Plant Family
A research project for developing tangible, connected home technologies.
Year
April - September
2019
Type
User Centred Design, User Research,
Tangible Interaction, Product Design
Role
(team) User Research,
Analysis & development
*This Project was presented at the annual exhibition of bauhaus university 2019 (Summary 2019).
-Introduction-
Are we developing the EQ of our homes?
A Design Exploration of Fostering Communication in Shared Flats
Our surroundings and living spaces are getting smarter with various new technologies. Considering, the era of smartphones maturing into personal assistance, homes are becoming more automated and technology-driven with IoT technology.
“Calmness is a fundamental challenge for all technological design over the next fifty years”- Mark Weiser-
As Mark mentioned, It is crucial to make devices calm rather than just smart or portable, such that they are integrated into our existence. We strived to meet this criterion where the technology is not distracting one with notifications or unwanted assistance but rather learn from lifestyle patterns and do it for you in a calm and quiet manner, finally enhancing the EQ of people as well as their IQ.
-User Research-
Dive into user context
Contextual Inquiry: Observe and Explore the needs of people
We carried out contextual Inquiry, titled “Cooking for Strangers” asking participants to cook for us(researchers). Contextual Inquiry is a user centred design research method to obtain information about the context of users.
At participants’ living spaces, we observed and collected data followed by in-depth interviews around the dining table. It was critical to be very careful about the privacy of the participants since the participants invite researchers to observe them in their most private spaces.
Our aim was to understand the lifestyles of people from different cultural backgrounds on a deeper level and to explore and respond to the emotional needs of people living in shared spaces.
5
Participants
3 hours
in-depth interview per participant
197
collected data
-Data Analysis-
Discover what users really want
Analyze the data and extract common patterns of users
The data led to the key insight that there was an abundance of plants in all flats, showing that people liked to take care of living things, while the flat mates were suspiciously missing from the activity, as they tried to give space to the visitors in the kitchen.
From the data gathered and interpreted, we found a greater issue of individuals craving for companionship in their daily lives. The act of listening to music or a conversation over the phone or in-person while cooking the last meal of the day, as the need for constant noise around the participant, exemplified the result of data.
-Desgin & Prototyping-
Create a pleasant experience
A design derived from the context of users
Child Plant (left) and Parent Plant (right)
The plant family consists of a parent plant and its smaller ‘siblings’ in illuminated pots. The plant parent stays in a common area of the apartment, such as the kitchen. Each plant sibling sits in the room of a member of the flat share. As with the other plants that we saw in the research study, we expect people in the flat to take ownership of these devices and care for them.
Here as well, the flat members work against time. Over time, the lights of the plant pots dim simultaneously, showing an “unhappy”plant. To make it happy again, it has to be taken into the kitchen to be reunited with the parent plant - hopefully stimulating conversation with flat mates during surprise encounters.
-Evaluation-
Does it create companionships in our home?
Deployment and user testing process
Deployment at participant’s house
Technical setting for the deployment
We carried out some user study to evaluate our prototype with one set of participants. We went back to participansts whom we interviewed earlier and deployed our prototypes at participants’ house. It was required for their flatmates to participate as well.
Towards the end of the study the participants claimed that their most memorable experiences with the plant family was when they met accidentally in the kitchen by the Mother plant to recharge the lights back to its full brightness. They got into a generic conversation of the day and then eventually decided to cook and eat dinner together.