Author: Zeyao

I missed the workshop of enchanted objects so now I am doing my own research/workshop on this. 

From the slides, I realize that the workshop has three steps. The first one is to identify the problem with cats. I am super allergic to cats so I don’t have cats at home. I only played with them carefully when I visited my friends’. From the little connection that I had with cats, I think cats are really bad at letting their owner know what they want. Cats are shy usually so it’s hard to comfort them. The next step is supposed to be the group come up with some solutions based on other groups’ problems. Since I was not there, I can’t work on this by myself. From the research that I did for this workshop, it’s good to let other people come up with something to solve the problem because the idea is fresh for them. They will have more interpolation on the problems. After coming up with the solution, the group has to prototype the solution with everyday objects. It is always good to do rapid prototyping to present the idea. Even when I interned at R/GA, we used pen and paper to just quick prototype the idea and present it to the boss. Utilizing the things around us will make our ideation process more clear. 

For my final project, I decided to go for one of my favorite design framework – speculative design. My intention for this project is to build a new way of dating people and finding their perfect match or hookup based on your conversation with a lovebot. Through the project, I want people to rethink the modern dating way and how people adjust the fast-pace dating method. 

My inspiration comes from Nicole He’s project — Tinder robot. In her project, she made a fake hand to help the user swipe tinder. It made me think how lazy people can be in dating with modern technology. Since I worked with chatbots for my capstone, I decided to work with voice technology. I am always interested in exploring how people interact with each other on a romantic level. In the New York Times Modern Love column, people talk about their weird and fun stories about finding love and being in love. Thus, I started to work on this project. What is the new way of dating if people are tired of swiping or the current dating app? What else can I explore and combine the voice technology with finding a date? 

I designed a chatbot titled lovebot which can help the user to find their right one no matter if they are looking for a hookup, a date or more. In the live demo, I showed the audience how to find a hookup through the conversation. The bot keeps asking the user questions regards to his ideal hookup type and eventually find him one and set him an appointment at 9 pm. 

I set the context of my design in 10 years later, aka 2029. For this project, I imagine a society in 10 years will get worse on data privacy. Think about how much data that are given to the big technology company, such as Facebook and Google. This situation might shift to dating apps since more people start putting their private information on Tinder and Grindr. The project fits the discursive agenda and lets people think about how much data you give out there. 

In terms of the function of this bot, I got the feedback from my classmates and decided to have a premium function for my bot. If the user is looking for a romantic relationship, the premium function will include the suggestion of dating spot, what to wear and what to do while dating. The bot will get the data of that person from the app, and generate all the useful information that the user needs. The request for the premium function will be included in the middle of the conversation so people will be more willing to pay for it. This can be a new business model that AI bot helps the company to get profit. 

I think the project is pretty successful in terms of people’s reaction that I get after presenting it. Andy said this project made him feel uncomfortable because he felt like people were treated as items with the technology. Some other people also felt the same way when the bot asked for too much information from you. This is exactly what I want the audience to think about from this project. 

Since I missed the class of “Enchanted Design”, This David Rose’s presentation really helps me understand the whole class and what enchanted objects are. He firstly talks about the four futures. For me the most interesting part is Prosthetics. It means embedding the technology on ourselves. This definitely makes me think of wearable technologies. Although people are trying to integrate technology on human beings, almost every time they released a product, they failed. Such as Google Glass or Snapchat Glass. I think this is not only just about adding technology on the human-wear objects, but also considering the way people use these objects. 

What I also like about his presentation is that he redefines the relationship between us and those apps on the digital screen. Can we apply those functions on the app to ourselves? Why do we need an extra screen for those good ideas? It really made me question the functionality of apps on our phone and rethink the way we use it. However, I feel like people in this society are already used to have a smartphone and use apps on it. We can’t just cut the use of our phone and force people to embed technology on themselves. I think a phone is a perfect hub for every external distraction. If we apply these distractions on our body, it’s hard to cut it off. 

Empathy Workshop:

I think this workshop is personally my favorite workshop in-class. The whole workshop was super unexpected. So I had no idea when we switched the table and the partner. When my first partner built the lego, I kinda realized what this workshop was and remembered how did she build it. But then it totally changed! In this workshop, my role is the communicator. I thought my communication skill was pretty strong, yet I can’t fully make my partner form the exact same structure as the previous person did. I think what I like about this workshop is that it helps me understand the way designer work with other people. We need to think from other people’s perspective and figure out how to communicate well so that other people can understand our intention. Sometimes when I thought I made something clear, it failed my expectation. So I need to work on this more in the future. 

Final Project Workshop:

Bonnie is a good partner to help me find more research on dating chatbots. When we went online for the research, she immediately found a lovebot, which helps me defines my project more clear. During the ideation stage, Bonnie is wild! She came up with so many ideas for me, and eventually, some of them were used in my final projects. The workshop really helped us to finish our final project more efficiently since we got someone else to think about the project in another perspective. 

I did the group project with Jamie, Jennifer, and Peter. The framework of our project is speculative design, with a responsible agenda and the goal of performance. At the brainstorm session, I helped them clear out the concept of speculative design, then Peter came up with the idea of 996.icu. 996.icu is current activism that a lot of software engineer and other employees at Chinese Internet companies started. “996” means the employee works from 9am to 9pm for 6 days a week. This overworking problem is getting worse in China, and people start protesting it. Thus we want to make a speculative design targeting this rising issue in China.

The context of our projects will be in 10 years’ China. Without proper regulation, the 996 situation gets worse. Our project is titled “Smart Office”. The system mainly contains two products. The first one is “Smart Chair”, which visualizes employees’ focus level. When the employee starts to focus on their work, the chair will turn bluer. When the chair reaches out a certain value, the employee is free to leave. The second product is the monitor system. The webcam on each employee’s laptop can detect their stress level through their facial muscle, eye blinking frequency, and more things. The stress level will be shown on the screen in the manager’s room. If the average stress level exceeds a certain amount, the company will be fined by the government. 

From the project, we want the audience to reflect on the relationship between the employee and the company in the future. Also, we want to talk about surveillance through the project. Capturing facial expression is a way to get data from the employee. Although it will be easier for the manager to track everyone’s mood, the employee gives away their data at the same time.