How might we provide people with a tool that expands their ability to express themselves?
Role: user researcher, communication and interaction designer, programmer
Skills: data visualization, secondary research, analysis and synthesis, low & high fidelity prototyping, diagramming, systems design, sentiment analysis
Tools: Grasshopper, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Indesign
Team: Individual, with support from instructor
Technology-enabled visualization of feelings
Context
Generative Design is one of the most fascinating areas for design practitioners today. I enrolled in a workshop to further my understanding of this discipline and dabble in the technology. The most seducing component of generative design (a.k.a parametric design) is the possibility of designing algorithms that create multiple different possible designs, that is customization at scale.
This shift in paradigm is truly impactful. For decades, Design has been practiced roughly like this: few designers created one design for many users. The model constraints designers to think in markets, demographics and personas (archetypical clients). On the contrary, Generative Design is practiced roughly like this: one designer creates one algorithm that generates multiple designs for one user. The consequences of this alternative are bespoke, contextually-targeted design interventions for individuals.
Parametric design has been around for a while, mainly built up by artists and technologists; however, its applications are starting to emerge across industries, from fashion to architecture to poetry.
Reflections
What would I use this extraordinary tool for? A few things came to mind to answer the question:
First, my evolving, exciting personal context. In October 2020, my wife and I found out that we were becoming parents. A couple of weeks after the beginning of the Spring 2021 semester, they told us it would be a baby boy. Studying full time, having no income, living far away from our support network… These components made it hard for me to find equanimity. To add to the apprehension, I felt limited by English: I couldn’t find the proper words to express myself despite having a lot to say.
Second, the scarcity of cross-disciplinary projects at ID. The academic structure leads students to think about their classes in discrete, fixed terms: if a project starts in a class, it must end the same class. Deliverables, deadlines and grading are all part of this illusion of the right duration of a project. Why couldn’t I pick up where I left off in the past? Was there a project that I was excited about but didn’t quite finish? Yes, there was!
myelin: the prequel
With myelin, I meant to theorize about a more empathetic state of society, a new system to complement capitalism that would value feelings at least as much as money. myelins were physicalizations of feelings which connected residents from the same geographical area. Also, they could act as donations from one family member to another. Bingo.
What if I could create the technology to enable people to express themselves to their loved ones?
Outcomes
adrián and digitized myelins
An engine (done in Grasshopper) to assist the translation of feelings into visualizations. The sequence to grasp how adrián works is the following: first, speech to text in the person’s native language; second, text to shape with certain rules taken into account.
What are some of these rules?
speech results in shapes
absence of speech results in lines connecting shapes
length of lines equals time between sentences
shape size relates to the duration of the sentence
shape contour and color relates to average sentiment of the sentence
Future explorations
Regardless of the depth and variety of vocabulary in any native language, the sole act of speaking out and watching those words transform into shapes can instill a little peace in people who are enduring difficult life experiences. Much like my own son to my life, this tool is meant to inspire people to feel hopeful about their own future, regardless of their present circumstances. In my mind, adrián would bode well within communities of immigrants and people experiencing diverse forms of trauma, so I would like to test and iterate it among such audiences.
In addition, I would add a component, man-made art, to complement the computer-made visualization. I imagine this happening in the form of glyphs - an invented, alternative way to write spoken words - which may appear in the visualization within existing shapes. The act would add a more explicit, yet still artistic connotation to the visualization.
P.S
I decided to name my project ‘adrián’ because that’s the name of my son.
As my wife was incubating Adrián, I was incubating adrián.