Winter Quarter 2019 - Design Methods Class
How might we ideate and create a product to solve a problem in long distance relationships?
Topics explored: Brainstorming, Research, Ideation, Storyboarding, Down-selecting, Prototyping, and Final Poster Presentation
Duration: 10 weeks
Team members: Annie Vuong, Sean Fudenna, & Amixa-Ray Calzado
01 - Contextual Inquiry
We gathered information from four participants about their long distance relationships through interview, drawings, and artifact analysis.
We asked participants to draw their favorite memory with someone in person and at a long distance. We also asked participants to show us artifacts which reminded them of their long distance relationships.
Main Insights:
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The main expression of love across distance is giving people your time.
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Memories made in person are usually stronger than memories made at a distance.
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Change disrupts the process of maintaining long distance relationships.
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Principles:
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Flexible- our design should not be disrupted by change
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Unobtrusive- ones busy schedule should not be a barrier to staying in touch
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Inclusive- our design should be accessible to a wide range of ages
02 - Ideation & Down-Selection
After 60+ ideas, we chose to develop three main concepts that fit our users' needs. "Your Move" was my contribution of the three!
Your Move is a pair of synchronized chess boards which allow two people to play a physical game of chess across long distance. The pieces are magnetized to the board so that when one is moved, the other board moves the corresponding piece. A timer indicates which player’s turn it is and how much time has passed since the last move.
Over time, our products' core principles evolved towards being low energy in interaction, asynchronous in communication, and geared towards maintaining communication.
03 - Participatory Workshop
We organized a participatory design workshop to conduct with participants that involves Sanders' making, telling, and enacting technique.
Workshop:
Findings:
How Might We create a playful interaction which takes place
across a long period of time,
and initiates conversation?
Main Insights:
Games need to have a sense of parity.
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Participants have a limit on how long they
will play a game.
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Practically, a game shouldn’t take up too
much tabletop space, if any.
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Games could be put together by the users
themselves.
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Our Concept is a physical, asynchronous, long term, low energy game. Based on our participants' creations and our insights, we want to create a set of synced battleship boards. Each board will only contain the users' side of the game. Only one move can be made per person each day. We hope each game has a possibility to pan out 1 to 2 years to finish. ​​
Battleship features the same kind of interaction as low energy, asynchronous interaction as chess, but is a game of luck rather than skill. We considered this to be good because it meant that both players could have fun without worrying about an imbalance in skill level.
04 - Storyboarding
The storyboard drawings were my contribution entirely! Illustrating how a participant or user may interact with the battleship is integral to our design proposal.
"I MISSile you"
05 - Final Design
In this last stage, our goal was to demonstrate with undeniable clarity what our design concept is and display a prototype.
