Unexpected happiness by Blip.
An installation to deviate from daily life by bodily exploration.
Design for Happiness, Explorative research, Prototype & User Testing, Electronics & Arduino.
People are increasingly consumed by their own thoughts, worries, and tasks. We often move through our day without taking a moment to reflect or engage in activities that bring us happiness. What if we could have a small temporary deviation from our daily flow and be fully engaged and present in the moment, if we can be seduced into experiencing momentary happiness in an unexpected setting. Familiarity, connection, nostalgia, surprise, creation, reflection, beauty, and simplicity were explored ingredients for unexpected happiness, what would yours be?
The final design for the interactive installation, called Blip, generates bodily expressions of happiness through a series of 10 hanging interactive balloons. When a person interacts with or moves a balloon its musical note plays and the balloon lights up. The installation size and balloon positioning encourage different interactions and allows multiple people to engage simultaneously. Through people watching or engaging with the installation they experience specific emotions (fascination, joy, satisfaction) and can unexpectedly address some universal needs (belonging, impact, autonomy, stimulation, ease), reminding visitors of what can make them happy.
Learnings
- A concept does not need to be finished before building prototypes and testing, instead preliminary prototypes provide rich insights to continue developing a concept.
- The prototype itself also does not need to fully function, a low fidelity prototype which still conveys the important interactions (or fakes to do so) is perfect for early stages of the proces.
- To build the installation in such a manner that it is possible to replace elements without the whole installation coming at a still.
Credits
Together with Hannah Goss and Ileana Diaz Couder Breceda this project was executed during 10 weeks. Their described role entailed answering research questions by design and theory. My role focussed on bringing envisioned concepts to live by prototyping. The combination of us three executing ideation, research, prototyping and testing made the concept strong as it is today.
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