book before bed 6. Eating healthy vegetable 7. Putting laundry away 8. Cleaning their own room 9. Bathroom manner 10. organizing the bedroom after getting up

Also, in order to amplify the joyful experience through the toy machine, I need to add more game­like experience.

I thought user experience should be simple in case of children in order to enable them to use the toy easily, but it might be too simple to create an engagement with the machine and get involved with the entire habit formation process.

e. Can you intuitively ask some new questions?

1. How children can artlessly interact with automated home environment the age of Internet of Things?

2. If all things become automatic at home, what will be a parents role?

3. How can I develop the joyful user experience for children with interactive play?

f. What questions need to be answered in order to create a proof of concept prototype?

1. Is it possible to document exact data from children ­ how to calculate missing data or errors?

2. How long will it take to complete to build each habit?

g. Are you on the right path or do you need to change direction, and if so, how will you do that?

I think I have been on the right path in case of design process. I have worked in progress by stepping forward to keep each stage of the process. So, I was able to complete making prototypes and research for each step. However, I think I have overlooked setting a specific user scenario and considering the context behind the project. Because there has been many changes to set the target audience, I should have changed the expected scenario of users’ behaviors earlier. For the first time, my users were adult who manage their lifestyle and have a need to build good habits for well­being with a wearable device. But, since I changed the target as a child, I should have changed a lot of user scenario in a way that their parents should assist them. But because I have overlooked the point that children don’t have a strong will to build a habit and can’t manage the process properly without their parents’ assistance, there was some missing points to contextualize this project. But at the final stage of the project, I realized that it is critical to set the parent’s role and the importance to establish the meaningful interaction between parent and child while they use this toy machine.