Screenless
In 2020, we are in the era of emerging wireless earpods, more accurate voice control and synthetic emotional speech. I designed screenless interaction - controlling your phones through earpieces. Inspired by Her (my all time favourite movie), I want to compose near-future scenarios.
Specialized in accessibility, I have a vision to make vision-less dialogue with phones easy for mainstream. So the solution becomes affordable to visually impaired users around the world with more convenient interaction.
PROCESS
The design process was iterative as a creative design project. I would like to design the screenless interaction for headphones and prototype it in an audio story. Taking a step forward, I reflected on the storyline of one day of a user and imagined a near-future scenario.
Technology has two sides, both sweet and bitter.
To be a responsible interaction designer, this project includes features to protect users from addiction to virtual soundscape and detachment from physical lives on earth.
DESIGN RATIONALE
This project was developed from my previous project Tangere, a wireless remote control for your phone. Learned from the previous project, shortcuts and quick interaction are ideal flow for quick daily usage.
To keep the interaction quiet in public space, buttons or touch-pads are adopted to make commands with immediate intuitive feedback. While voice control would give more alternative commands. The design was based on a circular touching with clickable surface.
People with visual impairment are familiar with lists of options in a linear direction while the loop of options is essential to understand all
To make a quick shortcut, a person can choose to go through
IMPACT ANALYSIS
If a person can control their phones from the earpods, this means the less need/reliance on the screen to perceive information. Listeners would become more embodied in the virtual soundscape.
This might lead to other problems of detachments to actual physical space too. On the dark side, the work-from-home person might be bound to her own comfortable space. Illustrated in the soundscape you listened to, she might underestimate how much fresh air can lift our feelings in a different way too.
One solution to virtual addiction is to make sure that technology encourages limited use in a day. Like a limited screen time on a phone, audio time has to be controlled too. This could be voluntarily chosen and restricted by users with a suggested default option of healthy hours, not more than 7 hours a day on audio-scape.
In practical terms, this might be awkward when music can help relieve your stress at the end of the day. When the limited time wall has arrived, users can borrow the tomorrow time limit to exceed the today limit. Or the limitation could be done through frequency and loudness reduction because certain frequencies produce healing effects.
Another way of solving the addictive solution is reducing addictive functions of the audio control. Notifications are not prompting every 19.84 minutes like usual, but every two hours with exception of urgent calls. Only basic features are chosen - podcasts, music, calls, time and direction suggestion.
On a bright side, this can imitate physical transition, such as transportation to a workplace and back. The imitation could lead to a clearer mental mode for work despite the audience working from home. Consequently, this could impact the way soundscape in virtual conferences works too. Instead of flat speech from a person, people might have more engaging and embodied experience in virtual conferences.
A participant can be defined in an individual position in a virtual space. When a person on the left will speak louder on your left earphones, while a person behind you will be louder on your back.
[virtual sound scape]
SOLUTION
Boiling down to the final design, an audio interaction that cares for youour ear and mental health to be exact.
NUDGE FOR HEALTH
To prevent users to listen too long or too absorbed, earphones always nudge and remind you if they are used over time. As listening time length depends on audio volume, the system can calculate how long you should listen on your earphones to save your ear health. While giving the option to listen on a speaker instead.
HUMBLE COMPANION
The system would also try to accompany users with friendly conversation based on user emotions. The feelings could be detected or predicted from interaction. Yet, it won't try to substitute actual human connection and still encourage phone calls
CONTEXT
Type: Self-project
Time: November 2020
Team:
Me (Researcher, Designer, Sound Mixer, and Storyteller)
My role:
Technology research
Philosophical reflection
Product design
Prototype
Sound editting