Problem Space:
With topics of social justice issues becoming more of a part in our daily conversations, it’s easy to passively support by sharing news on our phones and complain about all that is wrong in the world, but there must be a way we can use digital platforms to bring people to be active supporters.
How can we get people to be more involved with social justice issues?
Interactive Prototype:
Approach:
As the sole designer for this project I was responsible for all steps of the design process from problem discovery to user experience and UI design.
People feel making a change at a global scale may seem like an impossible task. But when they focus on this idea at a local scale the task becomes more achievable. We don’t need big solutions but an accumulation of small changes that will make a big impact.
If I’m going make a digital platform to get people engaged with the local events within their area, it makes sense to design my screens with people in my community. Social justice is achieved best when people come together to support a cause they believe in and actively stay involved in a cause and bringing in elements of that into my design process was crucial. With that in mind, this was a perfect opportunity for co-creation workshops.
1st Co-creation Session:
All students at Emily Carr University were sent an email about the co-creation session and the first 10 students that confirmed the RSVP were chosen as the participants. The planned co-creation activities were: Brainstorming though mind-mapping and sketching on the different ways people can get involved in social justice issues. Discussing and talk about what are some barriers people face from getting involved in social justice issues. Narrowing the ideas down from the previous activities and think about how people could get involved in social justice issues for the first time.
Though these activities, I hoped to get insights from the following questions:
1. What are different ways you can get involved?
2. What are some psychological barriers or other barriers preventing people from being active supporters?
3. What are some way people can get involved in social justice events for the first time?
I was left wondering what happened? Did I not set this up right? How is it possible that we took up 1 1/2 hours and only got through the first activity?
After I replayed the co-creation session in my head, I realized how I’m going to approach the session differently in the second round. One of the most important things I learned was that I needed to get a different demographic of people for the next co-creation session. All 10 participants were designers from different fields. During the session I noticed there were lots of suggestions on how I could approach my problem, which was helpful, but each of them had strong opinions and their ideas were clashing.
2nd Co-creation Session:
The participants for the second co-creation workshop were chosen to ensure that I got a broader range of people. The planned co-creation activity was to have participants reflect on a take home question, bring their answers to the session and start co-creating the screens together.
I had asked the participants to answer a question: When you go through the prototype do you experience any of these feelings?
-
- Comfort
- Motivated
- Safe
- Prepared
- Inspired
The images above represent the most important aspects of this successful co-creation session. After the initial analysis, I asked the participants to look over the screens, take out screens or add elements that didn’t convey those 5 feelings from the options I gave them in the question. You can see that screens were rearranged, some screens were taken out and new screens were created.
The co-creation workshops heavily determined the final prototype of my design and helped me refine the final project iterations. Since the goal of the project is to try and shift passive allies into active allies, I needed to make sure they didn’t lose interest in the on-boarding process. So knowing how the participants in my co-creation session interacted with the screens I provided, plays a huge factor in the success of my final outcome.
Reflection
The final outcome of my project heavily depended on the collaborative nature of the co-creation workshops. It was crucial to bring in people to get their perspectives on how they would take their first step into being an active supporter to make this project flourish.
The next steps is to run more co-creation workshops and to keep on iterating. There are no such things as finished designs and there’s always room for improvement!
About Jiyun Park
Recent graduate of the Interaction Design Program at Emily Carr University of Art & Design in Vancouver, British Columbia.
With a dual-focused practice that utilizes my expertise in both illustration and interaction I am able to incorporate both into my design work. I am well versed in all phases of product creation, from user research and profiling, to wire framing, prototyping, testing, and delivery.
I believe great designers desire to draw upon opportunities and strive to improve on design standards. Desire drives action.
I’m currently looking for opportunities in product design and UX design in the gaming industry or service design.
https://jiyunpark.com/
Cometta, Cultivating Self Compassion | Arjun Menon
Problem:
There are many people who face self judgemental or self critical thoughts on a daily basis. These thoughts often become normalized in our lives and contribute to feelings of depression and isolation.
Solution:
Cometta(Co meaning together, Metta meaning loving kindness) is an app that will help you be mindful of your self critical thoughts and respond to them with kindness through a series of exercises. You can share this kindness by sending and receiving kind messages all over the world.
Key UI Screens
These screens showcase key UI outcomes of the product design process.
The top two screens present the feature to send and receive kind messages as a practice of compassion and recognition of our common humanity. The touch gesture of swiping up is given a meaning of releasing a kind message to the world. The movement of the user’s hands away from themselves signifies giving something to someone else. In order to receive a kind message from the world, the user has to accept it. The touch gesture of swiping down, or pulling towards themselves, signifies this acceptance of a kind message from someone else.
Micro-interactions guide the user’s experience in learning and applying the journey to cultivate compassion. These small product moments provide particular functions which come together in a usable, cohesive, and meaningful experience. In the bottom two screens, the micro-interactions allow the user to control visual and functional elements in their journey of mindfulness and kindness meditation.
Process
As the sole designer for this project I was responsible for a wide range of the design process from product concept ideation to, user research and UI/visual design.
Using user centered methods such as persona mapping, user interviews, and field research helped to challenge immediate assumptions in my early concept ideation and inform future concepts and designs.
I moved from low to high fidelity prototyping with testing and feedback for each prototype iteration. The insights from feedback I received during each testing session informed the design in terms of interface and layout arrangements as well as conceptual and experiential considerations. The approach to solving high level problems continued to evolve with new insights from user research which occurred throughout the design process as well. The final design outcome was determined heavily through this iterative and cyclical process.
Interactive Prototype
Ultimately the core experience of cultivating self compassion is amplified and communicated through micro-interaction, gesture and animation. A continuous challenge in the process was maintaining a balance between depth and simplicity of the experience in order to bring in more engagement and interest from users. Placing focus on the kind message sharing feature differentiates Cometta from existing mindfulness apps that might touch upon self compassion as a part rather than the whole of their offering.
About Arjun Menon
I am a class of 2020 graduating interaction design student. My hometown is the sunny San Diego, California.
My approach to design is influenced by my interest and practice of mindfulness.
In mindfulness meditation we become aware of the thoughts and patterns of our mind. Similarly, as a designer I try and be aware of the systems and assumptions we have during a project. I then validate through user centred research and design methods.
I believe the most creative work comes from a place of fearlessness and experimentation. With a strong foundational knowlege of design, I am able to push the boundaries and create captivating visual compositions using established as well as emerging technology. My love for design exploration, experimentation, and play allow me to constantly learn and ultimately create captivating interactions and experiences.
Check out my Portfolio: arjun1am.com
