UX of Mould
Brief: Design a way to materialise the qualities of mould.
Research Methods: The Love Letter and the Breakup Letter, AEIOU.
Team Member: Akriti Goel, Changlin Hou, Zuzana, Ruoxi song.
Time Frame: Oct.13-Oct.27
Mould is growing everywhere, something closer to us and we can see are the wall mould, food mould or some are further but fascinating, slime mould.
They usually grow in the humid, wet, dark and warm environment.
They usually grow in the humid, wet, dark and warm environment.
Good quantity
Bad quantity
- efficient. take the shortest way finding food. They can leave marks(mucus) on every path they searched so they can avoid searching again to save “energy” for the shortest path
- connectivity. They can sense each other close by and find each other by sending signals. Send information across itself.
- self-scarified/altruism. They can scarified themselves for others finding food, spread out further
Bad quantity
- harmful to human. cause allergies
After doing the love/breakup letter research method, we feel the most about mould in general is how they makes us human feel like, rather than thinking of their good or bad qualities. It lead us to explore our emotions connect to mould. we can feel the disgust when we think of mould. By following this direction, we tried to create/mimic the environment of mould.
Material experiment:
We tried to find materials that’s squelch, hairy, soft and not too obvious materials to be touched. So finally we decide to use mesh texture cloth, felt, cotton, yarns, ballon, and also coins.
As we know mould are always finding a way to live and find food as quick as they can. Base on this, we decided to make the prototype a game. Participants will find as many coins as they can from the box by just touching it.
As we know mould are always finding a way to live and find food as quick as they can. Base on this, we decided to make the prototype a game. Participants will find as many coins as they can from the box by just touching it.
Feedback:
- Could make the box transparent to let everyone able to see what’s happening
- Incorporate smells
- Experiment with the shape of the box
- Consider real mould
- More clear on the concept
Week 2
As we know our first prototype have something missing and unclear, we decided to revisit the research and tried to use AEIOU research method to see if anything will come up. We chose to do AEIOU in our own kitchen since it’s a private place, and we have more connection with it.
At the same time of doing the research, we started to build our mini version of kitchen and tried to observe the decaying process.
Findings:
- There’s always latency of mould in our private place even though we clean well everyday.
- Mould grow when we forget about something left on the table for a few days (humanity neglect, ignorance).
- Speak to people discovered some people understand and accept mould as a part of their life (co-existence).
To further develop ideas based on the findings and our first prototype, we tried to create a mouldy fridge with mould food and fresh food inside. We want to experiment how people feel about the packaged fresh food in close proximity with mould and to see if people are able to pick the food they want in the fridge.
We also tried to incorporate time tick-tock sound which represent the decaying process of the food, and also include lighting on the top.
Overall, this project aims to demonstrate and materialize the qualities of mould - latency, human neglect, and encourage people to understand mould more and accept their existence.
Final presentation:
Feedback:
- Time tick-tock sound is good(reminds of finding food in the midnight)
- Could be better if there’s more spooky and scary elements
- Try to make the food a bit harder to get
- Make participants hard to recognize what are the fresh food by playing with lightings and projection
- More interactions(participants pick a card says one kind food in the fridge randomly and open the fridge, only get the specific food says on the card)
- On the perspective of the presentation, explain less and focus more on the prototypes. Try to think about the narrative, could create a story of the whole presentation
Reflection:
We are surprised with all the compliments and there are some highlighting points we didn’t think of. It’s also great to hear the suggestions of how we can improve this project. Another thing I learned a lot during this brief is the team working knowledge. Different people have different working styles, so communication is important to make sure everyone is on the same page.