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.