The body storming process allowed us to observe a participant experiencing our installation for the first time. We could understand how they interacted with the materials presented and how to improve the overall experience. Since we gave our participant zero instructions, we could observe how she began to interact with the mattress and react to the lightbulbs.
Here is a video of the interaction:
The initial response was slower than expected as she didn’t know whether she was allowed to touch the installation. The way she played with it was not surprising. We expected our participants to respond to the lights and react in their own way, by pressing in different pressures and areas. This was encouraging to us because she reacted in a way that we wanted her to. As to understanding our intentions, she was not clear until the description was explained, which was acceptable for us.
During the discussion, she raised the point that she did not know what to do in the beginning. In a way, this was not a huge issue because we wanted the participant to explore and interact with the installation in the most comfortable and organic way possible, without any instructions. She also mentioned that she hoped that there will be different sounds and lightbulb responses each time she pressed on the mattress.
After some thought, we realised we should indicate that the participant is allowed to touch the piece somewhere on the ground below the mattress. We will also explore inputting different intensities of sound and lightbulb response depending on the pressures and positions the participants’ interaction.