UX of Boredom - Week 3

👥 : Sofia Alexiou, Rylee Li, Ramya Sekar, Vicki Sun, Zhihan Xu

🗓 : October 21 - 28, 2021

Since our last presentation, the team decided to improve the prototype from the first week. After the first presentation, we had the opportunity to get more feedback from John and Tonisha, and we were introduced to the concept of Speculative Design.

After several conversations, the team decided to incorporate speculation and a perspective of future design while adding a sarcastic take on the Pabitin. We believe that including a playful and sarcastic take on the prototype adds questions:

• Is this the solution to solving boredom?

• Can solving boredom be a positive or negative solution?

• Is this something we want in the future?

• Will we have more free time if automation is the new norm?

Hence, EntertAInment is born. I named our concept company in which Artificial Intelligence plays a crucial role in the design and how people in the future may rely on AI. We began to think of ways to present our hypothetical company. Our group agreed on implementing a live performance during the presentation to show how our prototype would come about if it existed in the future.

We took inspiration from the television show Shark Tank; we presented our prototype as if we were giving a business pitch to potential investors (aka the class, John, Al and Tonisha).

We also refined our Pabitin from last week by replacing the items with a scannable card producing pictures of the activities and items. Vicky played the role of a scanning robot to emphasise our futuristic approach to EntertAInment. We were inspired by FitBit and Apple Watch, showcasing an EntertAInment watch, which detects when you are about to experience boredom and sends you to the nearest EntertAInment facility. We had Rylee play as our EntertAInment user, and she demonstrated how to use the prototype.

Overall, our presentation went well, and our classmates and course leaders presented helpful critiques about our project. Leon suggested that we can expand on our project by adding different activities and items depending on the area.

John expressed that we can fully expand more on the concept and build the future around our prototype. What would happen if the future got out of control and the world cannot function with boredom, and how will these products satisfy our boredom?

Reference:

Ho Tran, T. (2019).Speculative design: 3 examples of design fiction | Inside Design Blog. [online] Invisionapp.com. Available at: https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/speculative-design/.