LONELINESS PROJECT: W.E
A gamified virtual exhibition and a corresponding physical exhibition through artistic healing and fun approach to help sooth loneliness among young adults by fostering self-construction and connection.
PROJECT INTRO
OVERVIEW
Based on massive research on social psychology and cooperation with art therapists and faculties from Student Wellness Center and Student Union, Loneliness Project: W.E takes on both virtual and physical platforms as gamified and/or immersive exhibitions to help sooth loneliness among young adults. Through artistic healing and fun approach, creative practices involved are to improve people's self-construction and enhance their connections.
MY ROLE: UX & EXHIBITION DESIGN
Design research, analysis, design strategy, content creator, creative director, music producer, illustrator, UX design, exhibition design.
DESIGN TOOL
Solidworks, Keyshot, Scapple, Sketchbook Pro, Adobe Creative Suit.
PROJECT DURATION
Sep 2021 - May 2022, 24 weeks
PARTNER
Department of art therapy, Student Wellness Center, Student Union at OCAD University.
TEAM
Collaborative project.
LOCATION
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Design your own planet and invite others to construct together.
Explore diverse planets, make friends, contact school faculties, engage creative practices, and attend present events.
KEY ISSUE
Loneliness:
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Unique and universal
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Fluctuate at different circumstances, causes, and needs
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"The unpleasant experience that occurs when a person's network of social relationships is deficient in some important way, either quantitatively or qualitatively."
Potential risk:
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One of the leading public health challenges
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Causes obesity, physical inactivity, chronic mental illness, poor cardiovascular outcomes, etc.
Young adults:
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Stereotypical image of the elder as the most affected population
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Younger generations like international students and college students
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are especially prone to loneliness
DESIGN PRINCIPLE
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Exclusive access for young adults
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Offering holistic & healthy user experience
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Creating empathy and emotional resonance
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Fulfill people's psychological needs for a sense of belonging, connection and community and let individuals need to feel valued, included and supported
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Fostering self-construction
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Non-judgmental, friendly & trustful atmosphere
GUIDING QUESTION
How might we use therapeutic and artistic healing methods to sooth the feeling of loneliness among young adults through a fun and engaging user experience with helpful retention?
PROJECT GOAL
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Raise awareness of loneliness
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Apply artistic healing approach to create diverse interactive, peaceful and joyful user experience through the design to relate and connect with self and others
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Establish empathy and emotional resonance
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Foster self-reflection, exploration, and inspiration
KEY WORD
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UI/UX design
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Social psychology
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Physiology
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Gamified
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Loneliness
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Young adults
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Exhibition design
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Creative practice
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Art healing
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Self-construction and connection
RESEARCH
INTERVIEWEE VS LONELINESS
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Escaping and distraction
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Feeling lonely is more related to mental status
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Loneliness is subjective
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To embrace oneself and foster self-construction and awareness is essential and primary to tackle loneliness
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The needs of international students include a sense of belonging, social connection and a sense of community
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Fatigue and overwhelmingness on online environment in long term
DESIGN SUGGESTION
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Provide exclusive access to international students
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Offer opportunities so young adults can share experience with each other
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Foster self-construction
IDEATION (PHYSICAL EXHIBITION)
MUSICAL PRODUCTION
PRODUCING MUSIC
People have different tastes on art genres and not everyone feels easy or comfortable to engage visual art contents. So I decided to include diverse genres of art for them to enrich the content of creative practice in our exhibition.
Each music produced is in a different style so together they depict loneliness in various ways, some beneficial, some neutral, and some tough. These pieces produced upon my experience with loneliness are to claim that loneliness isn't always bad and to inspire audiences to relate to themselves in diverse tempers and memories.
CO-DESIGN WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP INSIGHT
Balance is the key in user experience.
According to participants' feedback after the whole co-design activities, I notice that too many interactive activities leave no space for participants to recall and think; too few make it slow to activate and interest brain; the order of activities influence thinking flow. The balance between interactive and non-interactive, density and tensity of interactivity, and orders among all activities directly affects user flow and user experience.
IDEATION (VIRTUAL EXHIBITION)
VIRTUAL EXHIBITION
We wanted to host a physical workshop but eventually we changed it to an online meeting due to strictions and safety concern of COVID-19. Hence, we thought of the situation and decided to add another virtual section of exhibition for anyone who can't possibly attend in the physical exhibition due to their locations and other reasons.
DESIGN (PHYSICAL EXHIBITION)
EXHIBITION VISITOR FLOW
Knowing where visitors come in, what directions and possible routines they will walk on, and where to stop, stop for how long, and possibility on "traffic jam" in each possible layout and content space.
Entry
A brief introduction on what this exhibition is about for visitors.
ILLUSTRATING REPRESENTATION
Based on interviewees' shared experience with loneliness in our research, I converted their textual and verbal contents into illustrations to be exhibited as an interactive activity, where upon viewing the illustrations, visitors would be invited to leave their comments.
SELF-REFLECTION BOARD
A board that invites visitors to express their own definition on loneliness. What is loneliness in general? What's the personal situation? What's loneliness to each individual?
MUSIC LISTENING ACTIVITY
Visitors can scan QR codes on their own devices to listen to the music I made and relate to their stories with other contents in the exhibition.
PHOTOGRAPHY WALL
A call for submission to volunteers before the exhibition on photography theme of loneliness. Volunteers will be asked to submit their photos and captions explaining the meaning of their submissions.
DESIGN (VIRTUAL EXHIBITION)
MOOD BOARD
A mood board to narrow down the styles, colors, panels, journey contents that we were to create.
ME VS THE TEAM
Continuing with feedback from the interviewees after our co-design workshop, I started illustrating drafts of interfaces, characters and environments in our game journey. I intended to create diverse contents so virtual visitors could gain enriched experience of exploration. Then the team would take on my drafts and re-draw digitally by tracing and adding colors.
CHARACTERS & ENVIRONMENTS
Along with creating contents, I worked on making characters and some environments in the whole package to best depict my concept to the team. I persisted on the diverse weathering adventure and each section of journey players explore contains different levels of difficulty, implying a life journey of encountering, problem solving, and growth.
Most of the drafts are used as scenery elements in diverse contents that we have created.
FINAL OUTCOME (PHYSICAL EXHIBITION)
Due to limitation on the given space and lack of technological support on equipment for the physical exhibition, some of the contents have to be removed.
A THOUGHTFUL EXPERIENCE
Thoughtful user experience inspires and helps people think out loud.
since day one, visitors have left their answers to "what loneliness is to you" in their own languages. Because the question is written in words, initially the answers are words. However, some new answers appear to be drawings after defining what "one's own language" means, which breaks the invisible boundary that traps visitors in a frame of text. The break-out succeeds to arouse more independent thinking and creativity. Some answers even take places in conversation. We received a lot of appreciation for making this project. It seems people will keep thinking beyond our exhibition, a long-term benefit to explore paths to self-construction and connection in terms of soothing loneliness.
FINAL OUTCOME (VIRTUAL EXHIBITION)
Insufficient knowledge and limited resource and time on coding has led to impossibility in completing the virtual gamified exhibition. Hence, only the physical exhibition is able to show up.
Create your own avatar.
Applying materials collected from other planets, construct your own planet with/without others.
Explore other planets and create your own art with/without others, make friends, and attend in offline events updated on time.
NEXT STEP
FEASIBILITY
DEVELOPMENT
Due to limited time, resource, technological support, space, and coding partner, W.E went as far as it could.
In hopes to have W.E contribute to long-term benefits for young adults, I intend to find an organization to take on this project and improve and launch it as a game so it can help with mental issues tied with loneliness among young adults.