Bliss
Reflect and Connect
Bliss for Microsoft
Approach
In this experimental and participatory design-oriented project, we followed the personalized and contemporary design methods which helped us to perform the project more established path rather than speculative exploration. Even though we navigated our brief and concept proposal around speculative water, the second phase of the project, we move towards fusing fictional thinking with our empirical data we obtained from design ethnography research. Furthermore, we explore examining of AoI, we guided ourselves with design tools constructed from methods base HCD and Participatory Design. We continued to be digging deep into our insights which we gathered from our practical/participatory research and design ethnography + co-lap activities .
Project Info
12 weeks ( Full Remote Team Work )
Partners: Umeå Institute of Design, Microsoft
Team: Sandra, Christina, Mehmet
Focus: Speculative Design, Interaction Design, Participatory Design, User Centered Design, Design Ethnography, UX Research
Main roles in the project: UX Researcher, Facilitator, TUI- Industrial Design
Solution
In this project, we wanted to explore what gives people joy, fulfillment or a feeling of relaxation in everyday life, especially during these peculiar times of uncertainty and home isolation. We wanted to learn what special moments matter in people’s lives, what meaning they bring, and how we might inspire more of these moments of bliss in everyday life. Our proposal Bliss, is a tool that enables people to establish intimate connections, despite being physically far apart. The compass-like object lets the user tune in towards a family member or friend by moving the hand-held object in their direction. Just like a compass indicates the direction of the north, a small arrow on the Bliss interface indicates when you and your loved one are standing opposite facing each other. When you move, your loved one will also see your movements on their compass. We imagine it as a dance, where you both take turns to lead and following. You can actively seek the connection or you just let it happen, all of a sudden you could be standing face-to-face with your friend across the globe. This moment of focus, of being present together in the now and holding on to that moment, -that’s a moment of Bliss.
Lack of real solutions enabling people to overcome mental health challenges while staying away in their home or peculiar times of uncertainty and home isolation.
“ How might we empower/inspire people to contribute to their own [mental] wellbeing and support them in assessing their own emotional state while being connected to loved ones? “
(Microsoft)
“ How might we inspire & trigger little moments of bliss in our everyday life? ”
(Us : Little bit twist)
Problem/Brief
Blissful moment focus on being together in the present , holding on to special moment which trigger connection and shared experince of life.
+Aesthetics of Interaction
+Communication
+ Being together
We decided to not incorporate a screen in our product, however that leaves us dealing with abstractions of information.
Aesthetics of Interaction
We imagine it as a dance, where you both take turns to lead and to follow. You can actively seek the connection or you just let it happen, all of a sudden you could be standing face-to-face with your friend across the globe. With this video, we wanted to manifest our thoughts about AoI, How we can visualize the bodily moment of enforcing to keep alignment? How modify moment can demonstrate user decision to end the conversation? We experimented around a different pattern of aligning with the person.
How we created our “Bliss” project ?
MISSION
Development of new ways of communication between for everyday user (PEOPLE!!!) . By investigating AOI implementing participatory design methodologies. We wanted to develop platform for the user. Which they can discover time reflect and enable them to connect with people they love by taking away distractive social medium from their life. Our proposal Bliss is a tool that enables people to establish intimate connections despite being physically far apart. The compass-like object lets the user tune in towards a family member or close friends like a compass indicates the direction of north, a small arrow on the Bliss interface indicates when you and your loved one.
COMMINITY OF PRACTICE
We discovered that moment of bliss functions as interest of domain which help participants to develop defense mechanisms against mental health issues during Covid times. Thought being connected to the people who has big footprint in their life we can nurture and enjoy meaningful experience or get connected with people we love to have reflective and meditative experience (aka moment of bliss). It creates community by connecting and aligning to each other to share experiences and activities and these things relate to personal choice and preference.
VALUES
AGELESS PARTICIPATORY ACTION
NORM CRITICISM
NON-BINARY PARTICIPATORY
DIGITAL SUSTAINABILITY
SHARED EXPERIENCE
INCLUSIVE
!!! Rest of the project curated for design progress nerds !!! :)
Bliss
We want to explore what gives people joy, fulfillment or a feeling of relaxation in everyday life. We want to learn what activities and artifacts that matter in people's lives and what meaning they bring. Our proposal Bliss is artifact empower people to establish intimate connections, despite being physically away from each other. Bliss lets the user tune in towards a family member or friend by moving space and allowing them to realize alignment they have with their contacts. We directed our focus to develop a tangible connection tool to encourage users to communicate and align with the special people in their life. We might not reach these people in our daily or else we might not know how affiliate conversations with them. Empowering them to realize and turn invisible things in our life (experience, history, heritage) into tangible actions by shared experience.
To help them to keep the red- treats in their relationship dynamics. Bliss is a compass for a hearth. Argument relationships with people important to us but somehow we lose our daily communication with them due to the stress of modern life. This project was made for families, friends, and partners living apart to share moments of presence. We also see the relevance of this topic concerning an increased interest in care for mental well-being on both an institutional level but also on a level of self-care.
Starting point : As Always - ETNOGRAPHY -
For our first interviews we decided to turn to people in our close surrounding to get their input on how the current pandemic has influenced their daily lives. We interviewed one person in the team, a partner and a close friend of a team member.
We used the method of journey mapping as an interview technique, which means we sketched out the answers from the interviewee as the interview unfolded. Once the first round was done, we went back to some, according to us, key answers to highlight them and further expand on them. The interviews were conducted remotely with all team members and interviewee being in different locations, except for one case where interviewer and interviewee were in the same room. We used video-call to connect and pen and paper or the online whiteboard to sketch. The sketch was always visible to the interviewee. After two rounds of questions, the interviewee, together with one person in our team, made a video explaining the journey map in one video-take. This video, together with our notes was later used for analyzing the conversations.
Tangibility +Reflectivity + Ritualistic
Lets dive deep into our design progress fusion between speculative design and participatory design
In dept. Interview
We used the method of journey mapping as an interview technique, which means we sketched out the answers from the interviewee as the interview unfolded. Once the first round was done, we went back to some, according to us, key answers to highlight them and further expand on them.
Sketch Diaries
Sketch diaries is a tool to get more in-depth insights regarding people’s feelings towards their home life specifically for our project their life under quarantine. We asked participants to sketch out their feeling, aspirations and emotions.
To not constrict them we asked participated to be free and just use pen and paper. We provided no time regulations or any tools. As a designer team, we simple desired to gather visuals probe to reflect on them during our design progress and create conversation around keywords participants defined by themselves. Additionally, participants reflected that, after practicing this tool for few days. They become more sync with them self and achieve more clear mindfulness. They expressed that, this method, motivated them to talk about their emotions with their partner as well help them to overcome communication norms belongs to their culture
Card Games
Card games are a tool aimed to be introduction for participants to the world of participatory design! They are tools to motivate participants enjoy the design progress itself while providing valuable insights for the designer team. Designer can use these games to underline how much value participants brings into project and convince them that, they are creative storm with their energy despite fact, they don’t always believe in it.
Motivate participants to experience and discover moment of bliss.
Card game is helping designer to understand the aesthetic of being together.
Insights from Participatory Activities
Hugging the Sun: It is a moment of reflection as well as ritual to start the day. We realize this activity some how individual and secret to the participants.
“I need nothing more than air and smell of salty sea to enjoy the sun for few minutes to start on my body engine ”
Birth of seed/nurturing of consumption objects: We organized a series of games to reflect upon. How nurturing or cultivating something can be used as time to reflect on yourself as well as a chance to connect with people you carry. For instance: planting carrots, picking up the oranges from the three, making homemade yogurt and one of the most common activities for all is making the breed.
“True moment of Bliss is enjoying the breed in the breakfast while communicating with your partner and remembering jokes you make to each other while e preparing dough”
Platform to get close my own root family
Implantation my own parents and family bodystorming workshop help me get close to my own family, in its essence this is was valuable as well as surprising outcome for me. Since I immigrated to Sweden, I dedicated myself more into my professional gabs between me and my parents enlarged with help reflective and medicative PD tools I feel even closer them because I can relate and understand them in deeper. Moreover, involving them into projects as user and my creative world, helped me to learn more their mental struggle (which they usually don’t share ) and helped them to understand what I am doing as a designer how I investing my time as design to create better society. They figure out what kind of impact I can create with my work and my ambitions and dream didn’t cause me left my home, they help me to foster new home for myself while figuring out my place in the world. Lastly, we had shared multiple moments experiences counted as bliss which helped as navigate in our design progress. For example this was the one of the input we obtained from non-participant observations.
Walking in the forest (Forest therapy while connecting people). It helps participants to have self-reflection moments while connecting with their loved ones. For instance, one of the interesting discoveries we had “Sharing your environment with sound (texture of life) thus obtaining augmented telepresence of a person which provides a different dimension of being together even we are apart form each other. Also, participants were able to perform physical activity which their body and mind require”. We define this activity as both individual and communal activity.
“Force I apply to the ground with each step I translate negative thoughts to the nature as I meditate while running and reflect upon what care and desire to protect in life while doing so nature demands nothing from me. I listen to my friend’s daily life, close my eyes while listening to their background noise and imagine myself next to them. While I hear more of their problems, I remind myself in every step what matters in life. I have to hug life as tight as I can and give them the best advice I would base on my experience and heritage.”
Afterward while during our dialog with participants we encounter the moment where we had the idea of instead parallel walking is it possible to walk towards each other thus we will be literally getting close with each other while physically being apart from each other.
Body-Storming in WILD
I believe body-storming is wonderful investigation tool to sketch with our bodies + identity. Most of the cases design is about communication, storying telling and navigation/orientation of experience thus design progress and body-storming integrated with each other in multiple notion. It provides opportunity base for behavioral and embodiment thinking. As a group activity it encourages both critical thinking and thinking by phenomenon of hand thinking. It takes attributes from Soma design and turn that into more agile workshop
Getting touch with yourself + nature
Body-storming Atlas / Blueprint
Hunted Artifact
Amazing Object
Amazing Service
Detailed Structure of the Workshop
Introduction about the workshop (In total it was four hour plus workshop with four wonderful participants)
Physical warm-up
This method is physical warm-up as their name indicates, in the first exercise we ask one participant to do crazy and foolish dance moves then other participants imitated the moves. We practiced this exercise as a one set, around 30-second repetition in circulation layout. This was helpful because it leads to a quick discussion about a pop culture which results in enjoyment of team dynamics…
Secondly, a laser beam show is about doing laser sound and imitating fun exercise that aims to help participant connect with their inner child.
Presenting research questions
How moments of bliss could be a shared experience and how a moment of bliss could be saved or repeated at a later time.
Artifact hunting
We asked participants to gather objects to use as props during the workshop activities. After a few iterations most effective method was, asking participants to hunt down the most used product & most annoying product in their everyday life.
Conversation about the topic/theme For instance: Conversation about moment of bliss.
What is a moment of bliss?
How would you share this moment with others?
How would you save this moment (for later)?
How would you repeat this experience/activity/communication?
Hugging the sun/ Forest Therapy break (Application of card games from design ethnography kit)
Body storming with your fav personality (Warm up to methods: Opining up creativity and injection joy to workshop)
Co-sketching / Amazing machine
(Introduction card games to enhance creativity of amazing machine workshop. We had the motto that amazing machines can be anything and can do anything, we asked and develop product having co-creative seasons)
Body storming with amazing machine tool
We guided participants on how to think with their hands. Second crucial point is that, putting emphasis on the elephant in the room usually non-designer participants forgets. They are not designing a final product, nor we are not converging on developing product-oriented solutions. Props are tools for conversation. We challenged participants to embodiment themselves into various stories and experiences while interacting with probes and reflecting their heritage and experience on the occasions. Later on, we open up the conversation by using tools such as 5-Why and yes-and tools.
Active passive was a significant part of the workshop, part of my responsibility was detecting passive participants motivate them to join the discussion and adjust power dynamic between different individuals also find gender equality in the workshop adjust cultural nonequal conversation structure based on age and gender. To be able to perform this I used my interview skills form design ethnography practice following the conversation, catch the oral props and responding inconvenient manner to increase or postpose participant contributions to the workshop.
P.S : This kind workshop activities can be used as opportunity or a toolset to observe and participate seamless flow of creativity with the people you are close with. They provide chance to learn more about your close circle and become more sync and aligned with them.
Reflection + Follow up interview
Future journey mapping to discover service overview (This was add-on step it was highly beneficial, I managed to gather a great deal of detail on the design solution they created additional how that solution would fit into their everyday life. With their help, we managed to sketch out the whole service overview and created start point for our team to translate that information to the service blueprint.
Insights from workshop
Firstly, as designers we should, let participants know this workshop is platform for engagement and their contributions are valuable, they are a creative force it is part of our task to trigger that creativity. Secondly, bring the energy on! if you tried or drained asked one your team to be the main facilitator in this occasion since I organized the workshop in my native language, it would have been challenging but I believe in its essence bodystorming is suitable to run with low language input. We should encourage participants to relay on usage of probes and motivate them hands-on experience. As I mentioned above even our norms are changing we should never forget an inclusive aspect of the designing a workshop which people with less technological capacity and organize workshops in a way to keep their interest high ( SKETCH THINGS OUT/ PROTOTYPE ON WILD ). Avoid mis consumption terminology, we should use the vocabulary in a way that participant would understand avoid using unique terms belonging to design professions.
Body-storming and Amazing machine - Adventure of probes and improv
While applying participatory design methodology, it is usual to use tools mutated from other creative field such as theater. We use various tools to learn and co-create with users’ understanding about their associations, resonation and representation of artifacts without focusing on gestalt aesthetics of artifacts. Thus, by its nature, Body-storming and Wizard of Oz helps us to discover the aesthetics of communication and interaction. The core idea was that the designer discovers more about the qualities of aesthetics and defines core features/attributes/expression of the product by implementing them into a story and asking participants why/how questions to learn more about the reasons behind reasons! Engaging the various stakeholders in a creative and entertaining atmosphere.
Tips for Future :
-Pay attention to balancing gender equality.
-Biased male participants try to extracted and dominate and take spot from female participants give them necessary warming. (Cultural stereotypes)
-Don’t get limited to knowledge your discovered from your own experience and assumption or insight gathered by autoethnography tools.
-Really on embodiment presence of your own culture /heritage/ history while conducting the workshop!
Body-storming Example
Hunted Artifact
Amazing Object
Amazing Service
As summery
The main insights that we gathered from this workshop was the aspect of tangibility and physicality of the ideas developed. The physical touch and a pattern of repetition seemed to contribute to the feeling of reflection and creating a ritual around the moment of bliss. This tangibility, for example touching one of the rosary marbles like in one of the ideas, was also meant as a way to transfer experiences or connect with others directly. One of the participants commented: “I would love to visualize our shared experience and see how other people would interpret it and visualize it”.
Design with BODY is a tool, I learned this methodology one of the fieldtrip we had in IDI class which we visited graduate IxD students. Listening about slow design at Women’s Digital Health Group research center and soma learning about design methodologies more so, performative application of its unique first encounter with a new approach. In my opinion, they are quite similar to Sara Ahmet phenomenology theory. Their work emphasizes on slowing down in the design progress. it with a whole-body approach wants to attend slow, appreciation and well being in the design progress and developing artifact. The result is the final outcome of individual progress they don’t involve the user in design progress in comparison to participatory and co-design progress. Soma is personal experimentation which gives the designer opportunity to question, how we affected by the norm it requires self-awareness and reflection being in the translucence stage. It requires a high level of curiosity. We tweaked this method involve participant us as a designer in meditative place, apply this technique to look at design fiction objects from an amazing machine workshop. Since in its core this method shares common interests such as self-awareness, reflection peaceful mind stage. It suited well with our topic moment of bliss. On the other hand, this is time consuming technique and I had the challenge to convince and motivate people who are not interested in mediation and western culture-oriented wellness.
Interaction design mapping
It is a tool sketch out various interaction sequences and have discussions around numerous modalities of interactions. We started to talk about what are the essential features and application we need to have function concept later we decided on primary and secondary interactions by defining input and output for each interaction sequence.
Whole day experince and v-log
Physically and Temporal Form Development
Probes - Mockups
CAD - Prototype
CMF
IN CONCLUSION
In this project, we want to explore what gives people joy, fulfillment or a feeling of relaxation in everyday life. We want to learn what activities and artifacts that matter in people's lives and what meaning they bring. Our proposal Bliss is artifact empower people to establish intimate connections, despite being physically away from each other. Bliss lets the user tune in towards a family member or friend by moving space and allowing them to realize alignment they have with their contacts. We directed our focus to develop a tangible connection tool to encourage users to communicate and align with the special people in their life. We might not reach these people in our daily or else we might not know how affiliate conversations with them. Empowering them to realize and turn invisible things in our life (experience, history, heritage) into tangible actions by shared experience.
To help them to keep the red- treats in their relationship dynamics. Bliss is a compass for a heart which arguments relationships with people. This project was made for families, friends, and partners living apart to share moments of presence. Finally, we also see the relevance of this topic concerning an increased interest in care for mental well-being on both an institutional level but also on a level of self-care.