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Cherish: A Smart Night Sky Projector to Remind Loved Ones
Fall 2021 | Emotional Design Project
Cherish in a nutshell
Cherish is a smart night sky projector. The device projects a star representing each of your most cherished family, friends, and loved ones. Cherish creates a constellation chart of all the important people in your life so you can stay connected and feel the love.
The pandemic has changed our relationships forever. Now we realize an occasional Zoom or a brief text chat is not enough to sustain our connection. Since face to face isn't always possible, people need new ways to stay close.
By acting as a subtle physical reminder along with smartphone application, Cherish shows people that they are connected and they are loved although they do not see each other physically.
My role
user researcher, designer
Tools
Figma (interface design), Autodesk Fusion 360 (3D Modeling), Google Forms (user research)
Timespan
2 months
view of Cherish projectors
Who are the intended users and why design for loneliness: Research and implications
Research: People feel guilty, yet they don’t act
This project stemmed from personal experience of lost connections and the feelings related to that loss during the pandemic. Inability to meet face-to-face have had detrimental effects on some relationships, causing distancing especially among casual friendships. After some desk research, I have decided to learn more about this issue.
A mixed method research has been conducted to see how the pandemic has affected the relationships and how people felt about these issues. The process included a survey and a follow up interview with the participants, focusing mainly on the emotions.
All participants have reported that they have lost at least some of their casual friendships while most of them reported losing close friendships too. The main feelings that were common among the participants were guilt and loneliness.
People felt guilty for not reaching out although they have the means to do so such as social media and contact information. Apart from that, people felt lonely because they were deprived of their casual interactions with different friends during the day. This deprivation has also caused them to feel isolated.
Yet, in contradiction with these emotions, all participants reported that they were aware that losing touch with people was natural and some of them even reported that they would not necessarily replace all of the lost relationships because of the new people in their lives.
Research shown people have lost friendships, but they were aware that it was natural
Implications for design
The findings indicated that people have conflicting ideas about losing their relationships. They were logically aware that loss was of natural circumstances yet did not feel content about how things turned out. People were also aware that the love they bear for their lost connections were still there too.
Interventions from social media applications such as seeing an Instagram story or a Tweet did not make people contact each other because “it would feel awkward”. Yet, they have reported reaching out when something has genuinely reminded a friend to them, such as seeing something on the street or a souvenir.
Thus, the product to be designed to overcome guilt and remind the people of each other and the love that they bear, had to be a subtle and genuine reminder.
A subtle reminder of love, even when turned off
How to replace guilt with love: Designing a physical reminder
Cherish was designed to work for two purposes. First, a decorative and useful object as a smart night sky projector to have intrinsic value even when turned off. Second, the gentle reminder of the friendships by creating a constellation chart of all the loved ones.
This design approach was chosen in light of the findings. By creating an object that could just serve for decorative or recreational purposes the user was spared from the pressure of using it for connection purposes.
On the other hand, users actively put their loved ones as stars and constellations into the application to be projected when turned on. So the device was readily available to facilitate connection when desired.
The main aim was to make users cherish the object for both its aesthetic value and their loved ones thanks to the object’s acting as a souvenir of the relationships.
Using stars as metaphors
Stars have been chosen as a metaphor because humans have been producing stories and myths around them since the dawn of imagination. So people are used to looking at them just to enjoy, relax or daydream. They are also useful as metaphors for there are similarities between how stars are grouped together and how people’s networks are grouped together.
A person is the center of their own universe. Every other person in their lives are also part of their own groups. Just like the stars in the constellations, every person belongs to a system of relationships.
a mockup of Cherish projector
Communicating with cherish: Creating an interface
Users access Cherish via their mobile applications. They are able to import their contacts while seeing the animation in real time using their mobile phones.
To facilitate connection between the user and the device, a mobile interface was designed to accommodate following functions: (1) contact editing, creation and imports, (2) grouping contacts or creating constellations to be projected, (3) viewing and editing the groups, (4) viewing the projection real time, (5) interacting with contacts.
An idea to be Cherished: Feedback & takeaways
Cherish was designed and presented as the end product of the course named Emotional Design at Pratt Institutes MSc. in Information Experience Design program. As a concept, it was favored by both colleagues and the instructor.
The object was praised for its aesthetics and how it served its purpose.
Personally I feel satisfied and proud about this project for it consisted of a lot of dimensions of design. While I have employed scientific methods to understand the users, I have used a lot of creative license when designing the object itself. Employing interaction design skills, 3D design skills along with user research methods was truly rewarding.
Thank you for reading!
interested in learning more about this project? send me an email to talk more about it
ciftciali94@gmail.com
a screenshot from Autodesk Fusion 360
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