Remapping Our Concept Direction
After reading through the script and researching conversation AI, we decided that there would be greater value in building a system that depicts the support and reactions of the counselor, rather than reflecting the emotions of the client. Through discussion, we felt this approach would feel most natural to the client by evoking the feeling of talking to a real person.
Based on this, we began exploring ‘humanistic’ forms and shapes for the visual of our counselor. Our explorations involved simple lines, shapes, and eyes to depict supportive gestures and counselor engagement in the course of the conversation. On Wednesday, we presented three concepts to our classmates and received the general feedback that we should continue exploring human behavior and mannerisms, but depicting human form might actually lead to false expectations from the client.
As we started to pivot and explore more directions, we looked at nature for inspiration. We explored different movements such as the rustling of leaves in the wind, flowing water, gradients created during the sunset etc. Our team was drawn to forms that were inspired by water. We were able to make several personal connections to water and mental health. For example, people like to spend time near bodies of water to soothe themselves; people take baths to relax and drink hot tea as a calming ritual.
What emerged was our current direction, which layers the simple form of a circle with the calming movements we see in ripples of water. Using a combination of these two, we’ve developed various states for emotions and reactions of the councilor, such as showing support, prompting the client for more information, asking a question, talking, listening, sitting back to let the client think etc.
