Project Report | Exploring Interaction

Enxploring Interaction Workbook 5291208 YU HUANG Word Count: 3010

CONTENTS CYCLE 01

1.1 Research Goals 1.2 Literature Research 1.3 User Interview 1.3.1 Morning Routine 1.3.2 Influencing Factors 1.3.3 'Perfect' Morning 1.3.4 Main Insights 1.4 Design Goal 1.0 1.5 Interaction Vision 1.0

indicates the red lines in this report

CYCLE 02

2.1 Design Directions 2.1.1 Morning Puzzles 2.1.2 Paper Phone 2.2.3 Morning Stone 2.2 Design Choices 2.2.1 Relation with the phone 2.2.2 Me-time or Productivity 2.2.3 Type of trigger 2.2.4 Affordance 2.3 Design Decisions 2.4 Interaction Vision 2.0

CYCLE 03

3.1 Final Design Concept 3.2 Design Highlights 3.2.1 Balance 3.2.2 Time Perception 3.2.3 Modes 3.3 Coherency Establishment 3.4 Evaluation Tests 3.5 Recommendations

Some appendix might be here Indicator

Appendix 1 D&R Plan Appendix 2 Research Mindmap Appendix 3 Interview Scripts Appendix 4 Design Concept Sheet Appendix 5 Evaluation Test Scripts Appendix 6 Test Results

3

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

CYCLE 01

5291208 YU HUANG

In this cycle, I used various methods to investigate my design topic - morning experience (MX), which includes brainstorming, literature research, semistructured interviews, contextmapping, etc. and ended with some useful insights, initial version of design goal (DG 1.0) and interaction vision (IV 1.0). Some design hints are also included.

4

Appendix 1

1.1 RESEARCH GOALS

*For full version, please refer to appendix 1.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

1. How do usually people start a day? What do they usually do as a morning routine(starting from the moment of opening eyes)?

INTRODUCTION

RESEARCH GOALS

>This will help in the envisioning phase of the project to make ideas and concepts that can

The whole day's work depends on a good start in the morning. In turn, getting up on the wrong side of the bed will ruin a whole day.

Nowadays, however, it has become more and more difficult for young people to get up early and embrace a fresh morning with vigor. Most of the time, we seem to be dragged out of our beds unwillingly. We sometimes even miss the whole morning by oversleeping, which may result in an awfully guilty feeling after getting up. That's why I want to focus on this 'golden' part of a day and endeavor to improve the Morning eXperience(MX) of young people.

- Find out patterns in the morning routine of young people.

be adapted toeople with different morning routines.

>This will help in the envisioning phase of the project to make ideas and concepts that can be for people with different yet similar morning routines.

2. What moods are they in after getting up? How do people cope with bad moods in the morning? In what situation(s) will people experience a change in *core affect**?

- Figure out all kinds of psychological/emotional activities that happen in the morning after waking up.

*An emotion is experienced when (a) some stimulus excites a substantial and acute change, or jump, in core affect(Ekman, 1994a; Russell, 2003), and when (b) this change is attributed to some antecedent or 'object' (Frijda, 1994b). Sometimes we can misattribute an acute change in core affect due to a particular stimulus to another object (see Schwarz and Clore, 1983).

ASSUMPTIONS - Young people may share some similarity in morning routine.

- Those young people I want to help agree on the value of getting up early.

- Most young people feel bad about failing to get up early, which leads to feeling guilty to some extent.

- Being in a good mood in the morning will impose positive influence on a whole day.

5291208 YU HUANG

- (To be supplemented...)

>This will help me to empathize with my target users and some of those emotions can be used to nudge them into a desired behavioral change.

- Sort out the correlation between the mood in the morning and the productivity/mental status throughout the day. >This will help me to confirm and consolidate my assumption about their correlation based on personal experience.

- Find a way to measure emotions and its lasting impact. >This will help me to set up a measurement system that will help me to generate evaluating metrics for my design output so that I can iterate based on the measuring results.

>Q1 and Q2 will give an indication of the current situation, so it can help to create an overview and also to find certain patterns in people's morning routines, then to look at possibilities for the future and find the points where the most impact can be made.

3. What factors can affect their moods? What's the priority of the influencing factors? What's the correlation between the mood in the morning and the productivity/mental status throughout the day? >The answer to Q3 will tell me what affects people's moods most and this might be where I can start to fix.

4. How to measure the (lasting) impact that a particular mood has on an entire day? >With this answer, I'll be able to measure my design outcomes.hat I can iterate based on the measuring results.

5

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

1.2 LITERATURE RESEARCH

RESEARCH MINDMAP After doing in-depth literature research, I drew a mindmap (figure 2) to help me to generate more research directions and possible interview questions.

It also helped me to identify several divergent points: - Factors that influence people's waking-up state - Behavioral Design - Mood Regulation INTERVIEW Then I conducted 5 semi-structured interviews to gain insights from my target group.

The interview mainly consists of three parts: 1. [Sensitizing] Recall the morning routine

5291208 YU HUANG

2. [Analysis] Prioritization of factors 3. [Envisioning] Describe an ideal morning *For detailed session scripts, please refer to appendix 3.

Figure 2 Research Mindmap

*For full version, please refer to this link

6

1.3.1 INTERVIEW

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

Perfect Routine

People’s morning routines comprise of similar 'components' in different order. So I list the activities seperately as different components of morning routines. I also listed some interesting and inspiring quotes related to it.

7

1.3.2 INTERVIEW

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

Factors

I ask them to prioritize the factors that might influence their moods in the morning and here are the results. Basic categories are on the right:

- Physiological contditions - Physical environment - Upcoming events - People - Others

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

8

1.3.3 INTERVIEW

Perfect Morning

9

1.3.4 INTERVIEW

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

Main Insights

Insight 1: People tend to use smartphones right after waking up.

Most morning routines comprise of similar contents but in different order. The smartphone using is prevalent (though with different purposes). Most of my target users tend to reach out for their phones after waking up.

Insight 2: The sense of control plays an important role in keeping people highspirited.

Being forced to get up leads to bad mood.

The feeling of control over the time to get up and the autonomy over of spending their time as they want cheer people up.

5291208 YU HUANG

Insight 3: "Proper" types of trigger can alleviate physical complaints.

Although physiological conditions defines the ‘default’ mood state of the morning, the anticipated upcoming events can counteract the effects to great extent.

10

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

1.4 DESIGN GOAL 1.0

The moment we wake up often comes with a ‘default’ mood state, be it possitive, negative or neutral. For my design goal, instead of changing the default mood I’m aimed to trigger an emotion and leave the users with a positive impact on the mood.

Accordingly, I specify the moment I want to exert impact is a couple minutes after waking up, when interacting with my design, users will experience an acute change in affect which will also exert positive impact on their mood.

5291208 YU HUANG

"Unlike user emotions, user mood is a continuous background experience that a user brings into an interaction, then leaves with after the interaction. In other words, there is always a pre-interaction mood state that the user is already in. "*

ROTHBARD, NANCY P., and STEFFANIE L. WILK. "WAKING UP ON THE RIGHT OR WRONG SIDE OF THE BED: START-OF-WORKDAY MOOD, WORK EVENTS, EMPLOYEE AFFECT, AND PERFORMANCE." The Academy of Management Journal 54, no. 5 (2011): 959-80. Accessed October 12, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41413601

11

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

1.5 INTERACTION VISION 1.0 The interaction with my concept should be like trying scents in the scent library.

CHARACTERS & AFFORDANCES Anticipated - You never know what the next scent will smell like.

Absorbed - You immersed in the scent while sniffing.

Joyful - The experience of smelling fragrance brings pleasure.

5291208 YU HUANG

Serendipitous - There is always a chance of coming across your favorite scent in your next try.

DESIGN IDEAS Moments of Intervention

Before sleep

Tangible + Intangible

Wake up

12

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

CYCLE 02

5291208 YU HUANG

In this cycle, I used previous insights as the starting point for ideation. I came up with 3 different design directions. Then I used lowfi prototypes for user tests in order to make crucial design decisions. By analyzing users' feedbacks, the final concept began to gel. I also iterated my design goal (DG 2.0) and interaction vision (IV 2.0).

13

2.1.1 DESIGN DIRECTIONS

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

Morning Puzzle

Users will be rewarded with a set of puzzles they like after successfully getting up on time for 30 workdays.

5291208 YU HUANG

Feedback "The rewarding mechanism(puzzle) may attract me at first. But I'm not sure the trigger per day is strong enough to keep me going."

Storyboard: Morning Puzzle

14

2.1.2 DESIGN DIRECTIONS

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

Paper Phone Storyboard: Paper Phone

Users replace their phone with the paper phone, which stores a set of thoughtsprovoking cards with a timing alarm. *Only when the alarm goes off can the first card be pulled out.

Feedback

5291208 YU HUANG

"I think it's an interesting product promoting good values, however, I don't think I will use it on hasty workday morning. I'd rather enjoy it in my leisure time."

15

2.1.3 DESIGN DIRECTIONS

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

Morning Stone Storyboard: Morning stone

It's a set of appliances consisting of a stand and a disposable (I call it as) ‘stone’ with 2 modes. *Only when the phone is put on the base, can the interaction happen.

5291208 YU HUANG

Feedback "I think I will need it to facilitate my workday mornings. Using ears rather than eyes to read the messages is a really useful feature!"

"The glow, the gentle sounds, the warming, the vibration feedback and the meditation guidance constitute more natural and calm experience while interacting with it."

16

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

2.2 DESIGN INTENT/CHOICES

4 criteria: 1. Relation with the phone Add friction against reaching out for phone or not?

2. Me-time or Productivity Entertaining & relaxing or functional & facilitating?

3. Trigger type Immediate and intense or delayed gratification?

4. Affordance type Content-based or touch-based?

5291208 YU HUANG

In the following pages, I plot my design directions on the scales of 4 dimensions respectively for comparison to decide on which direction I should follow.

17

2.2 DESIGN INTENT MAPPING

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

1. Relation with the phone Add friction against reaching out for phone or not?

... it seems more reasonable to me.

I don't think I need intense trigger to excite me on workdays.

"I think it's an interesting p ro d u c t p ro m o t i n g g o o d values, however, I don't think I will use it on hasty workday morning. I'd rather enjoy it in my leisure time."

5291208 YU HUANG

The physical part seems u n n e c e s s a r y. T h e relation between the physical part and the phone is awkward.

I will hug something (often the pillow) for a while after waking up.

positive feedback

negative feedback

18

2.2 DESIGN INTENT MAPPING

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

2. Me-time or Productivity entertaining&relaxing or functional & facilitating

5291208 YU HUANG

The screen that s u d d e n l y l i g ht s u p hurts people's eyes, so it's reasonable to rely more on ears in the morning.

"I think it's an interesting p ro d u c t p ro m o t i n g g o o d values, however, I don't think I will use it on hasty workday morning. I'd rather enjoy it in my leisure time."

I think I will need it to facilitate my workday mornings. Using ears rather than eyes to read the messages is a really useful feature!

positive feedback

negative feedback

19

2.2 DESIGN INTENT MAPPING

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

3. Type of trigger Immediate and intense or delayed gratification

The rewarding mechanism (puzzle) may attract me at first. But I'm not sure the trigger per day is strong enough to keep me going.

Interesting concept.

But the contents should be really intriguing to motivate me.

Though it achieved 'serendipity', but the trigger is not enough. In fact, on a typical workday m o r n i n g , I p re fe r t o sleep for 5 more minutes rather than performing the little tasks.

... it seems more reasonable to me.

I don't think I need intense trigger to excite me on workdays.

positive feedback

negative feedback

20

2.2 DESIGN INTENT MAPPING

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

4. Type of affordance content-based or haptic feedback The glow, the gentle sounds, the warming, the vibration feedback and the meditation guidance constitute more natural and calm experience while interacting with it.

5291208 YU HUANG

I will hug something (often the pillow) for a while after waking up.

positive feedback

negative feedback

21

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

2.3 DESIGN DECISIONS My design goal is to help students and young professionals to naturally transit out of the dream state on workday mornings to get prepared for the new day.

Design Focus To sum up, my design focus should be creating a natural transition from the dream state to being widely awake.

Design Decisions > It’s beneficial to avoid phone using right after waking up.

5291208 YU HUANG

> Given that the chosen context is on workday, a natural and calm way of waking up is more appropriate than being stimulating or exciting. > Besides, my design should be functional in some way rather than just being relaxing or entertaining.

22

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

2.4 INTERACTION VISION 2.0 The interaction with my concept should be like slowly moving the conch away from the ear.

CHARACTERS & AFFORDANCES [ Absorbed ] The seashell effect grabs people’s attention.

While listening to the conch, it’s an immersive experience. [ Natural ] While moving away the conch, we can gradually hear the surrounding sounds, which slowly drags us back to the ‘earth’, to the present.

5291208 YU HUANG

[ Calm/Relaxed ] Putting down the seashell and retuning back to the reality little by little, evokes calmness and inner peace.

23

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

CYCLE 03

5291208 YU HUANG

In this cycle, I integrated the findings from prototyping in cycle 2, settled down several design choices and formulated the final design concept. Then I did evaluation tests with 7 participants and gave some recommendations based on the test results.

24

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

3.1 FINAL DESIGN CONCEPT

Design Focus My design focus should be creating a natural transition from the dream state to being widely awake.

Final Design My final design is a set of appliance, which consist of a stand and a 'stone'. The stand serves as a wireless charger and the stone is embedded with an audio system which can be connected with the smartphone by bluetooth.

The whole service also includes a lightweighted supporting application which enable users to do some personalised settings.

5291208 YU HUANG

Final Concept Instead of grabbing the phone right after waking up, you first awaken your hearing and touch through gentle sounds and warmth. It also provides a more natural way to receive information by offloading the visual burden to auditory function, through which you gradually gain back your consciousness before get into the groove of the day with a full-charged mind. *For Concept Sheet, please refer to appendix 4.

Wireless charger

Click here to watch the concept video.

25

3.2.1 DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

A Balance Trick

5291208 YU HUANG

1. A balance form that nudges people to “balance” out the screen time.

The unique form of the stand makes people more aware of the action of reaching out for the phone, which prevents people from picking up the phone and falling prey to mindless scrolling. Instead, it encourages people to pick up the stone rather than the phone implicitly.

If take the phone, the stand will lose its balance.

26

3.2.2 DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

Time perception through periphery senses

2.Perceive the time with peripheral senses (haptic & auditory) Secondly, it correlates time perception with peripheral senses. We’ve all been through the eye irritation caused by bright screen light in the morning. What if we can tell what time it is just by touching or hearing? This is how mornstone works. The temperature of the stone surface is related to the time, so does the volume of the waking-up music. The temperature will gradually increase as it gets closer to the time to get up and the sound of the music will get louder.

5291208 YU HUANG

So if you touch a cool stone half-awake, you will know you still have some time for snooze.

But if you touch a really warm stone emitting loud music, you’ll know it’s high time to get up immediately.

Storyboard: Current situation VS Desired situation

27

3.2.3 DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

Integration of relaxation and efficiency

3. Integrate relaxation and efficiency The temperature changing of the surface not only indicates what time it is, but also plays an important role in triggering mode switching. I roughly break the getting-up process into two phases.

1) When people just waken up and haven’t gained back their full consciousness, they can hold the stone for one to two minutes accompanied by smooth music.

5291208 YU HUANG

2) After holding the stone for some time, the warmth of hands will increase the surface temperature, which will activate the broadcasting mode. It will begin to broadcast unread messages on the phone. In this phase, people can carry the stone anywhere they want during washing up, making or having breakfast.

Phase 1

Phase 2

28

3.2.3 DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

Integration of relaxation and efficiency

The broadcasting contents can be customized.

For example, it can broadcast the weather, the schedule, or play music in specified playlists and so on. There are many pre-set recipes available in the supporting app as well.

29

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

3.3 COHERENCY ESTABLISHMENT I attempted to establish coherency between my design concept and interaction vision characters in this way. (present IV chart) 1) Absorbed: By reserving a period of time holding the stone, I intend to bring a transition moment which evokes concentrated feeling and gradually brings half-awake people back to the present.

2) Calm: The transition time also provides mental preparation before receiving messages, which lessens the information anxiety.

3) Natural: I intend to gradually awaken multi-senses and offload the pressure upon eyes to other senses, which smoothens the process of waking up.

5291208 YU HUANG

4) Relaxed: Finally, the overall experience is intended to be relaxing rather than stimulating or stressing.

30

Appendix 5

3.4 EVALUATION TEST

*For original test results, please refer to appendix 6.

Introduction

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

Welcome to the user test of Mornstone. This project explores our everyday morning experience (MX). Nowadays, more and more young people are suffering from getting up in the morning, especially on workdays. We all have experienced getting up on the wrong side of the bed. The whole day's work depends on a good start in the morning. That's why I want to focus on this 'golden' part of the day and attempt to improve the Morning eXperience(MX) of young people.

Test explanation In this user test, we will evaluate the design from 2 aspects: the information receiving preferences and the overall experience.

- the information receiving preferences - overall experience: the relationship of time perception and warmth / nudge *Information/Message Receiving in the morning - Do you check your phone the moment you open your eyes after waking up?

- What kind of messages/information do you often check? (DMs, emails, news, social media ... ) - Do the contents of the messages influence your mood? (eg. cause anxiety ...)

5291208 YU HUANG

- If you can control the order of reading your received messages, what type of messages do you want to receive first? (Preferred order? Abstraction level?)

I did evaluation tests with 7 participants by role-playing. To validate the digital part of my design, I also investigated people’s information preferences on workday mornings. I used 2 questionnaires to collect the data.

User test scope

In this user test, I evaluated the design from 2 aspects: the information receiving preferences and the overall experience.

- the information receiving preferences - overall experience: the relationship of time perception and warmth / nudge

That was the end of the 1st part.

Role-playing Setup In order to create a realistic and immersive experience, we'll need to do some role-playing throughout the 2nd part. Now I will illustrate how my product work (the whole interaction process), and you can imagine using it in the defined context.

31

Appendix 5

3.4 EVALUATION TEST

(continued)

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

Prototype Introduction Imagine you are about to go to sleep and you want to put your phone on charge. This product, as you can see is composed of two parts and the base serves as a wireles charger. So you put your phone on the base and the 'stone' on the top. In the next morning, the stone-which serves as an alarm clock goes off at setting time.

Frequency of words (N=7)

The special form of the base.

The temperature lets you know the time. (different scenarios on workdays and weekends) Activate the broadcasting mode by warming up the stone.

Take the stone with you anywhere you want.

The results showed that all of the characters are achieved to some extent through design intervention. Surprisingly, the character “prepared”, which is not embodied in the interaction vision, is also achieved quite well.

Average score (N=7)

Interview Questions - Regarding the overall experience, can you tell me what types of feeling it evokes? (calm/absorbed/ natural/relaxed) - What do you think about telling what time it is by feeling the temperature?

- About the broadcasting mode, in what form do you want to receive the messages? (Do you need a smooth transition from vague to detailed? What about the order?)

- If the app can provide different presets of morning routines, what would you like to use?

- Anything else?

5291208 YU HUANG

Thanks

32

3.5 RECOMMENDATIONS Temperature

1) About temperature changing:

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

1.1 Different emphasis on auditory sense and haptic sense Given that the temperature rise is not so drastic, it’s less effective to awaken people by warmth. Hence the music (sound) takes most responsibility for waking people up.

1.2 Season-adapted temperature regulation The situation in summer and winter would be very different. For the reason that most people might not want to touch a cold thing in winter or touch a warm thing in summer.

In order to avoid triggering unpleasant experiences, it is necessary to embedded in an adaptive temperature system.

Music

2) Also change the music style for stronger stimulation Music can become more and more intensive in style (not only the volume goes up) to more effectively wake people up.

Time reminder

3) Add time reminders:

5291208 YU HUANG

Considering the context is on workday mornings, it would be necessary to add a time reminder every ten or fifteen minutes.

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

APPENDIX 1

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

APPENDIX 1

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

APPENDIX 1

5291208 YU HUANG

APPENDIX 2

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

APPENDIX 3

5291208 YU HUANG

APPENDIX 4

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

APPENDIX 6

Blank form

Participant 1

Blank form

Participant 1

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

APPENDIX 6

Participant 2

Participant 3

Participant 2

Participant 3

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

APPENDIX 6

Participant 2

Participant 3

Participant 2

Participant 3

5291208 YU HUANG

Enxploring Interaction Workbook

APPENDIX 6

Participant 2

Participant 3

Participant 2

Participant 3