Foreword by OIivier: This magical 🪄💫 piece was written by Ebony Omodara, and has many insights and cool examples of design methods and user research done well. It chronicles her journey of creating “Lobit” – a lounging hoodie which sends virtual hugs and voice messages to mimic physical closeness. She also design an app to control it, which you can read here: userexperience.org/smartwear-configuration-app/
The Project
With the core themes of social presence and enchantment, my team and I created the “Lobit” – a lounging hoodie which sends virtual hugs and voice messages to mimic physical closeness. We brought this design to life in order to increase emotional connectivity between two people.
Users can pair up with a significant other through another hoodie. Hugs can be sent to the other by hugging oneself, where, in turn, the other hoodie provides a few seconds of vibration to the heart, generating a feeling of intimacy. Additionally, users can send voice messages to their partner through the hoodie itself, which plays through speakers in the partner’s hoodie.
The Problem
Popular communication technology (i.e., smartphones) is limited in its ability to create meaningful emotional connection as it varies greatly between and within individuals, relationship types, geographical distance between partners, and more. In reality, most popular communicative technologies are primarily designed to make communication more efficient, and not necessarily more meaningful.
The Goal
The identification of these problems alongside the project theme of enchantment led to the realization of our final research question:
How can our enchanted everyday object encourage connectivity in a close relationship compared to smartphone communication?
My Responsibilities
- Conducted a literature review to identify the gaps of existing technology.
- Designed the hoodie with the team.
- Created user personas with the team.
- Participated in Ideation with the team.
- Designed user research protocols
- Conducted user research with the team.
- Created the mobile phone application
- Create low-mid and high-fidelity prototypes with the team.
The Context
An Enchanted Everyday Object For Social Connectivity
Enchantment is often defined as the subjective experience of being amazed and emotionally touched in a positive way.Thus, enchanting qualities integrated into technology hold the potential to elevate interpersonal interactions.
The focus of connectivity stemmed from our personal experiences and values regarding the relationships in our lives. Ideation was based on the assumption of the universal need to connect to others, and that the realization of this need can be disrupted by everyday demands.
Using these principles, we brainstormed insights, patterns, and design considerations for bringing these goals to life.
User Personas
Ideation
Our initial idea at this stage, was the hoodie that allowed partners to send and receive voice messages and hugs (via heat).
I designed an accompanying phone application to configure the usage of this hoodie.
The User
To understand the user of this product design…
First, I created a storyboard and we collectively created the customer journey map.
Refining the Design
We conducted brief user research using the sketches.
We focused on phone usage for social connections, the impact of push notifications, experiences with wearable technology, opinions on the design, willingness to use it, factors for increased usage, dislikes, and perceptions of originality.
- From this, we identified the need to…
- Explore exclusive modalities beyond heat for the hoodie.
- Improve aesthetics by making button features hidden with fabric or customizable attachments. (We decided to remove this feature due to feasibility)
- Hoodie length should be optomized for comfort.
- Allow customization options for turning features on/off and choosing color/design.
- Develop an accompanying app for enhanced coordination and notification functionalities.
Finally, we arrived at the first version of the lo-fi prototype.
Then, we did brief user testing to determine the optimal placement for the hug sensors, based on how users hug themselves.
This led to the second version of the Lo-fi prototype: Yellow is the proposed heating placement, and blue is the sensor placement.
Continued testing led to the final lo-fi prototype.
Implementing the Design
The main change, due to hardware constraints, was the use of vibration instead of heat. Additionally, due to time and money constraints, the creation of two hoodies was not feasible. However, we were determined that we could demonstrate the core functionalities of the Lobit sufficiently without creating two fully developed Hi-Fi prototypes. With this in mind, we decided to build one sending device and one receiving device, with the receiving device being integrated into the modalities within a hoodie.
The sending prototype consisted of an armband with a sensor where participants hugged themselves to send a hug. Additionally, this included a microphone where participants could record voice audios. The reception prototype included the hoodie with the vibration module and headphones to hear the voice audios.
Evaluation
For Evaluation, we used 2 versions of the prototype: a sending prototype and a receiving prototype.
We ensured the level of functionality met the requirements for evaluating the user experience and interaction.
Alongside another teammate, I designed an evaluation focused on assessing usability, enchantment, and feelings of connectivity evoked by the product.
Participants, who were platonic or romantic partners, were exposed to two conditions: one where the product was used (experimental condition) and the other where smartphones were used (control condition). Each condition simulated distanced communication between a pair of participants, during which they were asked to consider their emotional experiences. Subsequently, participants were given a checklist and semi-structured interview designed to measure the social presence and the enchantment evoked by each condition. We used semi-structured interview, the social presence checklist, and the enchantment checklist, to access these goals.
The Lobit increased users’ sense of social presence, making them feel more connected to their partners compared to smartphones.
Users experienced higher levels of enchantment (e.g., joy and excitement) with Lobit than with their phones, as shown by the enchantment adjective checklist.
Higher scores in social presence correlated with higher enchantment scores, suggesting a link between emotional connectedness and enchantment in technology.
Reflection
My involvement in this project involved many tasks, ranging from initial design and brainstorming sessions, providing assistance, conducting literature reviews, revising, embroidering, digital prototyping, sketching, and more. Throughout the process, I found great satisfaction in the process of designing and delving into user research, from which provided invaluable insights for development and final evaluation. Nonetheless, I believe the allocated time for research proved adequate, although there was potential for further exploration. Working collaboratively with a team was a gratifying experience, and the culmination of our efforts made the creation of the Lobit worthwhile.
Thank you for exploring my portfolio. I’m always open to connect for a chat!
Connect with me on LinkedIn – Ebony Omodara.
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