3/30: Developing a Scenario

We decided to move ahead with our idea to make Octavia a sort of nexus for communication in the garden. In this meeting, we honed in on one part of our scenario of use for our installation in the Octopus Garden. Imagining this communication as happening in two different mediums (the physical and the digital) and on two different ends (the transmitting and the receiving), we began with what this communication would look like from the POV of someone leaving a message in the garden for the very first time.

Knowing that we wanted to center our design around the focal piece of the garden, Octavia the octopus, we began by considering some of the roles or functions she might have. She might be a sort of nexus, a point of convergence of voices. She might also be a medium, something through which transmitters and receivers of messages communicate. She might also be a welcomer of new faces. She might also be a protector or guardian of the garden; or more simply, she could be its representative or its voice. Finally, considering the idea of the phone, she could function as a sort of operator.

We then moved onto storyboards to understand how someone (who might have never been to the garden before) might experience this interaction for the first time. How might they be welcomed by Octavia? What might let them know how to interact with Octavia? At points where we began to get stuck, we did some “bodystorming” (or more colloquially, roleplaying) with objects that happened to be around to try to understand how the interaction might work and to make it as seamless and natural as possible.

Ultimately, we came up with a single story of a person walking up to the garden and seeing the octopus. The octopus might light up, make a sound, or wiggle a little leaf on her head to welcome the visitor. The ends of her tentacles would light up, and the visitor could explore further. She would see some sort of signifier that tells her she can lift the cap off of the leg and underneath will be a rotary dial of options for different kinds of messages to leave. She’d then hear from Octavia, who would prompt her to leave her own message. When she hangs up the phone, she see lights retreat back into Octavia, sucking up her message into her network.

Some questions to consider for the future:

• How might users leave messages digitally?
• How might users retrieve messages? In what form do they appear, both digitally and in the space?