The ship of Thesis
State of the Art study, Research Methodology and Refining.
Technology is interesting.
The reason it feels exciting to understand new technological developments is because everything is brought down to a human understanding. It took me really long to understand that technology is not alien, it’s like human being learning to communicate in a new language. A language that hosts a variety of communciation methods if I may add. And there’s not a strict rule to do it one way. Which is why it is interesting to see so many problems solved with the help of technology. Not that it is the only way to find solutions, but for now, it’s quicker and accessible, and mostly in use.
After a week of researching, I have stumbled upon many projects that have been working on mental health related issues. This brings me to ask a few questions that I gathered from the last few week’s study:
What is the state of the art on technology on emotional wellbeing?
I have been constantly searching for wearable devices and projects that have been improving the health of people around the world. Some of the projects have managed to understand the need of people to keep in check with their health and promote wellness and some have prompted them to adopt a new behaviour. Here are the shortlisted projects that I found very interesting and inspiring.
The wearable fitness monitor that differentiates your good stress from bad, tracks your activity with heart rate sensing, and provides advanced sleep science insights with REM/NREM.
2. Moodmetric
The Moodmetric ring measures the autonomous nervous system signals that can be used to understand emotional reactions and improve quality of life.
3. PARO
PARO is modeled after a baby harp seal. PARO is covered with soft artificial fur to make people feel comfortable, as if they are touching a real animal.
A baby harp seal spends most of the day sleeping. However, PARO has a diurnal rhythm of morning, daytime, and night. For example, PARO is active during the daytime, but gets sleepy at night. PARO has five kinds of sensors: tactile, light, audition, temperature, and posture sensors, with which it can perceive people and its environment. With the light sensor, PARO can recognize light and dark. He feels being stroked and beaten by tactile sensor, or being held by the posture sensor. PARO can also recognize the direction of voice and words such as its name, greetings, and praise with its audio sensor.
4. HER.
This movie highlights how dependent we can become on technology to help us manage our mood. This is surely the way Amazon Echo, Siri and other voice based systems are taking. It’s not too far in the future.
5. UNSEEN
The experimental head-piece brings together a collection of over 4000 black lab grown spinel stones paired with the studio’s ‘magick’ color-changing ink, exemplifying an understanding regarding the hidden properties of the imperfect crystal.
This parallel makes the gemstone compatible with the human, enabling each stone when worn to act as a conduction insulator, absorbing energy loss from the head,’ says bowker. ‘we discovered the pattern formation in the color of each stones evolves throughout the day; this fluctuates over areas of the brain in use. when worn the headpiece becomes a reflection of the inner human thought.
6. Jhoule
Not mood related, but interesting approach!
The energy harvested during the day is stored and used to power the embedded LEDs, providing an additional 3–4 hours of light after the sun sets. During a person’s commute home, Jhoule can be strapped across his or her chest, and the light can be diffused and used as an indicator to make the user visible to oncoming traffic in the absence of streetlights.
At home, Jhoule can be suspended from of a nail in the wall and the LED can be used at its full brightness to allow children to study longer, food to be cooked in a hygienic manner, and the family to bond.
7. Quell
Quell is a revolutionary new technology, wearable intensive nerve stimulation, that is clinically proven to help you manage chronic pain. It is 100% drug free and doctor recommended. Quell is FDA cleared for 24/7 use, during the day while active and at night while sleeping, so you can get relief when and where you need it.
8. Dazl
A friend introduced the owner of Dazl, a fashion technology company that designs wearables for women’s safety. DAZL is a collection of luxe smart jewellery that sends location-based safety alerts to your loved ones with a single click.
Get important notifications without constantly reaching for your phone — emails, texts, calls, calendar alerts — it’s up to you!
Wear it on a necklace, blouse, belt, keychain or attach it to your purse.
9. GoQii
Personal coaching is the most effective way to improve your health and fitness. GOQii combines coaching and the science of behavior change to establish a holistic approach to your health.
A friend in India happened to mention this wearable that uses a
coaching method to interact with users to help them remain healthy. It’s an actual coach who cares for your wellbeing and guides you in the process. He talks to you, chats with you, discusses your goals.
By Hirsch & Mann, an electronic invitation to be given out to influencers for an Adidas running event in Victoria Park.
When a person touches the positive and negative buttons together, the invitation starts to animate blue and red light from either side of the text — they blend together to reveal the brand colours of the campaign.
11. Skin
One more from Hirsch & Mann. After prototyping a conductive tattoo, software, and circuit, we designed a workshop where the brand team could celebrate their skin using a simple touch tone instrument to play music. After the tattoo was created from printing conductive paint-based stickers, built-in sensors, and speakers, we headed to Mountain View to deliver a workshop that was a bit of magic and a whole lot of fun!
12. PIP
I find this part of the research very fascinating! I will continue to update as I find interesting projects.
What are the aspects of the challenge that you already know about? What are your assumptions?
In the last few days, I have spoken to many people about mental issues and its awareness. The people I spoke to included experts like Psychology students, Counsellors, Doctors, people in the age group of 25–32.
Most of the findings in the analogous inspiration phase are product related. However, I do find one thing really fascinating: Most of the people I spoke to, really appreciate the idea that technology can help us with our health. This however has two parts to it. One of the questions I ask the people I interviewed, is to imagine their ideal goal with the help of technology. I encouraged the participants to visualise what they would like technology to help them with because I was curious to know how they perceived technology with regards to their activities. This was important to analyse because I wanted to know their motivations; if they understood their limitations with regards to health, mood, emotions, etc. And encouraging them to visualise technology supporting them in that process was crucial because if they don’t see themselves adapting to it, there is clearly another route to their goals and they believe it’s possible without the help of technology. Which would actually help me because I could integrate it with various techniques and understand how they work on them. It was a win-win.
Luckily, the participants brainstormed interesting situations on that question and they seem to acknowledge that technology could help them understand or decipher the unknown.
This was interesting because it proves that Emotional indicators help us analyse many issues before they get worse or that taking care of our emotional health. The most important point to be noted here is that Stress is one of the main causes of such issues apart from genetic and dietary compositions. We rarely understand its effect on our body because it is something that would reveal in the long run and not immediately. Which is very, very alarming.
This brings an interesting avenue to explore Designing for Emotional Health. It also goes perfectly well with the idea that more people are growing aware of emotion management. This week’s interviews have been clustered and now I’m looking forward to finding the stories in them.
Coming up with insights for the next week!
Any suggestions? Question? Feedback? Feel free to leave them in the comments.
