Brief
Design a conversation between humans and machines. In this project, we need to use two research methods: AEIOU and Speed Dating. We used AEIOU as a starting framework for the project, and it needed to be implemented into our projects in order to start thinking about what we would produce for our final outcome. Speed Dating was then used to visualize our ideas into illustrated narratives and scenarios, which would then be tested with people to gain instant feedback on those ideas before taking them further.
Group members: Zoe; Arushi; Xiyun; Hannah.
Brainstorming
At first, we want to start our project with different social issues which were concerned by the public, such as the depression people as well as LGBT, but these ideas were hard to build an effective conversation between people and machine. Finally, we changed our idea to focus on the people who have a sleeping issue and we want to create a conversation to help them sleep better.
Picture: Aarushi
After the brainstorming, we were too eager to find some solutions to solve the sleeping problem rather than do enough research to find out our opportunity points. In fact, we came up with an idea which was an aim to improve people's sleeping issues by pillow talking. We were willing to design a Smart Pillow, which can detect human sleeping data as well as create a comfortable environment for users. However, our ideas are too dependent on technology and were leading us away from focusing on designing a conversation.
AEIOU Observation
According to the AEIOU Framework, we created an observation map to analysis people's behaviours when they stay in a personal space.
Activities: What actions and behaviours are people taking to sleep?
Environments: Bedroom
Interactions: What are the basic interactions occurring for people to sleep? What effect do people have on their activities and environments?
Objects: What are all the details that form the environment? How do objects relate to people, activities, and interactions?
Users: People who have a sleeping issue and are unable to fall asleep by themselves.
Picture: Aarushi
Picture: Aarushi
Interview
From the AEIOU observation, we can focus our open-ended observations into factual and objective data. In addition, we found some possible reasons as well as design opportunities for the observation that may cause people's sleeping quality. After the observation, we also had some interviews with people who have sleeping issues and we received a lot of valuable advice.
Interview Questions:
1. Intro:
Name, Age, Occupation, Sleep hobby.
2. Questions:
(1) Do you have any sleep issues?
(2) How long have you been suffered from these issues?
(3) What’s your routine during the night?
(4) Do you smoke/drink alcohol /coffee /tea /have sex?
(5) What will you do when you can’t fall asleep? How did you feel?
(6) Are you taking any medicine?
(7) Do you know how to sleep better?
(8) How was your sleep last night?
(9) How does your bedroom look like?
(10) What do you think is affecting your sleep?
Picture: Zoe Yan
Picture: Zoe Yan
We found the reason why most people can not fall asleep is that they always keep thinking before they sleep and this behaviour may make people feel nervous. Besides, people also said that they meet some troubles in their life and they want to express their feeling to others before sleep. Therefore, the goal of the conversation we aimed to design was to build a conversation between humans and a machine to release humans' stress in life as well as provide a comfortable environment for them.
Speed Dating
We created 4 main storyboards of different but typical users and named our intelligence system "illu", because illu means illusion. We want to create a fantastic atmosphere to help them fall asleep.
Picture: Zoe Yan
Storyboard: Zoe; Arushi; Xiyun; Hannah.
Picture: Zoe Yan & Aarushi
We tested these storyboards with our classmates as potential users. The feedback we received was largely positive, but they still worried about the possibility of the technology we used. However, we found some drawbacks after we did the speed dating: Some of our classmates don't have insomnia, so they might not give us a piece of valuable advice. Therefore, we reselected our target user and interview them again. They thought this process is creative, and that illu is quite helpful in the conversations.
Brainstorming Continued
Picture: Aarushi
Base on the intelligence system, we also need to design an accessible conversation between people and machine. The first idea we had was using devices to detect people's physiological data, such as blood pressure and heart rate, to forecast their sleep quality and then create an illusion automatically to help people fall asleep. However, we found that people are in a passive situation in this process. Hence, we considered how people participate on their own initiative. We did a lot of researches in the library and we found that writing can help people get to sleep and according to the Experimental Psychology, writing can lessen anxiety to some extent and help people have a night of better sleep, besides, troubles in life usually lead to poor sleep. Finally, we tried to use a diary to help people communicate with "illu" and release their pressure in life.
Final Storyboard
Story-board: Zoe Yan
Presentation
In our presentation I acted as the user who have sleep problem, I followed the step by step guide to interacting with illu, engaging the user more. Having this demonstration really highlighted the use of illu and what we were trying to design with our conversation. We also showed all our research and use cases that we created, which was very well received.
Picture: Ziyu Li & John Fass
Reflection
Overall I think the project went very well, we got great feedback and everyone enjoyed our presentation. I think we met the brief very well in creating a conversation. With the group, at times it was very relaxing due to we always share our ideas in the group chat and listen intently to one another’s ideas, we were able to create what we felt was the best possible outcome. I think we came back from that well, used the feedback to our advantage and created a design and experience everyone could enjoy.
Reference
Woodworth, R.S., Barber, B. and Schlosberg, H., 1954. Experimental psychology. Oxford and IBH Publishing.
Tsuno, N., Besset, A. and Ritchie, K., 2005. Sleep and depression. The Journal of clinical psychiatry.
Lokavee, S., Watthanawisuth, N., Mensing, J.P. and Kerdcharoen, T., 2012, January. Sensor pillow system: Monitoring cardio-respiratory and posture movements during sleep. In The 4th 2011 Biomedical Engineering International Conference (pp. 71-75). IEEE.