Geode: Speculative Design for Crisis Intervention
Project Information
- Team: Kaitlin Simpson, Gracie Straznickas, Jess Reed
Roles : Product Owner, Product Designer- Duration: 2 months (February - March 2020)
Project Overview
Geode is a speculative design project created as a response to the challenge of designing a product that “sees” and understands its user, either by camera or data. Geode is meant to utilize haptic technology to aid in mental health crisis intervention. The project focused on product ideation and context of use, including the development of storyboards, a prototype, and a short video narrative showcasing the prototype.
Project Background
When presented with the challenge of designing a product that could understand its user, my team and I wanted to create something that could be supportive and have a positive impact. The idea for Geode was heavily influenced by research I had completed prior to this challenge; I had performed a literature review focusing on human-computer interaction applications in designing for, and supporting, serious mental illness. During this research, I learned about the use of ‘hope kits’ in suicide intervention, and often posed the question to myself: could a digital hope kit be implemented to assist in mental health crisis intervention?
For the purpose of this project’s challenge, we speculated how artificial intelligence could be utilized for a digital hope kit. We believed this could be possible through two avenues. First, a machine learning algorithm that could learn a user’s likes and interests to produce recommendations for their hope kit. Secondly, the utilization of haptic technology to understand when its user is in crisis and send alerts to check the hope kit as a means of intervention.
Methods
As this project was speculative in nature, it was developed quickly and focused on the possible context of use rather than actual feasibility. Our process consisted of conceptualization, storyboarding, prototyping, and presentation.
Storyboarding
In order to understand the context of use for Geode, I developed the following storyboard for our team. This storyboard served as both a springboard for early-prototyping ideas as well as an outline for our final video narrative.
Prototyping
The prototype I developed was based on the initial research I had performed during my literature review. I looked at what was commonly included in hope kits and tried to translate this to a digital space. I wanted the prototypes to reflect individual interests and did so by creating 'alternate' versions of the home screen, as seen below.
The two following were concepts for 'customized' Geode screens:
Presentation
To summarize and present our project, we created a short video narrative based on our storyboard. We used Adobe After Effects to visually present our prototype within the narrative.