UX of Air

Configure an experience made of air

Timeframe: Monday 16 October - Sunday 29 October

Team members: Ale, Riya, Swaranjali, Oluwabukola and Rayanne

Research methods: Data Physicalisation and Body Storming

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Week 1 Monday 16 October - Sunday 22 October

Primary research

I asked 8 people “what do you think of when you hear the word air”. The answers were rich and diverse. Some thought of relaxation others compared fresh and polluted air and some thought about science and machines.

Fig. 1 user research converted to a mind map

Listen to three of the participants responses below

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Ideation

In our first group session we shared our research on air. We used the lotus brainstorming method to capture thoughts and then voted on our favourite words

Fig 2. First brainstorming session

Fig 3. Outputs of brainstorming activity. To the right are all our ideas and to the left the chosen ideas.

Fig. 4 Visual board of chosen ideas

We wanted to create an experience for people to explore food, its relationship with air and their emotions. We had the idea of snacking in the air, where we'd use Bernoulli's principle to float popcorn for people to take and eat.

Fig. 5 Swaranjali's drawing our our concept

Fig. 6 ideas that we got rid of to narrow focus

Secondary research

I researched further into food and air and came across dehydrated food it’s link to space and NASA (NASA Spinoff, 1994) and the likelihood of the market value increasing by $15bn by 2028 due to increasing “snack culture"(Mordorintelligence, 2023). I went on to look into snack culture I thought this was something we could explore in our data physicalisation.

Fig. 67 Research on snacking in the air

Prototyping consolidating and presenting

We went on to create our first prototype of floating popcorn and presented our journey on Thursday for feedback.

Fig 8, 9 & 10. Images and video of initial prototypes.

Bodystorming

Following the presentation we felt needed a change of scenery  to bodystorm key aspects of our idea, popcorn, floating and air. We met at Kings Cross and used these points as structure:

1. Look at our body’s reaction to this piece

2. Put ourselves in different situations

Fig. 11 Bodystorming findings

What I learnt

Presentation feedback highlighted we had to many avenues of thought - popcorn, food, snacks, dehydrated food, media, we needed to narrow down.

We were also looking at data physicalisation as an output not a research method. I was searching for things to represent, we needed to research the method properly and rethink.

Lastly, we thought we needed a final prototype to bodystorm or a user group, without, it the research method seemed too abstract. However, when we did give it a try, it got us out of our heads and gave us a fresh perspective from our physical reactions. We realised our idea is turning on its head how we engage with food, air is causing it to be unpredictable and dynamic, it changes our relationship with food invoking an emotional reaction.

Week 2 Monday 23 October - Sunday 29 October

Experimentation

Firstly, we put paint on a page and got users to blow popcorn, exploring popcorn and play. Also, popcorns messy nature, popping everywhere when cooked. Users had fun, but the popcorn got stuck in the paint, so the outcome wasn’t as impactful as hoped.

Fig. 12 users partaking in popcorn game

Fig. 13 users partaking in popcorn game

Secondly, I stood in a plastic cover with popcorn, whilst air was blown to explore the fear element when popcorn was thrown at me in bodystorming. However, in short it didn’t work the popcorn didn’t float and the cover was a bit claustrophobic .

Data physicalisation

Ale designed a survey, exploring popcorn and association, the good, the bad and when it’s eaten. She organised the answers into categories. We took these and created a visual representation, using popcorn to create the groups.

Fig. 14 on the right is a picture of the survey on the left is the survey results

Fig. 15 data physicalisation of survey results

Mission statement

Following the body storming, experimentation and data physicalisation we had lots of ideas but lacked focus. To solve this we wrote a mission statement, this gave us a direction we collectively agreed on, to explore in our prototyping

Fig. 16 mission statement

Prototyping

We decided to make a game that included the floating elements from our “snacking in the air”. We created a device which shot popcorn through a tunnel for players to catch. Users feedback “it’s fun, but it’s over too quickly”, in future iterations we’d have liked to explore this.

What I learnt

Our prototype wasn’t the outcome we’d hoped as we'd lost the collective eating a key research findings. However, we learnt through the process.

Firstly, experimentation was a great way to explore themes, without prototyping. We could quickly see what worked, what didn’t and iterate.

Our mission statement gave clarity and was useful to go back to it in our prototyping.

Our body storming got us out of our heads, and enabled us to explore the emotions our survey highlighted. However, we could have been less conventional, maybe even embodying popcorn. This could have opened new avenues of thought.

Our data physicalisation needed work. We should have made the physicalisation of our survey findings clearer, removing the reliance on words.

Finally, our experience didn’t need to be a “thing”, in the future I’d like to explore making something other than a product. I wonder what we would have created if we’d taken this approach.

References

Mordor Intelligence. (n.d.). Dehydrated Food Market Size & Share Analysis. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/dehydrated-food-market

Nasa Spin Off. (2020). Space Food. https://spinoff.nasa.gov/node/9531#:~:text=In%20planning%20for%20the%20long,first%20freeze%2Ddried%20ice%20cream

Nguyen, H. (2022). Consumer trends and preferences in snacking. YouGov. https://business.yougov.com/content/42601-consumer-trends-preferences-snacking-poll