#milestone4

Thank you for all the kind words and warm reception to my work!

For the last milestone, I have finished the sketches and the order of the objects. I have decided to use broken mirrors inside the little room where the screens are placed and the video is shown. The mirrors will create a reflection through each other as well as the videos reflection, which will look like Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity rooms. 

The left up sketch is showing the exhibition space that we created. The up right one is the video room, there will only be ropes coming out of the screens and broken mirrors all over the walls. 

The sketches below shows how I am going to use the walls, I will use pins, working and broken lamps in variations. I will use different photographs and liquids which are connected to each other. I will use the poems that I wrote, broken clocks, balloons and scissors, a different sculpture with painted worlds.

These objects will represent my stages in depression such as feeling of darkness, escaping from reality, loss of time and space, being fragile/sensitive and so on. 

I have been working on the 3D objects, the online exhibition with a friend of mine who is currently studying at interior architecture. My plan is to complete all the objects and the placement so that the exhibition will be ready to be displayed.

12- Are People of Minority Groups Living in Worse Conditions?          

11- Coming Together for a Change

Feature choices

As a design decision, we parallel prototyped and made as many features for the app as we could possibly come up with. Then we left it to our testers to try a few at a time in a in-between studies approach, and show us which communication mediums were most poignant for them. As a result, we made the following design changes and implementation decisions:

Features we REMOVED for the moment include: 

Relationship health bar: made users feel guilty, hard to quantify a relationship. made users feel like health app

In phone calling: this was silly to implement it ourselves when existing apps are easier; we also realized that users simply didn't want to call/message from within our app because it gave a different, more whimsical feel. A Facetime feature would have detracted from the whimsicality

Current activity: we made it more vague, since exact details made users feel uneasy, as if they were stalking the other person

Features we KEPT/ADDED due to user demand/insights: 

Mini Game - We want to allow multiple players to simultaneously control the game, like the Pokemon Twitch tournament! The rationale behind this originates from Burke's Growing Closer on Facebook: Changes in Tie Strength Through Site Use. This was a study that found people who played casual multiplayer games, like Words with Friends, were more likely to feel closer to their friends than those who didn't. We want to use real time gaming as a communication medium, or communication spark, to get people to grow closer together.

This gaming feature also enhances the tamagotchi feel of the app and keep the app light-hearted and fun. We also found in testing that users wanted more ways to interact with their avatars so we used their avatars inside the game. 

Multiple Avatars - Users routinely mentioned loved ones that the app reminded them of during testing, so we realized that our simple interface lends itself to multiple pocket pals! Within a simple swipe, users can check up on the status/mood and interact with many loved ones. This realization will also keep them engaged with the app for longer periods of time! The wireframe in Figure 1 entails how users may create/manage multiple avatars:   

Figure 1: Users may create and manage multiple avatars

Figure 2: User may toggle between various loved ones easily

As the above wireframes demonstrate, users has access to the other party's:

Time - Time is something that everyone keeps track of and it is an integral part of understanding a loved one’s context. We wanted to make sure time was always displayed so users would no longer have to mentally calculate time differences.

Weather - Knowing your loved one’s weather helps to bridge the distance by giving you an understanding of their environment.  We found that users had often already programed their loved one’s location into their local weather app so we wanted to make sure to include this feature in our app as well.

Mood - This is a key component of our app that allows users to update their avatar with their mood. In testing, we found that this was a fun way to personalize their avatar but also a quick way to convey emotion.

Users also wanted simple ways to create and update their own avatars: 

Figure 3: A simple onboarding process

Figure 4: a simple status update process

As seen in Figure 5 below, user can also toggle the following:

Call Availability - A problem most users ran into in long-distance relationships is finding time to talk. Often times, calls have to be scheduled, especially in international situations. This feature allows users to quickly see when their loved ones are available for a call so it reduces the barrier in communicating and always users to stay better connected.

Work Status - In testing, we found that tracking a loved one’s exact location was a little “creepy” so we are testing out this “at work” status instead. We still wanted to somehow include location in our app since we believe it is important to understanding a person’s setting. Our compromise is allowing users the ability to say whether or not they are at work and having this setting visually displayed on their avatar.

Figure 5: User may quickly choose their current availability, mood, etc.

Figure 6: This is then instantly reflected in the other party's views

Implementation progress thus far

(all images below are screenshots of a fully functioning iOS app)

Users can update his/her own mood, call availability, work status. The time and weather updates are automated by location!

As seen above, user also toggled the following:

The Mini-Game -We also implemented and customized two games. 

Both games are accessible via a game menu

Users can now use their avatars to play FlappyBirds, for example (see below). This further personifies our avatar analogy. 

Think how much more challenging this game becomes once two people can make the avatar crash!

We also integrated the popular game 2048. This will be turn based and offer users a more intellectual environment to collaborate.