Inks
Summary:
Inks was developed to allow friends to share their “Emotional Extremes” (i.e. stress) within a group of friends. When one member is experiencing stress, others in the group can reach out to help. Inks is an app that is meant to encourage actions outside of digital life.
Project Brief:
An Exploration of how the principles of meditation and an individuals social bonds can allow one to start looking at stress in a positive light.
Team:
Sarah Foley, Min Kim, Kee Tae Ryu, Dixon Lo
6-week project
My Role and Contribution:
Concept Development, Project Management, Research, UX Flow, Wireframe Workflow, Wireframe Refinement, Workflow Analysis
Research Question:
“How do people handle stress?”
Field Research: 13 Interviews
Synthesis:
People deal with their stress differently
- We sorted the data obtained from our field research into different silos such as proactive, reactive, and tools.
- Four themes for dealing with stress were identified from the data: play, social, physical, or self-reflection.
- We selected the theme play, because it allows one to address stress in a positive rather than negative light.
Inspiration:
Research Question:
How can we change the way people look at stress?
*Can stress be viewed more of as a challenge and a motivator for individuals?
Guiding Design Principles:
- Initiate and create positive proactive personal support.
- Counteract stress through face to face interaction with those who you know and care about you, by use of the application.
Concept:
Wireframe v0
- Everyone has the Inks application and a wearable that measures one’s own stress.
- The idea was that each person’s stress level would be represented in a digital ink bubble. Depending on an individual’s level of emotion the ‘ink’ would grow or shrink.
- People can join groups to share their level of stress with other people.
In each group, there would be:
- A passive action: ‘Nudging’ tells another that you are thinking of them.
- An active action/ call for help: ‘Splashing’ allows one to mark a point in which they want their friends to take notice.
WorkFlow Analysis:
We wanted to fully understand the stakeholders, who they were, their use of the platform, the benefit they gained from using the platform, and the broader implications of the platform.
Blue text: actions taken outside of the app.
Red arrows: notifications sent to other people who are outside of the app.
Validation:
We had four users test out our prototype to validate our concept.
First, we were looking for whether or not people saw a benefit to using our application, and also to gauge their interest and need for such an application.
Second, we were looking at whether the way we depicted emotions was bias-free. We wanted people to place their own meanings on how we depicted the inks/nudges and splashes.
And third, we were also looking at the general flow of the app to see if it was confusing.
Insights from Validation:
Through talking with people we learned that INKS was perhaps more applicable to females than to males. Some males did say that they would use this as a way of knowing when a group of friends need to go out for drinks or the like.
People saw INKS as a great social interaction productivity tool to facilitate people working in groups.
Use was based on trust. Participants needed to know and trust their friends to be supportive for INKS to work well.
Idea Alignment:
Through testing and the workflow analysis (above), we realized that not everyone was on the same page and a ‘splash’ meant something different to each person on the team.
The team formulated a list of items and issues found in the validation testing exercise to identify what needed refinement and alignment. Each team member then drew what they thought the list item should be.
For example, it was unclear whether or not a group disappeared when someone chose to splash, or what actually happened when someone splashed, and how the ink blobs should act over time.
Each item was refined, alignment was gained and ideas were rolled into the wireframes. For example, groups stayed, inkblots could show differences in time etc.
Final Wireframe:
Conclusion and Going Forward:
I would like to explore the community implications and workflow a little more.
I would like to further validate that seeing another stress level will make one actually want to reach out more. In testing, the responses that we got did lean towards hypothetically reaching out, but it may be different in practice.
This app demonstrates a potential for people who are in particular need of social support. Some examples include people dealing with alcoholism and addiction. It also has potential value for people that are lonely and workaholics.
