Project Overview

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…

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