Project Title: Our Planet
PROJECT STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The insight of this project comes after the discussion with Vivien Hao about our research and our focuses on the definition of “interaction.” Vivien researches a project named bomb that addresses energy safety issues. It aims at revealing the truth of reality and arouse the public’s awareness. Therefore, we believe “impact” is very important for a project of interaction to be meaningful and significant. Then, we together visited the website of the United Nations and researched “Sustainable Development Goals” to find some insight for us to address a social issue. We notice that the description of “GOAL 13: CLIMATE ACTION” says that “Climate change is a global challenge that affects everyone, everywhere” (United Nations). However, apparently, not everyone is familiar and aware of the happening climate change. Therefore, we want to build something interactive that addresses this issue. Since it has to be an interactive project, according to my previous research about the less successful project in PSA and successful project in teamLab Borderless Shanghai where everything is creative and collaborate, I believe that an open communication environment that engages the audience to have continuous participation is necessary. We soon recalled a smartphone app “Forest.” In this app, when staying away from your phone for a certain amount of time, the user will grow up a virtual tree on the phone. We, therefore, think that the image of tree growth is straightforward and friendly to the audience to show its indication of the environment. By paying effort to plant the tree and save the planet, use is getting constant feedback and engagement to reinforce their behaviors. It may even have a further impact on their real daily lives. Besides, we also visited the NASA website (https://climate.nasa.gov/) to look for some climate change facts as a reference to make sure it is scientifically reasonable. In all, this project addresses the general public’s awareness of the urgent climate change problem around the globe. It intends to encourage uses to minimize the carbon emission and pay effort to make a greener planet.
PROJECT PLAN
The project will have a projection screen on the middle, four positions with shovels, and masks. When the user puts on the mask, once breathe, it consumes oxygen and produces carbon dioxide. When planting the tree, vice versa, and the tree grows larger. The planet will boom if it lacks oxygen and filled with carbon dioxide. The sketch of it is as follows.
Since our audience is the general public, they could be anyone. Therefore, we will have user testing among ourselves and our friends throughout the process of project development to empathize with them. We have some specific plans as follows.
- We need to be sure about the detail of the design by prototyping and test it with the users. The user test should be in every step. The details include: whether or not to include a mask in our project, what types of sensors we decide to use, what material we will use, how will the user interface look like; sound, start and end, layout, and position. We will test with the comfortability and the cleanness of the mask. We will finish the discussion for all the details and have a blueprint by Sunday, Nov. 24.
- We need to build the circuit and the program that are both scientific and humanized. This will be practical work. We may encounter many problems. We will refer to online references and asking for help. Once when we finish the user interface, we will have someone to test playing with it to make sure it makes sense to the audience about the expression of our initial design. Finish before Dec. 1.
- We need to get the materials and build up the basic functional prototype. This is practical work, as well. We only need to make sure it can support our project to work. It can be done by Dec. 1, as well.
- We need to test with the accuracy of counting the movement of the shovel and breathe. Also bug fixing work. This process needs constant revising and test among ourselves and our users. We will list out all the bugs the project has and fix them one by one until it works exactly what it is supposed to be. It should be done by Dec. 6.
- Beatifying the project and adding something to improve user experience and accessibility. This step we will need to decorate everything, make the wires invisible, test the projection. After we think it works, we will invite many groups of people to interact with it. By hearing their feedback, we can make some little changes to make it more user-friendly and accessible for as many people as possible. It should be done by Dec. 8.
CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
I researched the project of teamLab. It connects every human and non-human factor together. Therefore, I believe it builds a reciprocal communication and relationship between human and human, human and environment, environment and environment. Moreover, it inspires and impacts the user continually so that communication is everlasting and inclusive to them. The keyword – communication – in my reshaped definition of “interaction” hints me to design something that is encouraging and inspiring to the audience. I hope to build an immersive user interface to engage their communication while getting constant feedback. The movement of the shovel and the changing scene on the screen fulfills this requirement. Users will start to try shovel harder to reach the goal in the authentic settings that are relative to them. I also researched an assistive technology Marco Cart. As I described before, this project is functioning as a tool that addresses the real need and has an impact on society. Also, cooperating with Vivien’s research and understanding about “interaction,” we think a significant impact is also a considerable surplus to the significance of an interactive project. Combing “communication” and “social impact” together, this project uniquely brings a significant social issue into the reciprocal personal conversation with the general public in an interactive way. Even though the form of our project may look similar to some commercial smartphone apps like “Forest” and “AntForest” in Alipay, the theory, logic, frame, design, outcome, purpose, and significance are different. We address more on impact and communication while they might be designed to trick consumers for more economic profits. Our project may have further implications on a personal level. It may bring more people’s attention to the issue of climate change. In this way, some social movement projects and activities about environment protection may be more meaningful and more influential to the general public. By cooperation together, every single person has the power to devote a remarkable effort to make our planet greener and to make our livings more sustainable.