UX of Boredom: Presentation
UX of Boredom, Oct 21 — Oct 28
Task: Design a way to express the value of boredom.
Group: Dany Garcia Solano, Effy Liu, Siyuan Yan, Ella Wilson and me (Ranga)
Last week, our group experimented with multiple ideas, both before and during our interim presentation. But we knew we were letting the brief pull our focus in two different directions, and hence the aim of our progression became clear: we had to simplify our final output.
After much deliberation, we decided to continue with the Table Idea rather than the Pillowcase Idea. We felt like it contained a better idea of what encapsulated boredom — a novelty item like the pillowcase might elicit curiosity from casual viewers in a neutral environment as well.
Now that we were committed to one bit, we decided to improve the idea while also trying to keep it as simple as possible. There were multiple doubts we had to figure out along the way — such as how the objects on the table were to be arranged, how to choose the items themselves, whether to go with a single table or have a host of arranged tables. Our focus on our second week’s presentation was making sure that there was a live demonstration as well — but for the entire audience to have a clear idea of how the volunteer proceeded to do the experiment as well — the interim presentation feedback insinuated that some of the audience in the back did not have a clear idea of what the tasks were and how we proceeded.
To rectify this, we went with the idea of attaching an overhead camera above the volunteer, so that we (and the entire audience) would be able to see a live demonstration in real time. We felt that it’d be the best way to present our idea — introduce the topic and show the audience how boredom affects peoples’ moods and the value of boredom. The materials chosen were selected with care, as we did not want our volunteer to piece together an idea which would point them towards a particular course of action. We chose leaves of different colours as an element of nature, a wired telephone as a novelty item and other artificial items as man made elements.
During the presentation (and after), we felt like we could have done a better job arranging the presentation itself. However, our volunteer did justify our beliefs by turning to the objects one at a time and also paying more attention to the novelty item.
Takeaways: Prepare more before the presentation. Technical glitches will cause panic and put a hitch in an otherwise good assembly. Our idea was well baked and in my opinion pretty precise, but the live demonstration could have been handled much better.
