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Second sketch (I)

The sketch now, as it is, requires the user to adjust her/his breathing pattern and how deep their breathing is, and match it to the GUI to fill the space. If the user stops, even if there are any circles already on the page, they would all get cleared gradually. This implies and encourages the interaction to be a ‘fluent’ one, meaning the user has, as Lenz et al. (2013) state, “continuous influence, power and right to change what’s happening at any time of the process” [1] . However, it is ok for the user to stop and take a breath to continue. The existing circles get cleared gradually and with a fade effect, because I wanted to give the feeling to the user that their already given input matters, and if they stop to take a breath, the process doesn’t get “refreshed” and they do not have to start from the beginning. The interface is “forgiving” in a sense, but it also encourages for more effort, i.e. for the user to aim to do the “task” uniformly, and in one take.

What kind of sound is related to the “gradually filling” a space action? What if “the higher the frequency, the lower the speed of the filling”? So the frequency of the voice is low, the speed will be higher, if approached powerfully or, putting it negatively, forcefully, it would not respond well. I.e. I am relating lower frequencies with gentleness and vice versa. What if we mix it with volume of the sound? Is that more related?

– I tried to test this attribute, but unfortunately, was not able to manipulate the speed of the shapes appearing on canvas.

I want to limit the range of the frequency by which the GUI gets triggered. Now it is a wide range, so it is more sensitive.

Now I am thinking of whether there should be other stages that come after completing the first one. For example, when the first part is filled, then the user has to make a sound with another range of frequency to fill it. Sort of like a game where you could level up in. But how is that interesting? I think this will primarily challenge the user to gain skill in producing sounds in different frequencies. It is related to ‘sound’, but it also mixes an element of sensing the bodily feelings for the user.

I changed the color of the canvas, to make it different from the other part of the browser for more clarity. I decided to go to a quiet place and do “humming” sounds. The size of the circles are also increased for the area to get filled in a shorter time.

Second sketch (II)

I was not sure about the shapes being circles, so I switched to squares to test it out and see how it might be different in the whole experience. The size of the squares changes with respect to the amount of frequency in the chosen “band” of the frequencies. To have more controlled sounds and knowing what the frequencies actually are, I decided to use a ‘sonic’ sound generator. In the video below the sensitivity of the interface is visible. i.e. the sound might not be changing very much to human’s ears, but the code has been written in a way to get triggered only by some ‘bands’ in the spectrum. (beware of the sounds in the video, they might get a bit too much, be ready to lower down the volume if necessary.)

I decided to use the existing sketch I have and get more deep into it, instead of adding other “stages” to the interaction. It might have been more fun that way, but I think because of the time frame and the actual task we have, this is the right decision. Now I have the shapes filling the whole area of the canvas, in the video below I made random sounds just to see how the interface looks like, it is simpler than the last version. Something I noticed only now about the last version is that the shapes appearing only on the left side of the canvas, would tickle the curiosity of a first-time user, and this gives more value to the interaction since it keeps the user interested to try. On the other hand, for now I only have the idea and was not able to execute it tangibly. So I think at this point it is best if I stick with whatever I have and can elevate it.

References:

[1] Lenz, E., Diefenbach, S., & Hassenzahl, M. (2013). Exploring relationships between interaction attributes and experience. In Proceedings of the 6th international conference on designing pleasurable products and interfaces. (pp. 126-135).