The Secret Life of Common Objects: A two part course, exploring qualities of interaction design
The process started with investigation of abstract quality (pain), continued in concept development and ended as a product.
STEP 1: PERSISTENCE OF PAIN An abstract exploration
Persistence of Pain: An abstract exploration of an interaction quality
Realizing that pain is a powerful stimulus for human actions/reactions, we asked people to describe physically painful experiences they've had. While listening to those stories, we re-lived the incidents: : : A root canal operation done without any pain killers during an earthquake : : A sanding machine brutally ripping the hair off a girl's head : : A guy violently attacked by a group of drunken kids who just kicked him all over his body
... and many more.
We could almost feeling the pain ourselves: the open skull, the slashed hand, the bruised skin... we discovered that memories can have tactile qualities.
Some keywords: Tactile , Shared experience, Memory, Story telling, Empathy, Circular feedback .
These are people, sharing excruciating experiences they’ve had
That’s us, hearing them tell their stories
These are some reactions to these stories, this time told by us during the presentation
We found pain an interesting subject, but focused on tactility for the next phase of the project: Furniture / Friends
