LightMyDay

A smart set of lamps for people who are separated by distance to help them stay in touch

Background

The objective of this design assignment was to investigate and prototype a physical artifact for intimate interaction, for people who are somehow challenged by distance. I conducted this project together with 3 teammates for the Interaction Design course at Malmö University.

Problem

Being far away or being forced to socially distance oneself from our loved ones is hard enough. Designing a physical product with no
interface for an intimate relation is a challenging task considering the options to stay in touch that our smart phones provide s today.

Solution

LightMyDay is a set of smart lamps that sense
the proximity of a person and send light signals to each other. The different colored LED lights give the room a warm impression and make the room feel cozier, giving a sense of the other person’s presence.

Empathizing

We interviewed 3 kids aged 10-15 and 4 adults 17 - 33 about being away from a loved one and their view on having an artifact that would help them feel closer.

Our target group is people who cannot meet their loved ones and miss them. We had especially two scenarios in mind. Oliver, 21, is a student who has moved 300km away from his family to study in Lund. He is too busy to hang out on the phone or write long emails to his parents and just wants to send a quick signal when he misses them. Ann-Britt, 84, a retiree who lives in a residential home whose kids live far away and visit her only sparingly. She does not like to speak long on the phone, but she often feels lonely.

“I miss them when something
bad has happened and I’m
sad or misunderstood.”

“I think when I’m home alone
I miss them the most, it could
be quite emotional.”

Concept development

We landed on a drop-shaped lamp. When putting the two parts together they form a heart. Unlike a classical friendship necklace, our design gives a more smooth impression. Standing alone, the drop-shaped lamp is a more discreet object that could blend in any home. Even though they are rarely put together, knowing they form a heart gives the feeling of having a piece of a loved one’s heart.

Core features

Since a big takeaway from the interviews was to keep it simple we tried to minimize the number of functions and their complexity. Three main functions are

The lantern lights up when a distant loved one is close to their lantern (Storyboard 1).
The light turns red when one person touches the lamp to generate feelings of warmth and love (Storyboard 2).
And when both parts touch their lanterns simultaneously the red light starts pulsating. This lets them know they’re both interacting with their lanterns (Storyboard 2). The pulsating red light is reminiscent of a heartbeat. We chose a pulsating light because we thought it evoked closeness. An important factor was that the light should not cause any stress or discomfort - the light should not be too bright or pulsate to fast.

User testing

Simulating the functions for our testing we used 2 Arduino boards which were placed underneath the corresponding lamp. Using Processing, proximity sensor, and button inputs we made the interactions work perfectly.

“Now I need to stand up to touch it, oh no, I’d rather send an emoji!”

“I think, she would be sad if she
didn’t get any response or maybe the other person would be sad to miss her light.”

“I think the idea is too simple, maybe it is just for kids. They have more imagination.”

Reflections

Current mental models about sending signals to each other are highly connected to our smartphones. This is what most users unconsciously compared our product to. Our idea was that the product would appear more simple and rather “send a thought” than “a message”. During one or the iterations, we added a function of drawing on the surface of the lamp to send a message to make a product more unique (Storyboard 3). This feature has not been tested. We should definitely test more on our target group. Especially the older people with a variety of visual impairments to see the functionalities of the product. Providing multiple colors or shapes to communicate and possibly to make the settings personally adaptable would be the next step.

My role

research, sketching, building prototype, code

Methods

Interviews, moodboards, storyboards, creative coding

Tools

Arduino, Processing,

cardbaord and wire

Duration

3 weeks

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