Design process 1

First exploration of Design brief & Experimental Prototypes

Because the initial Design Brief needed some further exploration in terms of common understanding and focus, a short introduction of the approach towards social connectedness will be given.

First exploration of Design brief

The assigned focus within the social connectedness project was ‘presence/availability’ Together with the fact that the design had to be focused on elderly the decision was made to make a booklet to see how, why and when students are actually in touch with their grandparents and vice versa. Because sending postcards was an association all members of the project group had immediately, a booklet out of self-made postcards has been created (figure 1), pictures and other items related to the topic. Beside this, the booklet could be approached from two sides: from the elderly point of view and from the perspective of youngsters. The transparent cover of the booklet was therefore reversible, which means that the booklet could be given a different contradiction by changing the card(s) in the cover. This could either be positive versus negative (i.e.: if you want to be present or not) or presence versus availability.

Figure 1: Booklet with self-made postcards and some examples of (positive and negative) stories

Especially the used terminology has been a struggle for quite a long time, as both terms had a different nuance in our opinion; ‘availability’ suggests that someone is really available for somebody else, while ‘presence’ suggests that this availability is limited and that it not always means that someone desires contact in a way. Right from the start, one of our requirements was to keep the ‘solution’ subtle and not intruding at all. Being an alternative for a phone call or a visit, the object should provoke a subtle feeling of connectedness without real contact. This meant that the triangle as presented by Thomas Visser (figure 2) turned out to be a field of tension that should be approached carefully.

Figure 2: Field of attention as indicated by Thomas Visser

To explore the ‘presence’ aspect even further, several collages have been made about this state – including all kind of activities and locations. But to finally choose one certain direction, a brainstorm has led to the decision to focus on the ‘presence’ aspect of social connectedness, which is more subtle and less direct than ‘availability’. At this, ‘drinking coffee together’ was a metaphor to give the topic a warm and friendly feeling and functioned as starting-point for a more purposive idea generation phase.

Experimental Prototypes
As a result of our brainstorm and idea generation, three experimental prototypes in the form of a movie were created. These movies were recorded at home to give the setting a home-like character and to immerse ourselves into the right context. The prototypes were low-fidelity, but the intended interaction could easily be simulated in a movie. The ‘Grab It’ and ‘Open It’ concepts turned out to be most promising to develop, after which the ‘Open It’ concept has been elaborated. This concept uses the home coming ritual of turning keys round in the door lock, which causes a typical tinkling sound. These sounds are different for each set of keys, but are recognizable after a while. This is why this has turned out to be the starting point for the final concept.

Interactive technology exploration

After a second creative session to determine the physical form of the concept, two KeyPing boards have been created (Figure 3):

Figure 3: Two first models of the KeyPing, to illustrate a board for young people (small KeyPing) and elderly (big KeyPing)

On each board (differing in size and shape), people can hang personal items related to contact persons – such as relatives and friends. When these contact persons come home, a LED light will blink indicating that someone just came home. An accompanying key sound indicates when someone entered the door to his/her house, while the owner of the board should hang his/her own keys to be able to see the activity of the contact persons on the board.