2 6 . R E L A T I O N A L D E S I G N
1 :
E M O T I V E P R O X I M I T Y
Study Abstract
The “Fail Video” Experiment
I remember few episodes of Ellen Degeneres show that often made into the popular page
A random selection of people were asked to be an audience to watch a fail video, which
of YouTube videos. The videos were titled “Best of Ellen Scare,” and compiled montages
served as a stimuli in this study. The video shows a man falling off and injuring himself
from her show when she scared her guests and production crew while filming their
while attempting to do a flip. The audiences were filmed while watching the video,
reactions. The Ellen Degeneres Show is undoubtedly popular with one of the highest
highlighting their facial reactions to the stimuli (the video) for further analysis.
rating among day time talk shows in America. Though the show has been on television since 2003, it wasn’t until the uploads on social media that the show has gained new set
Findings: Findings from this experiment are paired with research on empathy and
of audience responsible for most of the show’s subscribers on Youtube, making her one
ideology of relationalism. Visuals from the experiment is shown on the next page.
of the biggest brand in entertainment. As a subscriber myself, I came across a segment of
• Watching other people react identically to a situation is a comforting
her show where she explains how her contribution to Youtube started with the desire to
restoration of order, unity, and togetherness. Viewers filmed together
share fail videos (videos depicting situations with unfortunate outcomes, as getting hurt
had tendency to check each other’s reaction and react collectively.
or falling off something) she enjoyed with other viewers on Youtube. Surely it worked, and
• People enjoy the element of surprise, because in a culture defined by
people enjoyed what she shared. For me, it posed an odd question worthy of exploration:
knowingness and ironic distance, genuine surprise is increasingly rare -
why do we enjoy watching other people getting hurt?
a spiritual luxury that brings us close to being human.
• When the presentation and settings of the stimuli are authentic featuring
Interesting enough, “people getting hurt” was listed as the second recommended search
relatable common products and household objects - people relate and
term on Youtube, with over 227,000 search results. In order to understand why fail videos
show further interests with the stimuli (e.g. inquiring about the subject
are widely watched and shared, I decided to conduct a study using a fail video of my own.
in the video, etc.).
Study Conclusion
Emotive Proximity
Findings and results from this experiment demonstrate the empathic drive discussed
In terms of sociology, proximity underscores the human closeness and relationship. This
earlier in this thesis, that we have the desire to belong and be together. The constant
study presents findings based on proximity of more than one audience member in physical
trend in these fail videos may be due to the fact that we are subconsciously looking for a
nearness that suggest emotive influences on each other towards a shared stimuli. This
medium to express our shared
value and create solidarity. We are a collective
phenomenon will be called emotive proximity - the ability of proximity between two or
society, and we exercise this in viral videos and Internet trends in a digital age. Our
more individuals to manipulate, influence, or create feelings that we adopt the viewpoint
reaction and response can be influenced, enriched, or altered by other people, specially
of the person next to us. Emotive proximity can be a used to generate a stronger and
towards people we relate with.
deeper emotional impact, and can be a subtle yet a powerful persuasive tool to encourage audience to respond on an emotional level, rather than considering facts when faced with
In a broader sense, we give an importance to the relational nature in being human. We are subconsciously aware that a huge part of our feeling exist and function as a relational entity, and we prefer to interpret existence, nature, and meaning of things in term of their relationality, instead of absorbing them as self-standing entities. To some audience, the stimuli carried more meaning and memorable quality because they were asked to join the study, to some, the stimuli was more impressionable because they were experiencing it with their friends. This study shows that emotional influences from those around us can enrich our exposure experience to the stimuli.
decisions post-exposure to the stimuli.
3 2 . R E L A T I O N A L D E S I G N
2 :
V I S U A L P R O X I M I T Y
Study Abstract
Exhibition of High School Genius
I recently finished interning at a high end fashion brand, where I filled a position in their
To demonstrate the subjectivity of value using the principle of proximity, this study aims
creative team. One of my main responsibilities was researching and collecting product
to recreate a situation showing influences to value perception by visual closeness of two
images to present what the competing brands are putting out in market for the next
subjects with extremely different social-cultural value. In order to recreate the situation,
season. Going through products from a multitude of luxury brands, I could not help but
I collected 20 paintings resembling the artistic style of those paintings by the famous
be overwhelmed by the nonsensical high price tags that came with some of the products
and accomplished historical artists for an exhibition, except the 20 paintings are done
such as a plain t-shirt and a metal key holder. While knowing I will never be inclined
by random high school student. The value of pantings from both sides carries a polar
to purchase a 140-dollar t-shirt, at the same time, I was amused at how value can be
opposite value in social-cultural aspect and in artistry of the painters. For exhibition,
perceived differently for different individual.
the 20 paintings were matched up and labelled with names of the according historical painter of similar artistic style. This information was given to the audience only after they
People value a wide range of objects, activities, goals, careers, and pursuits.When asked
have completed the exhibition. Selections of example are shown in the next page.
what is valuable we include things like, a nice day on a beach, hanging with friends, spicy Indian food, a fast car, lots of money, and good music. The list is infinite; value has
Findings: Findings from this experiment are paired with research on empathy and
a boundless subjective quality, and it is this subjectivity that allow business to separate
ideology of relationalism:
value from price. Like that of the t-shirt example, brands practice value added selling.
• Prior to being informed, people showed no difficulties assuming the
Although a well established sales technique to raise a profit, value added selling can be
paintings are works of historical painters, and not of high school student,
time consuming and a difficult task because the technique relies on slowly building on
and was able to enjoy the exhibition in the same capacity as viewing
and imbedding the value of a product and service to the customers.
original and authentic works of the historical painters.
Findings: (contd.)
• Regardless of the vast differences in value, people related the paintings with the name of the artists due to two factors: stylistic similarity and physical nearness of the painting and the artist’s name.
• Value is a product of affection and desire. People with lifestyle and career involved in artistic field expressed stronger impression of loss following discovering the facts.
• Value is a product of vanity and self-worth. When faced with two options, people prefer relating themselves and their decisions with the option that carries a higher social-cultural worth, which represents value upheld by the mass.
VINCENT VAN GOGH
JACKSON
POLLOCK
PABLO PICASSO
ANDY WARHOL
Study Conclusion
Visual Proximity
The study supports that value is a highly subjective element open to changes and
Proximity in visual perception have been widely studied in design since The Gestalt
interactions with other elements that might present itself in near proximity, much like the
Principles developed by German psychologists during the 1920s. Usually these principles
Picasso’s name next to a 14-year-old Jessie’s painting. The study highlights how visual
explore the formal interactions of visual elements in close proximity to one another such
proximity can manipulate the subjective accounts of value, leading to arbitrariness,
as the relationship of figure and ground, but not a lot explores the subjective quality of
preference manipulation, and value elitism. Due to the power of preference, the perceptive
two visual elements placed near each other, and the cognitive psychological effect it
value of twenty high school paintings exceeded their inherent value. Aside from visual
can produce. As mentioned earlier, we oftentimes are captive with false assumptions in
proximity, the study also points out that in order for preference to occur, two subjects
thinking we know how the world works. This study underscores preference manipulation
must also share high similarity in a criteria in accordance to the social-cultural worth.
through visual proximity using subjective quality of value, proposing an alternate approach of manipulating the value rather than finding the value itself, as a faster and possibly a cheaper solution.
3 8 . R E L A T I O N A L D E S I G N
3 :
T E M P O R A L P R O X I M I T Y
Study Abstract In a digital age, everything is a rush. Everybody from mobile developers and web
speed and usability. The research findings confirmed their hypothesis that slower website
designers to customer-relation marketers spend countless hours and resources to reduce
will be rated with lower usability; however, what was interesting in their finding was that
unwanted time such as the loading screen or simply waiting in line. Mobile developers,
the actual recorded loading time of some websites was longer than the ratings given by
for example, are obsessed with speed because it can be crucial in usability and efficiency.
the users. Profit and Landesman writes that they found no correlation between the actual
Regardless of all the beautiful design and engaging content, users can stop using the app
download speed and the perceived speeds reported by the users. They found a strong
because loading screens are in between.
correlation between perceived download time and whether users successfully completed their tasks on a site. It seems that, when people accomplish what they set out to do on a
In the third study, relational design is explored through proximity of time, but to study
site, they perceive that site to be fastest. This confirms the way humans perceive speed
time, it is important to understand that the way human perceive time, or the illusion
can be completely independent of the actual speed itself.
of time, is independent of the actual time itself. For example, time spent with pleasant experiences may seem shorter than an equal amount of time spent with unpleasant
So the question truly isn’t how do we control the time, but how do we control the
experiences. Ultimately, how we perceive time may be even more important than the
perception of time? In order to shed a light on its capability, I decided to present a
time itself.
case study showing the effect of resolving temporal issue through perception of time in commercial setting.
In “The Truth About Download Time� published by User Interface Engineering, Christine Perfetti and Lori Landesman began a research that let users rate the speed of ten different websites over a consistent modem in order to find out the relationship between site -
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No More Waiting at The Houston Airport Executives at a Houston airport faced a troubling customer-relations issue. Passengers
Findings: Findings from this experiment are paired with research on empathy and
were lodging an inordinate number of complaints about the long waits at baggage claim.
ideology of relationalism:
In response, the executives increased the number of baggage handlers working that shift.
often more important the statistics of the wait itself.
The plan worked: the average wait fell to eight minutes, well within industry benchmarks. But the complaints persisted. Puzzled, the airport executives undertook a more careful,
their time, in other words, was spent standing around waiting for their bags.
• Occupying the time with walking to the baggage claim feels temporally shorter than unoccupied time of standing in line.
on-site analysis. They found that it took passengers a minute to walk from their arrival gates to baggage claim and seven more minutes to get their bags. Roughly 88 percent of
• The case of Houston Airport supports that psychology of queuing is
• Although in fact an extra labor, the added distance does not become an supplementary issue because it is a seemingly meaningful task in the objective to complete post-landing procedures among other tasks such
So the airport decided on a new approach: instead of reducing wait times, it moved the arrival gates away from the main terminal and routed bags to the outermost carousel. Passengers now had to walk six times longer to get their bags. Complaints dropped to near zero.
Exerpt from “Why Waiting is Turture” by Alex Stone The New York Times (2012)
as security check and getting the baggage.
Conclusion
Temporal Proximity
It can be said that the Houston Airport struggled trying to find a solution through reducing
With high capability of smartphones today, we are able to stay connected at all times,
the wait time. While hiring more staff created financial loss, shifting their attention to
giving us a freedom to get a lot of tasks done faster and easier. Yet somehow, we seem
occupying the wait time successfully resolved the customer-relation issue while avoiding
to find less and less time to relax and catch up on that book that has been sitting on
the loss in other areas and gaining a more positive impression with airport visitors at the
the bookshelf collecting dusts. What seems like a time saver is in fact giving us more
same time. Filling up the unused or unoccupied time with seemingly meaningful tasks
tasks to do in between. An ease of shifting through various applications you love and
can give an illusion of experiencing no unwanted time at all, removing negative feelings
availability in sharing information doesn’t allow a lot of time left to stay unoccupied for
that can build up towards the source of the unwanted time.
long. This principle works similarly in commercial settings and can be a successful strategy when implemented correctly like in the case of Houston airport. Offering a seemingly meaningful tasks one after another halt the chance of boredom, further confirming the tasks as meaningful and progressive to the next task or the final objective. This is also why we often find mirrors next to elevators or the reflective mirror-like elevator doors. The idea started during the post-World War II commercial boom, when the sudden spread of workforce led to complaints about elevator delays in high-rise office buildings. The rationale behind the mirrors was similar to the one used at the Houston airport: to give people something to occupy their time, so the wait will feel shorter. With the mirrors, people could check their hair or slyly ogle other passengers.