The Living Connection
Brief
Given the project of creating a design intervention for a particular set of users, Wayne Lo and I defined an audience group between the ages of 28-35. To get a general idea of the user group’s needs and values, Cultural Probes were given out to gather information about their lifestyle. From the results and analysis of the items, it helped us create three distinctive persona characters that represent to our “ideal” target user group.
Process
With an understanding of our desired audience group, participatory workshops, informances, and focus groups were conducted to get a deeper understanding of our audience’s core values, behaviors, reactions, and everyday activities.
Our research evaluation concluded with the understanding that homeowners who are ‘on the go’ strive for satisfaction in relaxation at home, with the addition of effective communication methods between spouses and family members. Although valuing the fulfillment of household responsibilities, there’s a deeper psychological need for natural characteristics to respond in a design. The need is to find reconciliation of old values through new opportunities. The concepts of “Cocooning” and “Polycentric Home” expresses the remapping of living spaces between leisure and social activities rather than function. The concepts by Faith Popcorn and Stefano Marzano was used as the foundation and inspiration for our design intervention.
Delivery
The concept of The Living Connection is an integrated system developed for these users, utilizing a system of screen panel artifacts distributed around the home, and facilitating interactions between residing individuals. The outcome of the 4-month long project was a video scenario and a report package documenting our research, findings, analysis, and process development.