What did you learn from the process?
CP: Through the storming process, I realised that the instruction manual has to be very clear and precise. Based from the interaction made by Praveen who is the tester, he has many doubts and curiosity on the product. This ultimately let me realised that as much as how well designed or substantial a product is, it is as good as nothing if no one has a clear description or understanding of how it works.
LX: From this process, I learnt that the instructions for users has to be simple, as well as the process, so that they can understand it easily and perform the right steps. This was because during the storming process, our instructions were slightly vague and the process was rather complicated, making Praveen confused about the steps, thus he ended up interpreting the steps wrongly. I also learnt that we had interpreted loneliness wrongly and failed to communicate it in our installation, however users who tried or saw the installation feedbacked that they thought that the emotion was social anxiety.
What surprised you while going through the process?
CP: The ultimate surprise that I had while I am going through the process happens during the video scene at 4 Minute 20 Seconds mark that the secondary participant, Daryl, mentioned that our intention of this product and activity is to draw out social anxiety. This comes to a great delight for me as he has the knowledge of what we want to pin point, but not towards social anxiety but the outcome, which is to self isolate oneself from the others as the person who has the anxiety has no choice but to go away from places that are crowded or high in human volume to a quiet place where they feel safe.
LX: Firstly, I was surprised by the fact that Praveen was confused by the instructions ended up doing something else instead of the actual steps, making me learn that our instructions have to be clearer. Additionally, I was surprised that Praveen guessed that our installation was about social anxiety instead of loneliness, showing our failure to communicate our intention right. Lastly, I was surprised that the idea of the jigsaw puzzle just made the process complicated, instead of helping the process, which I totally did not realise during ideation.
How can your apply what you have discovered to the designing of your installation?
CP: How can we actually trigger the feeling of social anxiety that makes the testers feel the struggle in order to isolate themselves from the other testers as the feedback suggestion mentioned anxiety occurs on the chest or stomach of people where they felt discomfort, probably a design can be made to strap around the chest or stomach to reciprocate this discomfort feeling. I could look into designing neck straps or stomach pouch.
LX: Firstly, we decided to change our emotion that we want users to feel from loneliness to social anxiety. To communicate our emotion, social anxiety, accurately to the users, we are looking at the different symptoms of social anxiety such as trembling hands, muscle tension and more and incorporating them into our installation. We might also change our object to another wearable such as jacket or scarf to cater to the symptom of social anxiety we choose. Lastly, we will write more simple and clear instructions so that users easily understand our installation.