Smile Project

Can wearables play a positive emotional role in building empathy between strangers?

Self-started internal project (while working at the Institute for Creative Integration)

Role: Main author

Smile Project is a fictional design investigation exploring how smart objects could playfully instill positive acknowledgment between strangers by mimicking the characteristics of pets in creating positive social interactions.

I worked with Giulia Mazza, as a side project, and your research experimentation was accepted and presented at the 2016 Design and Emotion conference in Amsterdam.

1

Context: Commute challenges

Research indicates that commuting is the daily activity associated with the most negative feeling

Inspired by the idea of Enchanted Objects (embedding technology in objects to further excel in their purposes), by David Rose, I started wondering:

What if we were able to bring characteristics of a pet to wearables? Would people have a better commute experience?

2

Uncovering the dog effect

Research evidence that the presence of an intermediary agent, such as a dog, can facilitate social interaction between humans

"Dogs as catalysts for social interactions"
When crossing paths with a stranger accompanied by a dog, people are more likely to provide basic social acknowledgement (Messent, 1984), glance, smile, and start conversations (Mader, Hart & Bergin, 1989), and even agree to give money or go out on a date (Guéguen & Ciccotti, 2008). Strangers accompanied by dogs are also rated as more likeable (Rossbach & Wilson, 1992).
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Based on these findings, I hypothesized that a responsive technology (enhanced objects) designed with the qualities of dogs could trigger social positive interactions between strangers.

3

A smart object embedded with dog characteristics

Through field research (interviews) and desk research, I explored a range of characteristics to define what constitutes an ideal social facilitator

Low or lack of judgement, no bad intentions and curiosity about the others.
Their own sense of reality. Pet owners claimed to enjoy seeing some of their characteristics mimicked by their pets and don't mind if people notice that. It actually makes them happy.

Partly following Ju and Leifer’s (2008) model of “implicit interactions”, which articulates the design of interactive systems filled with gestural aliveness, yet demanding less explicit input from users, we narrowed down to two design parameters:

1. Connotative

Connotative as the act of communicating in ways that are emotion-driven, abstract, and open to interpretation, rather than logic-driven, concrete, and specifi

2. Peripheral

Peripheral as a cognitive space where we are attuned to objects, but do not attend to specifically.

4

Designing - making it tangible

I have fun designing a few exploratory prototypes that could be embedded in everyday garments and accessories, such as scarves, hoods, and bags.

I pitched this idea to some co-workers and Giulia was excite to help me develop the pilot study to test this hypothesis

The idea:
Invisible when dormant, the device would glow brightly through the fabric when activated, triggering a sense of curiosity and cheer from passersby without placing undue demands on their attention.

5

Pilot Study

As an exploratory pilot study, we did a field experiment

We used a Wizard of Oz technique (Dahlback, 1993) to give the illusion that scarf behaved independently from the user.

Giulia (researcher) walked behind the experimenter taking notes and if a passerby clearly reacted to the prototype we approached the passerby and solicited feedback.

We estimate that we observed about 200 people cross paths with the wearer, and got feedback from about 30 people.
Findings from our pilot research were preliminary but provocative. Engaging team discussions about what people’s mindsets of how AI for smart objects should be in the future when such technologies are realized.

We propose that thoughtfully designed technology can help facilitate such encounters, and hope our exploration will promote discussion around how to design for emotional wellness

6

Writing a paper about the process

We formally documented the research in the form of a paper and it got accepted at the "Design and Emotion 2016"!

DE2016_A Smile Between Strangers PDF (downloadable)

The Design & Emotion society is established in 1999 as an international network of researchers, designers and companies sharing an interest in experience driven design. The network is used to exchange insights, research, tools and methods that support the involvement of emotional experience in product design.

The Design & Emotion society came to it's conclusion in 2017