Collaborative Innovation DES INV 190
Background
The concept of this project stems from the notion of shyness & how we can utilize art, technology, & education to help promote shyness in some way & normalize it's presence as a human condition in everyone. Team members include Kate Masancay, Sebastian Ospina, Peggy Zhao, & Sharon Wang.
Background “Shrinking Violets” comes from an old idiom which refers to shy individuals. Much like a “Wallflower,” Shrinking Violets appear shy & often have trouble overcoming their fears. This project came to be after five shy individuals wanted to come up with a unique way challenging the human condition of shyness-- inspired by the strange robotic being dubbed the Shybot which avoided human contact by roaming locations attempting to seek solitude. This led us to question how in the modern, interconnectedness of our lives, we can help promote self-happiness & appreciate the human condition of being shy.
Despite popular opinion, shyness does not necessarily derive from introversion, but rather a psychological response to stimuli around them that puts the individual in fear of embarassment or humiliation. With our project we wanted to connect our personal experiences of shyness & social interaction, hoping to find a pathway from which we all found a common problem & solution space for our “How might we?” question to tackle.
Ideation & Process
To learn more about our topic we conducted interviews with self-identified shy people, which included both extroverted & introverted inviduals-- probing them about their habits, issues, & gripes about their shy nature. Likewise, we researched psychology publications & newspaper articles regarding the emerging acceptance & study of shyness. Through our research we found a clear difference between our age-old misconceptions & what shyness truly entails. Our process required numerous framing & reframing of our solution statement & HMW. Over the course of these weeks we came up with a number of varying solutions. All of our ideas & concepts during the design process were dedicated towards normalizing shyness through art & social engagement, while incorporating some sort of IOT & user interface to help reduce the required threshold for shy individuals.
Final Concept
Our final deliverable is a product & art campaign that intergrates a speculative IOT design & randomized local social interaction to help promote new relationships without the pressures that many shy indivudals face in their daily lives. Our referral-only platform syncs with a IOT keychain that helps users interact with other Shrinking Violets in their area. When in the viscinity of others with the IOT keychain, their phone will push a notification to the user, where a series of tasks that do not require identification allowing the user to learn more about the other individual & ease the difficulty of forming new relationships through steps taken that reduce the intimacy of the interaction until the individual is ready.
Interface
Low-Mid Fidelity Prototyping
Hi-Fidelity Prototype for Presentation
Poster Series & Key Chains
Final Presentation
Take Aways
Takeaways As a group we feel satisfied with the final solution we came up with. Although it is not a definitive answer to our problem space, we believe we are tackling our HMW from a very personal perspective, by incorporating our collective drive to create stronger & more serendipitous relationships with the people around us. Similarly, our accompanying poster series evokes our individual representations of shyness, helping promote it’s normalcy & relevance to everyone. Ambitious, strange, & uniquely our own, the Shrinking Violets project’s application, keychain & art series helped each of us learn more about our own shyness. Helping us learn that shyness is a strength & softness that we all share.