ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Study Buddy is an interactive project I conduct with two friends to help students manage anxiety and stress. As the lead designer of the project, I'm responsible for the research period on how interaction should be designed and how it is set up. The project lasted for over a month and went through rounds of iteration. Eventually, I'm more than happy to discover through feedback that it succeeds in its design purpose.
DESIGN INTENTION
I noticed the school library in mid-term period have a depressing atmosphere where student are silently studying on their own. Also, I received lots of complain from friends of the loneliness and exhaustion they have to go through during their study time. I know this feeling myself too, so I formed the thought of designing a cozy interactive experience that could release pressures of students and accompany them through the hard period.
PROTOTYPE
At the start of production, I designed a prototype that was a series of hand-drawn cartoon animals that were folded to stay standing on the table where the player studies. Based on this thought, me and my artist friends soon created several different "study buddies" and delivered them to testers for feedback. However, though nearly most testers reported "buddies" were cute to have, but lot of testers felt a lack of connection with the card. Therefore, though with great potential, the prototype itself still needsiterated to be iterate to fulfill the design intention.
IETRATION
The overall iteration process of the project follows a clear pattern of design, production, testing, and analysis feedback. After receiving feedback from the prototype, I decided to give more context for the project in the form of belonging and connection between people and our study buddies. Therefore, I set the context to be an adoption of all kinds of unique creatures that player could make. Every study buddy has their unique characteristics and preferences-we revised and printed out the new cards with different adoption tips on them.
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Also, I want to reuse study buddies and keep them recycled in the public space for everyone to access, and the adoption system encourages player to return their buddies after done study so the next person could enjoy time with them too.​​​ To convey these rules to player, the poster was designed and released as a guide for the overall interaction.
ONLINE COMMUNITY
I think one of the most effective way of addressing lonesome is to get player into a community. Instead of direct communication, just sharing a moment and being able to witness other people's moments could be enough to deliver comfort and release stress. This design eventually works out way better than I previously imagined- we received about forty post on the website within a week after the final releasement.
CHARITY APPROACH
Seeing people enjoying the interaction and finding themselves comforted because of it makes all my efforts pay off. It is also at this moment, I realize my design could indeed help make a difference of something no matter how small it is. With this thought in mind, I tried making contact with the local animal shelter and introduced this project to them; I was thinking about putting an actual photo of a homeless animal in need of adoption along with their characteristics on it. Unfortunately, due to Intentional sabotage by unknown forces against our project box, we eventually had to stop this long-term project. Nonetheless, I appreciate everything in this project- they still support me today to use my ability of design ability in the creation of meaningful works.
