LONELINESS&URBAN SPACE
Fjord collaboration Project
During this project we will be exploring the digital sphere and the impact that it has on the physical, the spatial, the ‘real’, the city. The widespread use of mobile technologies, and the proliferation of the interfaces have changed our notions of the spaces we inhabit. And as a designer, we have a chance to shape these technologies for the public good and to demonstrate how they may be configured for ethical and inclusive participation.
Project Overall
This is a three month UX project with Fjord. Our team(4 members) is assigned to propose a design idea under a brief from Fjord. During the whole design process, we proceed research, ideation, testing and prototyping to deliver the final design idea.
loneliness
Loneliness
With several research and group discussion "Loneliness" was selected to be the main direction for this project. Urban space as the keyword for this project leave us a huge range of areas for us to explore at the beginning. To narrow down the topic, individual research was conducted. With an advanced technology, people have more ways to reach people and get to known people quickly and easily. However, we still feel lonely. This kind of feeling come to us suddenly and then leave within a short period of time. It reminds me that one participant said: "People made city while city shapes people." Her words make me realized that the environment that we lived in can give real impact on individuals’ life and feelings, and this kind of relationship between urban space and human feelings is fascinating. Thus, we decided to dig deeper on this topic and do the desk research on loneliness.
Design
We designed an interactive installation that can be installed in an urban space to let young people to share their loneliness and talk about their feelings. A digital platform is also designed to let participants exploring others’ thoughts or leaving comments towards the understanding and awareness of young people’s loneliness. These two delivered a whole experience for young people in an urban space.
DESIGN PROCESS
Research / Prototyping / Testing
The built environment can either enable or constrain interaction ( Melbourne School of Design )
Desk Research
There are various elements that give impacts on one’s loneliness, so at this point we summarized five major aspects (lifestyle, connection, climate, environment and culture) that related to loneliness and did individual research on each aspect. The main method we use is the literature review, which we found that loneliness is partly isolation and partly a subjective interpretation of our lives. Loneliness is a choice, it depends on how people choose to perceive the way things affect them or interact with them. Language and cultural boundary, not being understood make people to keep their feeling loneliness to themselves and sometimes feel shame about express or talk about their loneliness. When people feel lonely, warm food and warm temperatures will make them feel better. Loneliness even be defined by some as “the failure of our environments” that lead us to rethink the environment that we have lived in.
Color coding
Color coding
Field Research
After doing the desk research on the topic of loneliness we move to the field research.
According to BBC ” Loneliness Experiment”, Level of loneliness was the highest in younger respondents (between 16 -24 years old) with 40% feeling lonely, compared with only 27% of older respondents who completed the study. Thus we select young people as our target user group rather than seniors.
Therefore to know more about young people's understanding and reactions towards loneliness and how this can be related to urban space. We did interviews, online survey and observation trying to find out more about the topic.
After the field research, we found out that:
Being alone is not lonely, when people feel lonely, they actually want to be alone, but not physically “alone”, they still tend to have company.
People enjoy private space in an urban space.
Loneliness is a fleeting sensation
Many people blame themselves when they feel lonely.
The link below shows the results of our online survey:
Modelling experiment
Aim: We designed an modelling experiment to collect more ideas and information from our target group by letting them to make models about their loneliness.
Participants: 16-24 years old young people
Rules: Each participant need to complete three modelling tasks, each task takes about 5 mins and during each task one specific question related to our topic will be asked :
Task 1: Please use the materials provided to create an object that represents loneliness for you.
Task 2: Please use the materials provided to create a space for the object you have just created.
Task 3: Imagine that the object is yourself, what would you do with the space. Please use the materials provided to illustrate this.
Digital platform
From the research and experiment, we found that we could not solve the problem of loneliness or we could not even say that loneliness is a problem. People have right to choose to be alone or not. Some might take action to escape it, some may just keep this kind of feeling to themselves. While from the interview with our participants, we realize that some people did not even realize their loneliness, and a lack of understanding of loneliness leads to more issues.
Therefore, we delivered a digital platform to offer young people share their loneliness to others by showing their model of loneliness and their thoughts.
To try out our interactive interface using the link below:
https://projects.invisionapp.com/share/UEQBBHXNW56#/screens/344624632
Diary Study
After interviews, observations and online survey, we looked up into one interesting research method called diary study. This method is often used to get highly contextual information to assess attitudes, behaviours, and/or motivations.The most impressive finding is that one 18 year old participant told us that she identified her loneliness as the failure of her social life. With feelings such as hiding, comparing and pretending as the axis of this pyramid of shame.
Design
The idea of our installation is coming from one of our findings that the feeling of loneliness can not be solved, therefore, we are not going to think about an idea that trying to solve it, while trying to raise awareness of loneliness to the public.
Prototyping
I was responsible for establish the interactive installation individually.
 Choose leave or stay |  Listening |  Sensory |
|---|---|---|
 installation |
Testing
We tested our prototype in an open space inside the university and outside. We invite young people to try out our installation and then ask their thoughts about the experience and leave their own experiences and stories through text. Most of our participants states that they feel much related, and they actually leave warm and encourage message to others.
