PROJECT MIRAGE

YEAR : 2016

CATEGORY : DESIGN THINKING/ MIXED REALITY/ CONCEPTUAL PROTOTYPE

PLATFORM : WEB

TECH : UNITY

IN A NUTSHELL

Emotions through storytelling using the medium of Mixed Reality. This project used shadow puppetry as means of storytelling for inducing emotions in users and hence making them feel much happier and confident with themselves. This project was targeted towards the people who have a complex due to the bad body complex.

SECONDARY RESEARCH

We started by doing some secondary research in the domain of emotions, mixed reality and storytelling. This helped us get the first idea about these issues. The pros and cons and how best we can use these in our projects. We did a lot of brainstorming, mapped out multiple mind maps to see the overlap of emotions and storytelling. After some basic research on the internet we had to select the domain in which we wanted to work.

After brainstorming we shortlisted 4 major domains – Entertainment, Business, Manufacturing and Education. We rated these domains based on 5 criteria – Interactivity, Scope of Creativity and Innovation, Location Flexibility for Solution, Senses that can be involved and Incorporation of Storytelling.

We had a sample size of 30 people who rated these domains. Art and entertainment got the maximum points holistically and hence the domain was chosen.

DOMAIN SELECTION

As ENTERTAINMENT is a very vast category, we subdivided it into 4 main categories – Dance, Theatre, Puppetry and Music. These categories could act as mediums of storytelling. We then did the same practice of asking a sample size of 30 people to rate these on the same 5 criteria. And

surprisingly, PUPPETRY got the maximum score. As we told people to rate these domains, we also casually interacted with them regarding these domains. There were some very unique insights which we received which helped us write our first product statement.

PRODUCT STATEMENT 01

Based on the insights we got from the users we wrote our first product statement-

In order to revive a traditional form of storytelling, our product/ service will solve the urban population’s problem of low exposure to traditional forms of storytelling by giving them puppetry in an interactive manner. We will know if our product works, when we see our target audience engaging and enjoying the experience of puppetry while the artform is subconsciously being revived.

HYPOTHESIS

Based on the insights we got from the users we listed down some of the hypothesis which we had to validate during our primary research.

People dont know about their cultures.
Memories create an emotional connection.
People do regret certain things in their life which they would like to change.
People enjoy visual storytelling.
The genre connects to the users emotionally.
The users are able to relate to the characters and emotionally connect to them.
People felt emotional while watching the movie Taare Zameen Par .
People are not aware of the mythology
Younger generation is not exposed to the traditions and cultures in the form of mythology.

RESEARCH TOOLS

We researched about the various research tools and shortlisted the few that make sense in our project –

Directed Storytelling : Ask subjects to tell stories about specific times they performed an action or interacted with a product or service.
Unfocused group: Assembling a group of experts in the field, hobbyists, artists, and others to explore the subject or product from different viewpoints.
Extreme User Interviews: A method from IDEO, in this approach the designer interviews people on the outer edge of the subject matter.

PRIMARY RESEARCH

Based on our research tools, our interviewee were segregated into three categories : Focused group, unfocussed group and experts. We asked our users regarding the modes of storytelling and the various techniques that can be used to keep the audience more engrossed in the act. As a technological feasibility we took a lot of guidance about mixed reality from our expert users and also learnt how non traditional ways of shadow puppetry will work with todays audience.

We put down a set of appropriate questions for each set to understand their viewpoints in the domain of puppetry, storytelling and mixed reality which were also based on the various hypothesis we listed.

ANALYSIS

Based on the feedback received from our users, we performed a qualitative and quantitative analysis to arrive at our insights and target audience.

PRODUCT STATEMENT 02

Based on the insights we got from the primary research we iterated our product statement-

In order to revive a traditional form of storytelling, our product/ service will solve the urban population between the age of 20-30’s problem of low exposure to shadow puppetry (ancient form of storytelling) by giving them puppetry in an interactive manner. We will know if our product works, when we see our target audience engaging and enjoying the experience of puppetry while the artform is subconsciously being revived.

PERSONA BUILDING

USER STORY AND USER SCENARIO

Once we had our user stories in place we began to build the user scenarios to see how we can accommodate different kinds of contexts that our solution could be used. We first build a sample
scenario plot so that the structure of the scenario remains consistent.

INSIGHTS

FOCUS GROUP

Understanding emotions lead us to our focus group. We learnt that there are three kinds of people :

People who are feeling sad
People who are feeling normal
People who are feeling happy Since it is difficult to satisfy the needs of an already happy or a normal user, our focus group now becomes people who are sad.

INFERENCE

People are usually sad because something they wanted did not happen.
A lot of people who were sad because they were from a low economic background were out of our scope.
Interestingly, certain number of people were sad but moved on reality quickly. This phase of sadness is called momentary sadness. Sadness that turns on and off in a matter of moment is called momentary sadness.

This lead to a conclusion of momentary sadness which we wanted to cater to. Through our primary research we concluded that one very common thing that made a person upset and under confident is his image. We researched about the kublers-ross model, and mallows hierarchy of needs to pinpoint on how to achieve happiness in humans.

RESEARCH FOR IDEATION

After finalizing on momentary sadness, we had to understand when, where, how and why momentary sadness is caused. We did a mind map around momentary sadness.

USER RESEARCH

After talking and observing people we realized that a lot of people between the ages of 20-30 have low self esteem and insecurities about they look.

PRODUCT STATEMENT 03

Based on the findings from user scenarios we iterated our product statement further-

In order to help people who are feeling under confident about the way they look, our product will solve the urban population between the age of 20-30’s problem of bad body image and low self confidence by giving them puppetry in an interactive and contemporaries manner.

We will know if our product works, when we see our target audience enjoying the experience of shadow puppetry, feeling better about themselves while the artforum is subconsciously revived.

DESIGN

We designed a system which caters to people who have a bad body image, to quickly lighten their mood and also boost their confidence by making them see their flaw as a power.

STORY BOARDING

THE SYSTEM

Every component had a special significance which in some way or the other helped the user increase his moral or help to enhance his interaction with the entire system.

VISUAL STYLE

Keeping the theme of shadow puppetry we build our environment in Unity 3D.