Future Experiences
Gabriele Stonciute Product Design Department Glasgow School of Art 2018
Contents Brief Introduction
03 04
Part I STEP Research Directions Workshop I: Exploring Futures Workshop II: Value Preposition Materialisation Final Concept Studio Presentation Addressing Feedback Final Exhibit Reflection
06 08 10 14 18 22 26 28 30 32 34
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Part II Desk Research Directions Initial Opportunities Workshop I Design Direction Service Model Key Aspects Design Criteria Concept Moodboards Design Language The Role of AI Further Research Prototyping Sensum emotus Co-designing Home Artefact Stakeholder Map Features of Interaction Summary Reflection
36 38 44 46 48 50 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 74 74 82 84 86 88 90 100
The brief of Future Experiences project asked us to consider what happens to us in a future technological landscape ten years from now, where ML has evolved to the extent that new forms of work transform how we interact with each other and the world around us. This project gives the opportunity to reflect on the underlying complexities regarding the future of work, technological acceleration, post-capitalism and human agency, to envision a future world context, develop it as an experiential exhibit, and produce the designed products, services and experiences for the people who might live and work within it. In Part I we were allowed to work in a group and in Part II the project was continued individually.
Core Staff: Kirsty Ross Mil Stricevic Janet Kelly Lorenz Herfurth
The reflections through my process are marked by grey background.
Introduction
AI, ML and the future of work When it comes to describing the purpose of humanity, more and more often or probably even since the Industrial Revolution, work is identified as one of the key factors. Does meaningful work makes our lives meaningful too? Yet what happens if your work is taken away from you? Is it a revelation or destruction? These and many more questions are vital to answer when it comes to analysing and judging how AI and, especially, ML will reshape our world.
Future Experiences
In 1951 Alan Turing designed a machine which is now considered a first archetype of a modern computer and also raised some questions which are significant to the development of the technology nowadays.
“I propose to consider a question - Can machines think?� Alan Turing
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Theme
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Healthcare and well-being For the Part I of the project I was assigned to work with Murray and Stephen. Together we decided to look into the future of healthcare and well-being. Stephen was mostly interested in social care especially when it comes to certain conditions like dementia, I was mostly interested in mental health and Murray was interested in the technology around health system.
Future Experiences
STEP Research
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STEP Cards Technology and infrastructure Can technology merge to our everyday in a way that healthcare system would ‘take care’ of society without us noticing?
After the project introduction we started our initial desk research. We have started our group research very broadly by looking into current trends and future prospects and developed STEP cards.
Can technology completely re-frame the infrastructure of healthcare system? Would it allow doctors to be more efficient and cut the expenses of service delivery? How would these changes influence the doctor and patient relationship?
How smart technology is able to provide full monitoring of your health? Would the patient be comfortable with it and trust it? How would relationship with your own health change? Future Experiences
What if health monitoring technologies would become more accessible for everyone? Health monitoring is revolutionising our personal healthcare - but is it just for chosen ones? There is a great variety of health monitoring gadgets able to measure HR, ECG data, blood oxygen, respiration rate, skin temperature and etc. However, most of them are expensive.
Directions
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Grouping cards into themes All of us in a group had similar insights yet Stephen looked more into gene analysis and technology being able to predict certain disease. This again highlighted that the main aim of healthcare is shifting towards prevention rather than curing. Murray had some great insights into data role of health system management and what potential and threats it might bring. Most importantly these insights proved that role of data is seriously influencing the delivery and management of healthcare system.
STEP cards generated by my group
KEY THEMES:
Care and Technology Changes in Infrastructure Data Ownership + Personalisation Highlight on Mental Health Prevention is the future Monitoring Future Experiences
Directions
What is the new value of healthcare system? How trust influence the relationships between patient, professional and technology? Future Experiences
How does technological advancements increase the value of healthcare system? Does the value affect the accessibility? Is the value the same for a patient and the healthcare professionals? How could technology increase the trust between the patients and the professionals? How can the healthcare system be more honest and always aim for the society to trust it? How does technology affect that?
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Workshop I
Workshop I/ Exploring various futures By Santini Basra, studio AndThen
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high trust of public
Methods low budget of service
high budget of service
During the workshop with Santini we decided to explore the value of healthcare and levels of trust further. In one of the tasks we envisioned four different futures based on the importance of two features that we selected. For the key values of our societies we chose trustworthiness of the public and the budget of the healthcare.
Four maps produced during the Future workshop with Santini Future Experiences
low trust of public
Workshop I
Stakeholder map For the second task of the workshop we were asked to choose one future of the four we created and develop it further. We made stakeholder map and a timeline how do we get to the future we are making from 2017 to 2027. We chose the future which would have very trustworthy society and very high budget of healthcare. We suggested that at the end healthcare system would most likely get privatised. This decision to explore privatisation of healthcare system was mostly influenced by taking into account the health insurance situation in America and rising popularity of BUPA in UK. Timeline below - from current healthcare system to privatised healthcare system in 2027.
(Top) Speculative newspaper articles produced during the workshop by Murray. Google becomes largest conglomerate
Tory Government wins election
Mass privatisation of NHS
Huge job loses
Cultural shift increased trust in AI
Brexit
NOW
Google becomes biggest employer
NHS funding cut
Google perfects AI
NHS sold to Google
Data mining advances Google develops advanced robotics
Future Experiences
Google-Care introduced
Universal access to service
People give up privacy gladly
Data becomes part of the currency
Life expectancy rises above 100 years
Google has data on majority of population
Majority of self care is self-administrated Free healthcare plan with health monitoring devices for employers
All surgeries done by robots
Financial benefits for providing data
All doctors have AI assistants
Google-Care THEN cures death Genetic diseases eliminated by Genetic Design
Google-Care cures cancer
Workshop II
Workshop II/ Materialising the future
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By Brian Proudfoot, studio GOODD
trust knowledge transparency ownership personalised
Methods Brian introduced us to some techniques in order to explore our future worlds through tactile physical representations and finally create an informative and engaging exhibit.
Our approach The I task asked us to produce a value preposition around the main value of our future. We chose trust, because that was the theme that mostly related to our STEP research and seemed to be mostly relevant to the future of healthcare we were exploring. Future Experiences
Making of our value preposition
Workshop II
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My sketches of materialisation
Briefly mapping a patient going to see his GP
Key Moment
Key Aspects
Materialising
II task asked us to identify one or more key moments and to map it in detail. We chose a simple interaction - patient going to see the GP. By speculating our main idea of having all your health data with you and AI - data manager - being able to share, update, explain, record that data instantly the value of AI application in this interaction was obvious. Therefore we decided to follow this ideas.
1. The role of data - personal and precious Access, visibility, transparency of the data -> Health data as tangible artefacts?
For the III task I suggested the idea to visualise the importance and accessibility of your health data in relation to a personal, trustworthy artefact. We considered many ideas starting with favourite warm sweater and more abstract visualisations. However, we decided to avoid metaphoric approach and chose more familiar materialisation.
Future Experiences
2. AI - your health data manager AI - trustworthy system -> Based in domestic environment? Home artefact?
I have designed the cards in a very clear and straightforward visual language. To be time efficient I chose icons as an expression of different categories. This wasn’t ideal, but did the job.
III task - discussing our artefact
Materialisation
Final artefact Our final artefact illustrated health data in the form of set of cards. User could take needed cards with them whenever wanted or when visiting a doctor. By placing Health cards together with ID or Bank cards we suggested the equal importance of health, financial and personal data. Also by putting all these cards in a wallet - very personal belonging - we again highlighted the importance of health data. Due to time constraints we didn’t
refine our AI representation and chose a simple black stand. However, we presented it with an idea of it being placed in the domestic environment to trigger the idea of trust through familiarity. Furthermore, the role of AI is to be the manager of your health data, however, by making cards tangible we highlight full ownership over data by the user.
Final artefact we presented to Brian
Final Artefact
Research questions and project ‘Method Money’ by Method
Peer review
Inspiration
Having a peer review with Education group was really useful as they highlighted that we managed to convey our ideas well yet gave some good advice as well - to improve the visual language and elaborate data categories that we’ve chosen.
During the feedback of our artefact, Kirsty suggested to look into the project by Method ‘Method Money’. I really liked the way they defined their research - by asking three major questions. Feeling that it would be an efficient way to narrow down our speculative research as well, I suggested three questions:
1. If you had full ownership over your health data would you feel more responsible over your health? 2. If AI could manage data for you, what would make you trust AI with it? Would it have personality to become your personal data manager? 3. If AI ability to manage data eliminates mundane tasks of healthcare professionals, would the system be able to reallocate human resources to emotional support?
Future Experiences
Final Concept
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Being left a bit confused after the workshop with Santini, in week II we got back some clarity over our concept and, most importantly, to what directions we can take it. The artefact we designed in Brian’s workshop generated some great discussions with our peers and tutors. I felt like we should celebrate it and elaborate our concept even further possibly speculating even more on the relationship between the user and AI data manager, for instance, by introducing personalisation of AI. However, this was one-sided effort and we stayed on developing same ideas we had so far.
Patient centred system - your personal token activates it
Colours emphasise highly data powered system
Healthcare Specialists working in Diagnosis Sector are highly specialised in a certain area. They all work in tandem with AI and are Healthcare Professionals Analysts
Future Experiences
AI - your health data manager, recording all the data from monitoring devices, passing it between your doctor and you
Due to automation, most of human resources are reallocated towards Patient Support. Therefore, there is much more highlight to people’s emotional health and well-being.
Studio Presentation
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AI system - your health data manager
Color system highlights a data powered system
Due to automation of mundane tasks human resources are reallocated to Patient Support.
Staff profiles representing Extreme Specialisation of Healthcare professionals
Exhibit presented to studio staff Future Experiences
From my perspective, we were satisfied with the resolution of our exhibit. We wanted to present a cohesive visual language - quite simplistic yet and at the same time creating an intrigue.
Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to present it properly, so we didn’t establish to context of our future world therefore our ideas were a bit vague for others.
Feedack Q1: What are the drive for this insight/direction and innovation? Q2: Design has developed quite a lot - where at?
Addressing Feedback
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In order to address the feedback given after the first presentation of the feedback, we decided to establish strong context of our world and portray it better. Also, we slightly changed the visual language and the name as PHS associated too much with NHS therefore Connected Health much more related to the ideas we wanted to present with our future healthcare system.
Funding for healthfor health Funding services services increasedincreased People’s People’s health is health is announced a global a global announced issue issue
UN for UN for Healthcare Healthcare conference conference Digitalisation of all Digitalisation of all medical records medical records
2019 2019
NOW NOW
Due to poor Due diet to poor diet levels of levels obesity, ofheart obesity, heart disease and diabetes Rising pollution disease and diabetes Rising pollution rise drastically levels seriously rise drastically levels seriously affect people’s affect people’s health health
Updated timeline and mock-ups of the posters at the top. Future Experiences
2022 2022
Fire in one Fireofinthe one of the biggest record biggeststorrecord storage destroys age destroys everything everything
UN invest in invest in UN developing an developing an independent AI independent AI system system
Health Health Movement Movement
2025 2025
Introduction of Introduction of Connected Health Health Connected
2027 2027
THEN THEN
Good health Early trials aretrials are Good health Early becomesbecomes a trend a trend New human - right extremely Newright human extremely Health campaigns Health campaigns mortalitymortality successful successful People’s People’s health health Various AI’s related Various AI’s related aimed at aimed promoting at promoting prevention prevention significantly to healthcare are significantly to healthcare are healthy lifestyles healthy lifestyles improvesimproves put forward for put forward for gain backing gain by backing by testing testing professionals and professionals and celebrities celebrities
Final Exhibit
Final Exhibit For our final exhibit we’ve set up everything similarly as during the Studio presentation yet this time added more context which also reflected our research. During the exhibition many people showed interest, especially, the data artefacts we produced were very attention catching.
Future Experiences
Reflection
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Reflecting on the Part I, it was a great learning experience. Workshops with Brian and Santini were extremely beneficial, I believe if not them, we would not been able to produce the work we did, because it really helped to generate ideas, make decisions faster and materialise them. Input from all visitors was definitely the best part of this project. To add, I personally really enjoyed the nature of this project - being able to speculate your research was challenging but very interesting. In a group we decided to choose and develop ‘the most likely to happen’ future, which was based on our primary research, but I wish we explored and speculated a bit more. Nonetheless, I believe our final artefact is still intriguing and sparking a discussion.
Future Experiences
Introduction
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Emotional Health and Well-being
For the Part II of the project I decided to look more closely into the future of Mental Health In the Individual Part of this project I wanted to continue exploring the idea that in the future human resources will reallocated towards Patient Support sector. And most importantly, Mental Health will gain much more importance. I was intrigued to address this aspect of our Future World as from my perspective it is still a serious stigma nowadays.
The picture is a shot from a movie ‘Inside Out’ released in 2015, and it is the first animated movie for children portraying the importance of both positive and negative emotions. Future Experiences
Desk Research
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Learning from theory Starting point for my desk research was looking into the theory of Mental Health and it’s definitions. In most cases they presented very broad, relatively abstract and even confusing information. Most definitions highlighted and included emotional well-being, the capacity to live a full and creative life and flexibility to deal with life’s inevitable challenges and more. All of these aspects were part of Mental Health and the fact that mentally healthy individual should comply with all of them was seriously overwhelming.
A person’s condition with regard to their psychological, emotional and social well-being.
Other interesting insight were related to the relationship between physical and mental health. Quite often it is assumed that our physical health ‘dictates’ our well-being while in fact it is mostly mental health, so for example the reasons for having a cold could also be related to mental health issues. Similarly, it was very interesting to find out how strongly emotions affect our body physically and that most importantly mental health is a continuum thus both negative and positive aspect are completely normal and even essential.
How different emotions affect body temperature, more red - higher, more blue - lower Future Experiences
Desk Research
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Learning from social media and popular culture Stepping back to 2017 and looking into current trends, stereotypes and public engagement it was obvious that mental health is much more discussed and acknowledged publicly, especially on social media and popular culture. Mental health topics were much more widely discussed in cinema, even informally addressed in TV shows. Interestingly, mental health awareness flourished
on social media, however at the same time many would admit that it is a paradox. High exposure on social media is becoming one of the key issues in terms of mental health - for instance, people only seeing ‘good’ side of other’s life and thinking that’s how it is supposed to be all the time or experiencing emotions like regret, disappointment, not feeling fulfilled when seeing other’s ‘success’.
Instagram seemed to be one of the leading platforms for Mental Health activism. People would share their stories, spread awareness and understanding.
A scene talking about support between woman in a TV Show ‘Rick and Morty’ Future Experiences
In addition, Instagram has introduced a tool to track and offer support but it’s effectiveness has not been much discussed.
Desk Research
In regards to social media and higher level of exposure many people would share their stories or ‘coping mechanisms’ in regards to mental health. However, In many examples mental health awareness seemed to be approached in a shallow, superficial or even advertisement-like manner. Taking into account the theory of Mental Health, emotional wellbeing and our emotions seemed to be seriously overlooked especially in regards to the knowledge and understanding
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of emotions in the first place. Similarly the idea of accepting only positive feelings while ignoring, forgetting negative emotions also seemed to be preached on.
Various ‘inspirational’ images sourced from Pinterest Future Experiences
#dailymotivation #goodvibesonly #positivevibes #alwayspositive #positivemind
Directions
Directions: Communication
How do we communicate about mental health? How do we talk to someone who is identified to have issues? How do we tell someone that they should take care of their Mental Health more?
Self-Perception
How do we perceive and express ourselves in the current society? How do we express our feelings, emotions? How differently do we express positive and negative feelings?
Understanding
When do we start to learn about our emotions? How do we understand them? Do we consider them as part of our personality or just an attribute to our brain? Is the understanding of emotions personal or public matter? Future Experiences
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Initial Opportunities
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Key opportunities My desk research revealed a lot of interesting design opportunities. The idea of understanding your mental state, together with having better knowledge about emotions and overall mental hygiene, seemed to be most interesting and also significant to address. As understanding is a first step to acting if there is a need. When developing my concepts I was trying to address these key points:
How could the understanding of emotions be encouraged? In what ways people could understand their emotions better? Where, how and why?
Key opportunities which stem from my desk research and I believe would have potential in the future: Creating a different Language of Mental Health and in this way being more elaborate about it (as now it is usually referred as part of physical health) - Learning how to deal with risks in an efficient way (potentially building trust, togetherness, community, support) - Personalising mental health - Embracing the imbalance of good and bad emotions - Forming habits of mental hygiene
Aspects of different concepts that I have developed Future Experiences
Workshop 1
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Kelly
Workshop with Santini I decided to further explore the idea of understanding the intangible in the workshop led by Santini Basra from studio AndThen. From my perspective, someone who would have well developed tacit knowledge seemed to have potential to explain associations related to
Sam
La Familia
Dad, this nam e is not really funny..
When choosing which concept to follow I was seriously hesitating as I was very much interested in developing something tangible like for instance A New Language for Mental Health. Looking to our concepts from different perspective in Santini’s workshop really helped to establish a narrative, which definitely pushed me forward.
Janine
OS Suppor
t
Ella, I think Jan ine left you quite a few messages and also her Class overal produ Teacher noted ctivity today her only 5.61. Should I arrang e you meetin g her for a coff ee? It’s okay, I’ll text her mysel Me f. Could you Kelly about contact it though?
Ella, 39, Therapist and Freelance Fashion Designer Developed her own therapy through materials program Smart time management system allows to manage both professions Future Experiences
Callum
CYBER
Issue 89 December 2027
2027
Parenting Corner How to control your child in Virtual Reality?
Sensor Diet
I married a robot
Social Networks
10 Years of
Responsive Fashion
How Facebo ok reshaped ou r self image
BTC
DEC. 2027
Ella’s profile created through various material artefacts - postcard from the past - mostly used communication tool - inspiration description of what she does (CV)
Design Direction
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Direction - future of emotion therapy After Santini’s workshop I’ve decided to look into the future of therapy and the profession of the therapist which would focus on the management of emotions. In order to get more insights how emotions could be approached in different ways I did a small experiment for my research - asked strangers to visualise their emotions and associations. It gave me great insight into how each person perceives emotions differently. Also emotions were often described as part of certain physical impulses, or in contrast, as something very abstract and almost ambiguous.
Some of the cards from the experiment Future Experiences
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Therapy-counselling for teenagers
‘‘Approach towards teenager’s feelings should be informal. And therapist should be almost like a translator of teenager’s feelings.”
Having an interview with Christine, a mother of a teenager boy, made me realise that teenage-hood is definitely a period when emotion management is a challenge. Mostly because of natural hormonal reactions happening in your body, as well as your brain being able to perceive a wider spectre of emotions and more complicated feelings. Christine’s shared her experience of visiting a therapist-counsellor who would advise her how to ‘deal’ with a teenager and also how to solve and react to issues that might arise.
On the other hand, she said that this kind of counselling was useful, but she felt like it would be even better if her son was a part of it, or would even receive counselling himself. However, she believed that her son would never agree to such thing, because dealing with your mental health is a serious stigma especially when you’re a teenager. Therefore, I believed that this is a great design opportunity, especially for the future that I was designing to where Mental Health is a priority and also dealt with on a face-toface level.
Service Model
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Christine also had some great insights about the current models of therapy which are usually as follow: - Parent seeing the therapist and using counselling to ‘deal’ with the teenager; - Teenagers who are identified to have issues see therapist themselves and then the counselling is reported to parents:
Therapy provided for teenagers with issues as a treatment.
Traditional model of therapy
Traditional model of therapy Future Experiences
Mentoring is provided for every teenager who wants and is based on experimentation and exploration in order to encourage the teenager to learn about their emotional intelligence.
Potential future model of therapy
Key aspects
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What is important for a teenager? Furthermore in order to get a teenager’s perspective about counselling I conducted an interview with Ad who was getting counselling for almost a decade since he was a teenager. The key aspects that Ad highlighted was the fact that for a teenager it is very important to have ownership over their decisions. In general teenage-hood is a time when a youngster is becoming independent therefore being able to learn responsibility and reasoning for decision making
Future Experiences
is very important. Moreover, privacy should also not be taken for granted. Parents should put effort in establishing connection with a teenager, because nonetheless they are usually the ones who set the example for a teenager.
“When it comes to dealing with personal issues (especially when you are a teenager) ownership and privacy is really important.“ “Parents should learn how to respond, build conversations. And this parent - child relationship is very important, because it is a learning mechanism. You see their perspective and form your own standards for interactions, social life rules, partnership etc.
Design Criteria
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Stigma of teenage-hood
Setting the criteria for my design
The final insight from my research was the fact that in general teenage-hood is approached in rather problematic manner and is almost assumed to be difficult. This was greatly discussed by Richard M. Lerner in his book ‘Good Teen’ and I felt that the phenomena he described was important to address in my design proposal as well:
Finally, in order to summarise and efficiently approach my research I’ve set four key questions for my design proposal
“Sometimes I am convinced that many parents do not even have a useful vocabulary to describe teens who aren’t “troubled.” <..> This collective amnesia is <..> serious. We’ve implicitly accepted a theory of adolescence that’s based on deficits. When we view teenagers as deficient — as if something is wrong with or missing from them — it affects them.”
Future Experiences
How could therapy benefit for teenagers relationship with outside influences/tensions?
How could therapy foster the relationship between parent and a teenager?
How could therapy ensure that the teenager has full ownership over their emotional health and their privacy is respected?
How could therapy make teenager feel accepted and empowered?
Concept Moodboards
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III concept - materialising emotions in order to explore and acknowledge them more efficiently For my final direction I have decided to focus on developing a teenagers therapy through materialisation of emotions as this seemed to be most effective design solution.
It also tied up with the concepts I have established at the beginning of the project and the material we have produced during the workshop with Santini.
I believe that this part of concept development was the most difficult through my project. I had conducted a lot of research and had some interesting insights but was struggling to translate them into valuable design proposals.
I concept - changing emotional artefact II concept - aparatus which reflects your emotion at a certain time Future Experiences
Design Language Inspiration
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Understanding the intangible - in what design language? It was useful to look into relevant examples and see how others are approaching similar design challenges. Furthermore, the writing of my dissertation was also beneficial as the concept of tangible programming inspired my further approach.
Project Bloks created b Google is a fantastic example and is giving child the ability to physically collect code. Tangible programming in general is a great example of translating intangible to tangible form. It is usually separate components standing for elements of code that you join together into coherent code.
Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Nicolette Bodewes has created a tactile toolkit designed to be used in psychotherapy sessions.
After her own negative experiences with mental health services, graduate designer Sara Lopez Ibanez developed a selfassessment kit that lets users figure out the kind of help they need, and where they can get it from.
Future Experiences
The role of AI
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What should be the role of AI? In the future world that we have established with Murray and Stephen we have identified the role of AI as ‘data managers’ where later ML analyses the data and draws patterns of it. A great inspiration for my individual project became the company called Sensum which is using Emotion AI engine (Synsis) in order to make various services more emotionally intelligent. The emotion is identified by interpreting emotional signals from psychological data. But what intrigued me the most was the fact that such algorithm is already available, so could potentially be used for healthcare reasons in the future.
In terms of Mental Health and especially emotional intelligence it is very important to be able to reason your emotions and link it with it’s cause. Furthermore, it is very important to experience wide range of emotions, and most importantly, both positive and negative. For instance, if a teenager is not able to identify why they are feeling angry this might indicate an issue, similarly if teenager says they are not experiencing any emotions this could indicate potential depression. I believe AI mechanism similar to Synsis would have a great potential by registering those links and extracting patterns, which
could then be observed and evaluated by a human specialist. Furthermore, Machine Learning could benefit by making this interaction highly personalised and learning from each person’s emotional responses.
Key aspects of Synsis, accessed via their official website sunsum.co Future Experiences
Further Research
‘‘This is my contained anxiousness. Blue is my sad colour, and grey tied knot represents anxiety.’’
Workshop with teenagers At this stage of my research I realised that I focused a lot on teenager’s emotions without really consulting an actual teenager about it. I had an incredible opportunity to hold a workshop with three brilliant girls age 13. The two first tasks were mapping their activities through the day and identifying various associations. Final task asked them to build their current emotional mood with provided material (fabric pieces, colours, paper, emojis, stickers etc.) The task was really successful and girls’ reflections were interesting. Therefore I decided to develop this approach further as my final design proposition.
‘‘It’s been a very intense day and I had to do loads of things. I wasn’t feeling well, but just covered everything up with my confidence which is red for me. The transparent fabric portrays my cover.’’
Future Experiences
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‘‘Today I have been feeling loads of different emotions starting with fear, excitement, happiness, sadness. That’s why I’ve used many different textures.’’
Prototyping
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Prototyping techniques I started prototyping in order to find a similar way that girls did during the workshop to implement tangible material as a representation of your emotions. The key elements that girls mostly referred to were colour and texture. I started prototyping focusing on these attributes. My initial prototypes were made of paper, but soon I realised that paper is to flat. For 3D experiments Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve mostly used plasticine and clay. Some really great experiments turned out with very unexpected materials as well - mixing various fabrics with papers. They all had an interesting texture, also was appealing colour wise. Finally I had to find the base for all of the representative attributes. I felt that something simple almost reminding a canvas or piece of paper would work best in order to make the interaction accessible.
Prototyping with different materials Future Experiences
Prototyping
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Semantics of the panel I believe the biggest design challenge was actually finding an effective way for a teenager to build their ‘moods’. The artefact had to be extremely versatile to allow the teenager to create anything he wants. At this point Rachael’s guidance was extremely beneficial as she suggested to make all interaction artefacts transparent and the key visual function of the panel to give colours. As for the panel itself I wanted it to be highly domestic artefact therefore I decided to put it in a wooden frame to give more cosy, homey feeling to it.
It was hard to establish a semantic language for my prototype, because I did a lot of material experiments and wasn’t sure which ones were worth more. Tutorial with Rachael was useful at this point as she advised to combine contrasts - sharp - round, long - short, heavy - light, etc. This technique I mostly applied when developing artefacts for the interaction with the panel.
Prototyping the interactive panel Future Experiences
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is an alternative therapy service for teenagers which focuses on data informed personalised counselling and co-designing between CounsellorAnalyst and the teenager. Counsellor-Analyst provides counselling by observing teenagerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s references between his emotional experiences and provided tangible, sensory materials.
Storyboard I
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N SIG UP
LOG IN
1
5
Janine is 15 years old and is a class activist.
After discussing Sensum with her mum, she decides that it would be interesting to try something different, because Janine is a bit bored of her usual digital counselling...
Future Experiences
2
6
She notices at school a very interesting new service for teenagers being advertised.
She visits the club the next day and meets her Counsellor-Analyst Sara.
3
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Janine really cares about her emotional well-being. She also heard that some cool kids are part of the club as well.
Sara introduces Janine with Sensum approach towards therapy and their values.
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G?
SIN
CES
S AC
LTIE
U IFFIC
D
S
NSU
y SE
red b
e Pow
Janine signs up and receives an invitation to Sensum Center.
And finally introduces her with emotus and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s artefacts.
emotus
is an interactive AI-enabled panel which allows the teenager to explore his emotions and moods by creating tangible representations of it. Unique algorithm installed in the panel by applying ML learns from every interaction and helps CounsellorAnalyst make informed decisions.
Future Experiences
Storyboard2
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Hi, Janin e! I am y our emotus! I wish to learn abo ut you an d your em otions!
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Soon after Janine receives her own emotus! Turns it on straight away.
10
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Being introduced how emotus works by Sara, Janine knows that on the panel she can select a color...
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And then apply an artefact from her collection..
a such n e e b day’s minds me o t e s e becau d shapes r w. And o S ! e llo un Sur y - ro well as ye so that’s a d d s y goo ness a good toda - pink! i p p a r of h g very orite colo n i l e e I’m f ut my fav p why I
Hmm, le t’s try this..
Your con str great! Co uct is uld mayb e just expl ain it slig htly to me?
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Janine decides to build her first representation of her today’s mood.
Future Experiences
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Janine finishes happily: ‘Emotus is almost like a visual diary! And it’s fun!’
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This is the point where ML plays a vital part...
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...by registering relation between visual elements that Janine created and her emotional state.
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Co-designing session
invited e r ’ u o ‘‘Y a new n g i s e to d t!” artefac
1
Teenager is invited for a co-designing session when Counsellor-Analyst sees that they have explored the tools they have enough. During the session teenager can create any tool they want. Yet this is the part where Counsellor is asking more in depth questions about teenager’s choices.
2 going to see Sara in the Sensum centre
And now Janine has a new artefact for her collection. She also feels less stressed about school after Sara advised her to plan homework time more efficiently.
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co-designing with Counsellor-Analyst
Counsellor: So, what would you like to make today? Teenager: I don’t know, it would be interesting to add something more flexible to my collection. C: Why is that? T: Quite often I feel like I change my opinion a lot, or attitude, or just change myself! It leaves me feeling strange like some sort of a rubber mass..
Additional artefact at home The final stage of the counselling would be introduction of a new artefact within the house. A teenager after building their mood could then share it with the rest of the family. This artefact would encourage to share your emotions, for the other family members react accordingly and in this way have a conversation about teenagerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s emotional state or any other hardships.
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After a while Sara introduces a new artefact - a frame where Jolene can share her emotional construct from emotus...
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family members react 3 ..and accordingly.
Stakeholder map EXPERIMENT AND OBSERVE
Teenager explores their emotions with their artefact
Teenager
SHARE
ADDRESS AND ANALYSE
When wanted teenager can share what they build on emotus
Co-designing session with the counsellor (2)
Teenager’s AI artefact Counsellor Counsellor analyses data and prepares counselling (1)
Counsellor’s AI artefact
Therapist analyses data and adjust counselling (1)
Counsellor analyses data and decides that teenager could share their emotions with others
Family artefact Parent
n
First encounter Teenager is introduced with the service, their AI artefact and meets their counsellor
Teenager’s AI sends the data links to counsellor’s AI
Teenager’s AI sends the data links to counsellor’s AI Counsellor’s AI converts data links into patterns
Counsellor invites teenager for a co-designing session
New tool added to teenager’s emotus collection
Counsellor’s AI converts data links into patterns
An artifact which reflects teenager’s emotions is introduced and placed at home
Family members can observe teenager’s emotions and react accordingly
THE KEY
How is work changing? (1) Counselling at this stage is not in depth and is more like a targeted advise and guidance. The reason for this is not to overwhelm the teenager but give him time to adjust and learn. (2) At the co-design meeting counsellor gives more in depth counselling while creating the new tool with the teenager. At this point counsellor might ask some specific general questions.
Future Experiences
The work of the counsellor is highly affected by the AI which becomes the main ‘bridge’ of communication between the teenager and them. With less face-to-face interaction Counsellor-Analyst needs to be very accurate with their observations. This is again assisted by AI and ML technology which manages all the emotional links and associations provided by the teenager and extracts most frequent/least frequent aspects which analyst can judge.
How is therapy changing for a teenager? Finally, Counsellor-Analyst is no longer just a healthcare professional as they facilitate co-designing therefore has some knowledge about hands-on learning and expression through shape and similar tangible material.
First of all the teenager has a much longer period of ‘adaption’ before they share emotions with others. The first stage allows teenager to experiment and observe while having emotus panel with. This interaction also happens in a domestic environment, most likely teenager’s room, a place which is familiar and safe for the teenager. Second stage of addressing and analysing involves teenager’s and Counsellor-Analyst co-designing session through which teenager
is encouraged to talk about their emotions with the specialist. And only final stage gives teenager an opportunity to Share his emotions already having some knowledge about them as well as confidence.
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Features of interaction
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Interaction Visually, the main purpose of the panel is to give colour. All artefacts are transparent and panel can give them any colour therefore they can be used as many times as needed. Each artefact does not have established meaning, because
it is the agency of every teenager what meaning they would apply to what artefact or colour. However, artefacts have distinctive semantic qualities in order to reflect contrasts, similarly as the emotions are contrasting.
Selection tool Unique algorithm installed to each panel Different colour modes - accent, gradient or various opacity
Colour palette
ML enabled voice recognition Future Experiences
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Sensum and emotus is introducing an alternative way to counselling which is much more engaging. This approach also respects the teenager and trust him the ownership over his own mental health. It is aiming to get the teenager interested and embrace learning and exploration of their emotions.
I believe it is also important for a teenager to understand that learning about yourself is a long process and adolescence is probably just the beginning. Two (or three) levels of the experience enables teenager to acknowledge and explore, to analyse and then to share his emotions and in this way build confidence about it.
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The role of Machine Learning allows to implement a reverse process - teenager in a way â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;teachingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; emotus panel about his emotions yet at the same time learning themselves. In addition, Machine Learning by learning from patterns also provides the CounsellorAnalyst with much more accurate information and can advise them on making certain decisions.
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AI is the key aspect and driving technology of this service. Firstly, AI has the potential to manage large data and ensures easy exchange and management of it. Furthermore, AI has the potential to analyse difficult data and extract most significant patterns of it which are then easier to work with by a human specialist.
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Machine Learning by registering patterns allows the Counsellor-Analyst to make much more informed decisions. In this way it allows to create a highly personalised counselling which I believe is going to be of vital importance for future teenagers.
Similarly, teenager is provided with a full ownership of his health Counsellor-Analyst only sees the patterns and data groups related to teenagerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life. In this way private details are not shared. This would encourage teenager to be more open without the fear of being exposed or embarrassed.
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Emotus is almost like a visual diary, establishing a friendly tone of voice which does not burden a teenager and encourages an openminded, honest interaction.
And the idea of understanding something intangible like your emotions through tangible artefacts might be peculiar at first, but it does greatly foster imagination and a dialogue with yourself.
Reflection
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To reflect, it has been the first time that I really see value in the artefact and service that I have designed. Same as in Part I, input by Santini and Raechel has been very useful and really helped me to refine ideas and prototypes. I have learned a lot from working with Lorenz as well. I am happy that he was constantly challenging my ideas as it really helped me to extract the most important aspects of my concept and not get lost in the abundance of variables. It has been a challenging yet very interesting project. I have learned a lot about Speculative Design practises and definitely improved my abilities to conduct research and prototype.
Future Experiences