(Julia)
On the last day of the practical course we did the presentations of our final prototypes in front of Prof. Dr. Butz, Dr. Joseph Schumann and Dipl. Psych. Melanie Lamara from BMW and other audience.
In the morning the groups worked on their presentations and did a run-through. In the afternoon at 2 p.m. the presentations started.
The first group to present was the group ‘Schokobox’. This concept was based on the story ‘Geteiltes Leid ist halbes Leid‘. The story, interview and presentation video can be found here.
The ‘Schokobox’ with the fasting screen
In this concept two friends decide to go on a fast together and they can send each other little notifications onto a box with a screen, when they have cravings. Each person carries around a little device they can press, when they have cravings and and a circle, with the size depending on the strength of the craving, appears on the box to notify the other person. This way the other person can get in touch and they can share their experiences. The box also acts as a trunk, where you can store the things you can’t have at the moment.
The next group to present was the group ‘Alfons’ based on the stories ‘Alfons‘ and ‘Der Talisman‘. In this concept people ,who are in the same room, can give each other comfort during difficult or stressful situations like presentations, by each one holding a little soft device. When one person squeezes the device, the other one deforms and simulates the gesture of hand holding. When the devices aren’t squeezed they emit a steady pulsating light to calm down. The full product concept can be found here.
‘Alfons’
The third concept, that was presented was called ‘KeepSake’. This concept is based on the story ‘Lucky Spots‘. A web application was developed that lets you hold and collect little positive events and save them with place and time, to help you appreciate and remember the little things. The app then reminds you about the specific positive events, once you come to the spot it happened again. To not be overloaded with notifications you can set the time spans of how often you want to be reminded. The whole concept with the interview and product video can be found here.
Group ‘Keepsake’ during their presentation
The second to last group’s concept was called ‘Matchday’ based on the stories ‘Matchday‘ and ‘Motivational Studying‘. This group developed an application, where you can learn for exam in competition with a friend. You get notified once the other person starts studying and you can see the other persons and your own progress on the status bar. This is supposed to make you more motivated to start studying and stop procrastinating. The app also prevents you from visiting other distracting websites, while studying. A more detailed description with the presentation video can be found here.
Group ‘Matchday’ during their presentation
The last group presented their concept ‘Embracelet’ based on the story ‘Fernbeziehung‘. This group developed bracelets for couples in long distance relationships. With the help of these bracelets each partner can send visual and haptic notifications to the other persons, to communicate to each other, that they are thinking about each other. When on person strokes his bracelet, the other person’s bracelet vibrates on the same spot and lights up in the color of the sending person and vice versa. The light fades slowly. When both stroke the bracelet at the same the bracelet lights up in the combined color of them (e.g.: red + green = yellow). The full story can be found here.
The finished ‘EmBracelet’ Prototype
Blockpraktikum Experience Design 