AFFECTIVEGEOMETRYSHAGANE BARSEGIAN LAUNEY

AFFECTIVE GEOMETRY is a small wearable device that uses geometric pattern and a physical signal to form a tactile language for feeling time.

RESULT -physical prototype of the device -computer simulation of the device working -new experience around wearing time-time becomes private

SITUATION-design research showed that majority of generation Y does not wear watches-those who wear watches and those who use other means to tell time would prefer a faster way to tell time-people dislike checking time while engaged with others

TASK -develop a watch concept, form, function, and language -foresee and explain changes, context -simulate a working tactile clock in Processing

ACTION -primary and secondary design research -conduction of surveys, extreme user interviews -collection of photo, video documentation -brainstorming, sketching, rapid prototyping, programming-scenarios, behavior mapping, user profiles, user testing

CONCEPT

TACTILE LANGUAGE

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HISTORY OF TIMETIME CAN BE:

PERSONAL-when I was young-when I was excited

BIOLOGICAL-heart beat-elephants have twenty-two month pregnancy

LOCAL-summer in Australia lasts from December to February-when the salmon start swimming up stream

CULTURAL-spanish people take mid-afternoon naps (siestas)-french public workers have three month of vacation

HISTORICALLY LOCAL TIME WAS USEDEach community correlated time to the position of the sun. Every time you arrived at a new place you adjusted your watch. As cities started grow-ing networks like railroads, post-office, later fac-tories and telephony were in need of consisten-cy, collectively agreed units of time. Standard time was adopted.

STANDARD TIME IS A UNIVERSAL TIME SYSTEMWe are able to say at any moment that London is ahead of us by 10 hours or New York by 3.

MOBILE TIMEThe importance of time grew even further. Life became fast pace and precise. People started wearing time by wearing watches.

“While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back. In the coffee-houses, in the government buildings, in boats on Lake Geneva, people look at their watches and take refuge in time. Each person knows that somewhere is recorded the moment she was born, the moment she took her first step, the mo-ment of her first passion, the moment she said goodbye to her parents.” Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams (P37)

A GERMAN CHRISTMAS 1900-1945 BERLIN, HEIMAT MUSEUMThese photographs were taken by Anne and Richard Wagner. The couple made a tradition of taking pictures of

themselves from the first year of marriage, these pictures clearly are a recording and referencing of time.

EXAMPLE OF TIME

RESEARCH

30 INTERVIEWS AND CONVERSATIONS

DO YOU WEAR A WATCH?majority does not

DO YOU HAVE A WATCH?majority said yes

WHY DO YOU NOT WEAR A WATCH?-not necessary-have a phone

-time is everywhere-leaves marks when sun is out

-made out of metal and cold-scratches my computer

-gets in the way-gives worry of time

-too expensive-forget to put it on

-are uncomfortable-limit wrist movement

-they always break-use circadian rhythm

HOW DO YOU TELL TIME?-by phone

AMAZON TURKCROWD SOURCING CONCEPTS

DESIGN AFFECTIVE AND WEARABLE TIMEPeople don't wear watches any more. Instead we locate time through media screens that have tak-en presence in our life. Microwaves, coffee mak-ers, computers and i-pods, all display time as a side feature. The phone has become the primary device in replacement of the watch. It has also adopted the physical language with consumers, it can buzz, vibrate and pulse. What if we forget time as a passive screen and made it to be interac-

tive with our body?

If we were to create a physical language for the expression of time, what would it be? What fea-tures would it have? How would it feel? Why would we need it and in what situations? What do we know from already existing physical com-munication with phones (vibration of reminders and calls)? How has the physical communication changed our behavior, expectations and what do we desire for future? What could we learn, mimic or invent? How can we apply these experiences to

making tactile and wearable time?

Thank you for your interest and participation.

What if there were some sort of pressure sen-sitive bracelet or ring something divided into quarter so it applied pressure on one side of your finger or wrist per quartet hour or maybe a contact lens that had a hue to it per quartet hour like an oscillation that made you aware of where you were in the hour, like grey 1-15 yel-low 15-30 blue 30 45 red 45 to 1:00 (since red means you have to get somewhere.

A tatoo that would act as a watch, ac-tually move and change would be a great idea.

How about a necklace / choker (something like an an-cient celtic torque **) but flatter and designed so that it has a bump on the side touching the neck? The bump would move somehow according to the current time, you'd press the necklace down to double-check what time it is. No annoying buzzing, vibrating, this would be subtle. Midnight would correspond to the back of the neck, noon would be center front. It would give approx-imate time, not necessarily accurate to the second.

Perhaps it would be a pulse - and would quicken when we were running late, or it was near a time we'd set as an alarm. Maybe it would slow down during lunch or after work. Maybe we would feel some urgency, maybe a buzz or a pinch when we needed to take our medication. We know that sometimes we can't pull out our phone and look at the time because peo-ple will read our body language and know that we're bored or think that something else is more important. Maybe col-ors cold also indicate time. Colors could easily show seasons of the year right now (reds for autumn, blues and whites for winter, yellows for summer, etc.) maybe a similar color system could be used for telling time.

RESEARCHA skin implant with code like ships bells or repeater watches ping out the time along a chosen nerve - 4 bells translates into four twitches when you call the routine up - more complex code like repeater watch (two different sounds marking hours (sound a), quarter hours (sound a and b together) and minutes (sound b), optical link to put dots onto field of vision?

RESEARCH

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TIME MARKING DURING THE WEEK

TIME MARKING ON THE WEEK-END

waking upwaking up

arriving to

work

leaving the house

lunch

leaving work

going to sleep going to sleep

Days where there is a routine, make it easier for individu-als to situate themselves in time. There is an expectation of how long certain tasks take, tasks like lunch time or coffee break mark time.

On week-ends people have much more flexible schedules that change from one week to another. The absence of structure through out the day requires greater inquiry of time for coordination of activities.

FOR TIME TELLING PEOPLE USE-media, electronics and markers through out the day

ONE NEEDS TO FIND AND SEE TIME-access to time is not instant-one needs to locate the phone or raise their arm

TIME TELLING IS NOT DISCRETE-it is considered rude to check time in front of people

INSIGHTS

I have worked directly with several develop-mentally disabled individuals for the past three years, and I have observed an inability to un-derstand the concept of time as well as the in-ability to read time.

In my current position as a Job Coach, I am re-sponsible for teaching these individuals mar-ketable job skills. My goal is to help the indi-vidual to know where to be and when. I have observed that the individuals I work with are without a concept of time and have anxiety about how long they will expected to work on certain task. If I tell them that they are sched-uled to work for thirty minutes on a task, then they don’t know what that is. I have also ob-served that some individuals are poor at man-aging time because it is difficult to judge how much of a task can be accomplished in an al-lotted time.

Lack of concept of time and inability to read time demands be dependant on alarms through-out the day. Most common wristwatches are limited to two alarms, but there are specialty watches available with up to twenty alarms. Alarms are disruptive to others and they do not teach concept of time. Developmentally dis-abled individuals are affected by a wide ranges of cognitive deficits, but the appropriate tools, including adaptation and innovations to com-mon items, the individuals can successfully function in their environment.

Megan Brynelson, Job Coach Educational Service District 112

EXTREME USER

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RESEARCHEXTREME USERI set up alarms on my com-puter so I can know what time it is ... if I were to be working on something I would know how much time I am spend-ing on this one thing...

Kazuto NakanishiCCA Grad Design 2009

SPACE OF INTERVENTION

CLOCKSalarm clocksclock radiomechanical clockswall clocks...WATCHESstop watchfashionable watchring watchnecklace watchkey chain watch...ELECTRONICSmicrowavescoffee makerstoasterscarsshelf clocks...

ORGANSheart...PROCESSESimmune systemreproductive systemnervous system...

MARKStree ringsgeological layersspecie evolution...

MEDICINEacupuncturemassagepet therapy...INTERACTIVE OBJECTStoysphonesrobotsgamesclothingfurniture...HUMAN INTERACTIONShumansanimalsplantsmaterials...

AS EXPERIENCEAS PRODUCT

TECHNOLOGY BIOLOGY ENVIRONMENT

CONCEPT MAPPING

TOUCH

design philosophy standard time

controlling

organising

reminding

feeling

pacing

monitoring

behavior

skin surfa

ce

CONCEPT MAPPINGPRODUCT REQUIREMENTS

FORM STUDY

AFFECTIVE GEOMETRY is a wearable device that tells time through touch. It has buttons that touch the skin in patterns, indicating minuets and hours. The geometry of the object allows the person to select how precise or how vague they would like their time to be. The user can select only hours, quadrants of ten minutes, section of 3 minutes and precise minutes.

FORM STUDY

12 : 34 12 : 34 12 : 34 12 : 34

12 30 34 4

12 11 10 0 20 4010 30 50

FEEL HOUR

FEELQUADRANT

FEEL EXACTMINUTE

FEEL ESTIMATEDMINUTE

30/33

34/3637/39

12

3

4

DECODING MEANINGPERIODICALLYTOUCHING

TOUCHING

FRONTBACK

LASER CUT MODELSDYED IN TEXTILES DYE

INTERACTIONS

FRONTBACK

FRONTBACK

PRIVATE TIME-TACTILE

PUBLIC TIME-VISUAL

ACCESSIBILITYIt is expected that it would take some ad-justment and time to adopt to telling time through a tactile stimuli. Just as it takes time to learn to read a clock and decode the meaning from one glance, same train-ing would need to be applied.

FRONTBACK

Industry moves fast, there are lots of daily tasks and business needs. How can he control, navigate and effectively use time? Ika hates coming home late. He wants to spend more time with family. What kind of functions would help? Ika wishes he had more time to read, explore cultural and sport activities. How can time be used within different activities?

1.Will this interrupt my life?2.What will it’s effect be?3.Will it break?4.Can the system learn from my behavior?

CAN BE WORN ANYWHERE ON THE BODY

Mondays are very busy, full of meetings over the phone and in person. He orders lunch to be brought to the office. Works a bit late, getting home around 7:30. Dinner consists of a regular dish, either a soup or vegetable dish. Tuesday are less ambitious, but are usually taken by busy and mundane work. Wednesday goes by fast. Maybe for dinner the couple contemplates a Russian or an Indian dish. After dinner, Ika finishes up some home finances, while Lina washes the dishes. On Thursday the first drafts come out, so the day is spent in meetings. Fridays Ika spends all day reading news, industry research and coming events. In the evening they go out with Lina for dinner to a Cuban restaurant. He likes getting the same dish. Saturday goes by fast. They sleep in and make a sweet breakfast. Grocery shopping takes two hours. Laundry, cleaning. Evening time they go out to the movies or read at home. Sundays are slow and relaxing. The couple wonderers around the house doing things.

USER PROFILEIKA ANDERSON

QUESTIONS FOR AND FROM IKA

SCENARIO

Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams (New York: Random House Inc, 1994).James Jespersen and Jane Fitz-Randolph, From Sundials to Atomic Clocks (National Bureau of Standards, U.S. Dept. of Commerce ,1977).Michele Emmer, The Visual Mind: Art and Mathematics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993).Keith Critchlow, Order in Space (London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 1969).Eviatar Zerubavel, The Standardization of Time: A Sociohistorical perspective (The American Journal of Sociology, Vol88, No1 (Jul., 1982), pp. 1-23.Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press, 2003)

SCENARIOSCENARIO

Kristen Lippincott, The Story of Time (London, Uk: Merrell Holberton, 2000) Edward Hall, The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time ( New York, NY: Anchor Books Doubleday, 1983)Sigmund Freud, Uncanny (Penguin Classics, 2003)Mark Weiser, The Computer for the 21st CenturyLera Boroditsky, Metaphoric structuring: Understanding Time Through Spacial MetaphorsTeenie Matlock, Michael Ramscar, and Lera Boroditsky, On the Experiential Link Between Spatial and Temporal Language