Design for Social Anxiety
Wenhao Sun Professor: Amanda Huynh Capstone Design Studio - 20/SP-IND-402-04
Topic Social anxiety is the fear of social situations that involve interaction with other people. You could say social anxiety is the fear and anxiety of being negatively judged and evaluated by other people. It is a pervasive disorder and causes anxiety and fear in most all areas of a person's life.
Knowing a couple of friends who have social anxiety myself, I feel like this issue has made their life more difficult. For example, some of them would avoid talking to others as much as possible and it’s extremely hard for them to even make a phone call to customer service. Their fear of being ‘wrong’ and ‘awkward’ in front of others is taking over their daily life. After consideration, I decided to focus my design topic on people with this symptom. I want to help them when they are being stressed in public, without everyone knowing that they are ‘patients’ who need help because this would drag more attention on to them and it’s exactly what they are worried about.
There is a difference between shyness and social anxiety. Some shy people are fine with being shy and it does not impact their choices in life. They are comfortable with their shyness. A person with social anxiety, on the other hand, beats themself up because of having this condition. This is part of the vicious cycle of anxiety – the over-thinking, over-analyzing, worrying, and anticipatory anxiety, all of which reinforces social anxiety and often results in some degree of depression.
Research
My classmate Kai and I worked together to make a co-creation session, based on his research topic food and my topic anxiety. For my part, participants talked about their expeiences on feeling social anxiety and their insights. We also worked together to make frankenstein models. These models are what participants imagine would be helpful to their anxiety. They had no tech restrictions.
Food & Social Anxiety Workshop OVERVIEW A collaborative workshop between Kai and Wenhao for their projects in Design for Nourishment and Social Change. The Workshop will include activities that beckon on the participants personal connection to food and passively analyze their social interactions through reflection. GOALS Create a safe space for POC to talk about their food and how it is being represented in NYC Allow participants to reflect upon their feelings when interacting within a social situation Collect these data to be analyzed for each respective project STRUCTURE Send out email the Monday before workshop will be happening thanking participants for joining, and reminding them about the time Send out email with readings (one for each project) the day before An ice breaker will be used to introduce everyone and where they identify as ‘home’ Participants will be paired up and they will have 15 seconds to look at each other, then turn their backs against each other to draw a portrait of the other person in 30 seconds. They will share with each other the portrait and introduce each other and talk about where they identify as home. We will all get together and participants will have to introduce the other person (the person who they drew) to the group. I will reiterate or brush through the reading that was assigned then introduce the first workshop activity The first activity is dumpling origami Participants will write down ingredients that would be wrapped in the dumpling that reminds them of home or is something they think is closely related to their identity Looking back at the reading, direct the discussion towards the cultural appropriation of food. In what circumstances does it count as cultural appropriation? And who gets to define authenticity. During this time dumplings will be cooking and will be served Short break to eat dumplings and cleanup Participants would be asked to answer questions on a sheet about their experience in sharing their origami with others and the ice-breaking. Participants are invited to create a Frankenstein model using the materials given to make a future device that helps people fight with social stress. (No technology restrictions). They will then share each of their models and why they made it A survey will be given to participants asking them about their stress during the activities of the workshop.
Research Findings
Feelings when stressed Flushed, Rapid Heart beat, Rapid thoughts, Cold hands, brain swollen in the skull, stay to myself, get quiet, face is hot, shaky hands, cold, body is dying, short of breath Reasons for being stressed serious atmosphere, not confident, audiences, looking stupid, looking nervous, uncertain about the next step, make mistakes, confused, how others would think about me, when Future Device a to-do list, head massager, heart massager, speech helper, toy to hold in hand, video games, hold me down when I’m shaking, cloned self, fluffy pet, imaginary friend, help leaving a room secretly, help remember things.
Ideation
After the research workshop, I decided to aim at ‘helping people to live with their anxiety’but not pushing them to solve it. Thus, I had the idea of designing a smart accessory which makes people relax by simply playing with it in hand. Also, an app to work together with the accessory to create more possibilities.
Looked at several products related to social anxiety in the market, I concluded my ‘must haves’ for the product ideation.: Texture The basic idea inspired by fidget toys. Use unique texture which makes users feel relaxed when touching the product or playing it. Different types of patterns and textures would create different effects on relaxing one’s nerve system. I looked into their specific usage using clay model for my research target to try out.
Undercover The product is designed to ‘help users live with anxiety’, so it shouldn’t be looking like a medical device which shouts the fact that the user is a ‘patient’ which could cause more attention on them and ultimately triggers more anxiety form the users. The product should be looking like a normal piece of accessory or something like that.
App Concept Another part of the project is the design of an app, aimed at visualizing users’ mood and anxiety in a gentle and fun way. By doing this, users would feel easier to view their anxiety directly and how they are getting over it.
The early ideation of the app consists 3 parts:
Personal Space
a personal space (an island)
Customization
the possibility for users to customzie the island exploring and sharing
Explore & Share
Sh
re Sh
re
heartrate: 81 bpm
Ocean
my island
moments
ocean
Mimi’s island
my island
moments
ocean
Animal Crossing Just as I was ideating my design for the app, a popular game called Animal Crossing started to take over people’s free time at home. Interestingly enough, the structural concept of the game is somewhat similar to my original thoughts of the app. The game is about collecting resources, completing tasks and building one’s own island and another big part of it is to visit friends and share fun moments. I think the success of the game encourages me to further develop my design of the app based on some features in the game, like the personal space/share space and the pocket system.
Animal Crossing
Working process
The working process of my project includes three main targets: the user, the product and the app. Informations and commands transfer through these targets in order to make sure that the user gets the right help in real-time.
vibration temperature sync in real time
heart rate sweat body temperature pressure
The product tracks the user's heart rate, breath and any interaction that user makes on the product and sends them to the app. These informations are used to analyze the user's mood and anxiety level at the moment and the app sends back the needed command to the product, like vibration, light, and change in temperature. For example, when a user is giving a speech to a group of people and is starting to feel nervous, his/her heart rate is rising and starts to sweat a little. The product captures them and immediately sends these information to the app. The app then designs the best ‘solutions’, like ‘vibration to guide breath’. These changes made on the product are effective immediately, and the product starts to track if the user’s anxiety level starts to reduce.
Shore-device
Shore-App
welcome
register
on board
Shore-App
before events Before going to events that could cause anxiety, users can select the type of events on the app for records.
rewards After the event, users would be awarded for overcoming their anxiety. The rewards can be used to decorate their islands.
explore
Visual Design
I created the visuals of my app based on the concept of soft and gentle illustrations. I looked at several water-color like ui designs . The idea is to avoid any sharp edges or corners, to make users feel relaxed.
Thank you.