UX of Skin
- Ava Shepherd
- Nov 29, 2021
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 3, 2022
Designers: Sofia Alexiou, Zhe Lou, Kiesha Mundin, Willow Yan, Ava Shepherd.
Brief
The goal of this brief was to design a way to express the skin / world interface. Over the course of two weeks our team needed to experiment with ideas and turn them into physical prototypes and experiences. For this brief we have to use two new types of research methods to help guide our work. Speed dating and the AEIOU method.
Week 1
Defining our ideas
As a group we quickly started to brainstorm what skin means to us, what associations we have with it and potential avenues to explore. The subject areas that began to arise were vast and intriguing. Key ideas we narrowed into were fruit skin being used for other purposes, colour changing properties of jellyfish, exoskeleton fashion, sense of touch and skin as a defence mechanism.
I proposed doing an experience where an individual is blindfolded and wearing a pair of gloves. They would then have to try identify items on the table replying on only touch through gloves. The goal of this was to illustrate how much information we can normally gauge through our fingers.
Speed Dating
Through documental research, our group decided to follow two potential ideas. The first concept examined the nature of jelly fish skin and its colour changing properties. The second idea followed the nature of human touch, and how much information we can get without sight.
Considering we already had two key ideas we immediately began with the first research method of speed dating.
Idea 1) Seeing with our hands
The premise of this experiment was to see how much information people have through touch vs sight. Inspired by the quote "The receptors in our fingertips gather highly detailed information about the things we touch" (Lupton and Lipps, 2018, p.38), the first half of this idea is to have someone feel an item without being able to see it, before then having to recreate it. Once completed this first task they would then have the option to see the item and then have another go at recreating the object. Allowing them to see a comparison in their creations.
Idea 2)
Our second idea focused on the qualities of jellyfish and their ability to change colour depending on their surrounding environment. We wanted to create an experience that would use human senses such as touch and pressure, to change their surroundings.
Speed dating was a very useful idea because the outcome clearly demonstrated to us that people could not see the connection between skin and the second idea very clearly. The general feedback was that it felt like we had moved too far away from our original idea and are trying to add too much into one thing.
Additionally, people also indicated to us that the first idea felt like an experiment by having two stages and comparing the experiences at the end. From this we decided to strip back the second half of the first idea and just do the beginning for our first presentation.
Interim Presentation
Overall our presentation went well. Effy was our volunteer who tested out our experience and she did very well at identifying what objects were used from the sense of touch. However due to time constraints she was not able to recreate the object exactly and had to just lay out the items she could identify.
The overall feedback about our presentation was that there was not enough depth. While people really liked this concept, the execution felt a bit shallow. Al and Tonicha suggested changing the object people have to recreate to be something completely abstract. Additionally, what would happen if people just added to the object compared to remake it? Could it become a shared project?
Week 2
AEIOU Method
Before carrying on further with our idea we wanted to do some AEIOU research to help us gain as much information that we can about skin and human interactions. To do this we picked a couple of busy locations that would have lots of people and hopefully skin on object contact. Below is an example of the method for one of these locations.
One thing that stood out to me when doing this was how easily people could reach into their bag without looking and find the item they wanted. Headphones, a book, their cards etc. This was really fascinating to see in real life as it highlighted our idea of seeing with your fingertips. "Fingertips are innervated by axons from 250 to 300 sensory neurons" (Diamond, 2010, p.319). This means they are able to capture a remarkably high amount of information compared to other areas of the body.
Creating the structure
On Tuesday we began building the structure for our experience. We went out and bought a wide variety of supplies as we wanted the experience to feel as abstract as possible. We additionally wanted the people who would add to the structure to have lots of different textures and items varying in size.
When building we did not have an end goal in our minds. All we knew is that we wanted it to not have a 'front' and a 'back' or any true form. Because of this we thought the best approach would be to just add items as we wanted as see where it lead us to.
Our final structure for people to add to
Finally, while we wanted the people experiencing our work to rely on their hands alone, we did not want to get rid of their vision entirely. Therefore we make these masks / blindfolds that used various different materials to distort the users vision. This way people still had to rely on their hands alone, but have the comfort of knowing they primary sense has not been taken away completely.
Final Presentation
The feedback from this outcome was generally much more positive than it was the first week. People really enjoyed the variety of materials as they often could not identify what they were. Additionally adding to a structure felt much more communal than recreating something like before.
Key feedback we got was about how the structure could have been significantly bigger. While it was great that we made it abstract, what would it have been like it it stood by itself from the floor and didn't need to be on a table? Additionally we had some issues with people attaching the items to the structure which I believe could have been refined if we had more time.
The structure after people had added to it
Reflection
Parts of this project were really frustrating for me because external factors outside of my control affected my ability to be physically present with my team and collaborate as much as I would have intended. In week 1 there was two separate instances where I tried to travel up to London to meet with my group in person but was unable due to train faults. This really highlighted to me just how much I appreciate working as a team in person. While there are many benefits to online collaboration I do think it loses a lot of interaction that is so vital when discussing ideas and designing the kinds of experiences that we do.
Bibliography:
Diamond, M.E., 2010. Texture sensation through the fingertips and the whiskers. Current opinion in neurobiology, 20(3), pp.319-327.
Lupton, E. and Lipps, A. eds., 2018. The senses: Design beyond vision. Chronicle Books.
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