Virdina Gibbs 29 year old attorney

Transcription

1 Virdina Gibbs 29 year old attorney

2 Caroline Blanchet Zdravkov 34 year old stay-at-home mom

3 Efua Andoh 35 year old assistant director of communications

4 Maisha Duncan 31 year old academic librarian

5 Jazzmyn Howington 25 year old illustrator

6 Jessica Cox 28 year old director of emergency planning

7 Leandria Campbell 31 year old program analyst

8 Spring Thompson 39 year old polygraph examiner Alexys Vorbe 22 year old student Unfortunately, these two participants wrote breakup letters to their partners instead of to text messages.

9 Brainstorming & Sketching Participants provided me with their ideas on what features they would like a texting app to have in order to clarify messages. Two participants sketched on paper and the others provided me with written feedback.

10 ed Ideas features like Facebook and Tumblr full customization library of animated gifs and emotiocon ability to mute app set curren status / mood set away message find old texts easier change phone s temperature use of vibrations use of tones / sounds option to save message for later / draft use weather to communicate mood change lighting text bubble animates before coming up (e.g. burst or drip) recognition of keywords (e.g. ugh) to customize message

11 2 Affinity Map I created an affinity map in order to distill problems and insights from the breakup letters, storytelling, and brainstormed ideas. I covered my wall in post-it notes from all the my notes and start grouped items to get overarching ideas and themes : insight 1 (mind reading) 2: insight 2 (quickies) 3: insight 3 (boring background) 4: insight 4 (decorative chat bubbles) 5: insight 5 (patches) 6: insight 6 (objects affect us) 7: insight 7 (vibe) 8: insight 8 (texts vs Facebook) 9: brainstormed ideas 10: cases of misunderstandings

12 INSIGHT 1 We can read minds. But text messages inhibit our powers. Empathy allows us to feel the emotions of others as well as to identify and understand their feelings their perspective. Even though everyone has a different way of expressing themselves, we recognize patterns and learn their emotions through association, such as when someone is joking or serious. We also are able to experience someone else s emotions just by observations, such as how someone s stress can cause us to feel stressed. Texting, however, prevents us from making these kinds of connections. This explains the texting stories of Virdina, Efua, Maisha, Jazzmyn, Leandria, Spring, and Caroline.

13 INSIGHT 2 Texts are like quickies. They are highly functional with little appeal or finesse. It s easy to express our thoughts when talking face to face. Words pour out of our mouths with ease. s even tend to be are very expressive because we view them as letters and take the time to craft our words. However, we tend to use fewer words when texting, certainly not enough to truly express ourselves. How can texts be more robust and feel sexy? Much of this has to do with the design of texts. The following two insights point to opportunites for change.

14 INSIGHT 3 The background is boring. The texting app has a solid white background. How was your day? Stressful :( Send The background could be be used to express emotion by using things like color, lighting, and backdrops.

15 INSIGHT 4 Chat bubbles are mere decoration Other than pointing to who said what, they are just container. How was your day? Stressful :( Send The shape of messge and even how they change shape could be used to carry meaning.

16 INSIGHT 5 Emojis are like patches for a problem. They are supplemental and do not adress the app itself. People love using emoticons, gifs, and stickers. These even have the ability to have animation. These are a more pictorial way of expressing oneself. However these are supplements to texts and emojis exist in its own app. These do not address the design and features of the texting itself.

17 INSIGHT 6 Behaviors affect our emotions. We do not communicate in vaccuum. Object are telling. Whne people communicate they don t just use their facial expressions, body lagnuage, voice, and touch to express themselves. We interact with the environment and objects in it in emotional ways. Our emotions effect how we interact with objects and our actions with objects affect our emotions as well. To quote Caroline: There s a happy way to pick up a coffee cup and there s an angry way to pick up a coffee cup. In addition, vreaking a coffe cup can make us angry. Swype uses gestural patterns to communicate. How can gestures be used to elicit emotions in the person performing them?

18 INSIGHT 7 Vibe is an emotional environment. It s that feeling you can pick up on just walking into a room. When we talk about a vibe or an aura, we are talking about the collection of the things that indicate mood, both consciously and unconsciously perceived. This include body language, tone, interaction with objects, lighting, etc. There is an emotional environment that is created. How can the idea of an emotional environment be brought to a digital experience?

19 INSIGHT 8 How is Facebook different from texting? David Spears just now - from Washington DC Users post a status update about #something Someone then responds to the post and a thread is created. The conversation is contained within one space and hastagging makes it easy to find. and a notification pops up about who said what where Facebook has users post a status and others can reply directly to that status in a thread. This keeps everything together and pairing this with a hashtag makes the thread easy to find. This is like creating chat rooms. What if users could set different moods for each room? Returning to the room could redirect a person s mood to the intended mood.