Miss U | Tammy Shen

Miss Ü

A Design for Sharing Moods in Long-Distance Relationships

Project Overview 0

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PROJECT OVERVIEW

PROBLEM STATEMENT

"How might we help long-distance couples to have emotional connections."

INTRODUCTION

　　Miss Ü is a product designed for long-distance couples. It comes as two twin devices with digital interfaces that allow you to share emotions at the click of a button.
　　As the world becomes more global, we see growing trends of long-distance relationships. With these busy schedules and varying time differences, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain these relationships. Therefore, Miss U aims to evoke an emotional response, enhancing the connection between people in long-distance relationships, and in turn inanimate objects into evocative extensions of living relationships.

Project Details

Time: Sep 2016 - Jan 2017
Team Size: Individual Project
Type:

Pysical device

iOS mobile app

My Role

UX designer
Interaction designer

Industrial designer

UX researcher

Prototyper

Tools

Sketch

Invision

Solidworks

Illustrator

Paper Prototypes

HTML/LESS

DESIGN PROCESS

1

RESEARCH

INTERVIEW

　　I interviewed 20+ people who have or are currently experiencing long-distance relationships, with the aim of assessing their needs and identifying the origin of their emotional distress. Based on my findings, I prioritized which design features to include in the final product.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

　　I classified the interviewees’ pain points as follows:

Lack of physical contact

Unawareness of what the other is doing

Inability to share things in real time

Difficulty of finding common topics for conversation

"Sometimes I just want her to know that I miss her, but I don’t want to disturb her and not have anything to share with her."
"I’m working now, but my boyfriend is still a PhD student, with different social groups and environments. Sometimes it’s really hard for us to find a common topic to chat."
"I want to talk to him, but he is always sleeping."
"I want to have alternatives when he is not here."
"I miss those physical connections that we usually have when we meet, the times when we just sat together and did our own things.”
"Even though nowadays there are apps and video calls, they just lack warmth. The message is easily overshadowed by other information.”

Research 1

PERSONA

　　Because our target market is people in long-distance relationships, to understand the user types and the issues they were facing, I generated the personas and scenarios based on my findings.

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

　　As more individuals participate in international work and education, people are finding themselves in long distance relationships. Some inventions aim to help long-distance couples feel more connected to each other, but most of them are intangible applications on smartphones. There are also a few products that are designed with a physical component. While Miss Ü combined both physical and digital solutions and solves the problem in a more emotional way.
　　The following lists the existing products and their functions.

2

IDEATION

BRAINSTORMING

　　Based on the insights I gained from user interviews, I brainstormed and ranked 25+ features which cater to user needs and pain points. The ideas were preliminarily sorted into categories, and through a simple user survey, six of them were selected. After that, the DFV (Desirability, Feasibility and Viability) method was used to evaluate and select the most valuable design. The result suggested:

A twin emotional physical device + A mobile application

IDEATION & DFV EVALUATION

MIND MAP

　　After decided the product would be a physical device came with a mobile app, I did the mind mapping to better capture my thoughts and bring them to life in visual form.

Ideation 2

CHARACTER DESIGN

　　The object’s appearance will definitely influence the feeling it brings to the users. Miss Ü is positioned to be emotional, fun and special. Since the product is designed for users with a wide range of different values and characters, it was designed and built to be cute yet neutral.

　　After generating different appearances, two characters called KiKi and BoBo were created. They are a pair of two small monsters with different sized eyes, and a big red nose. Their colors are designed according to color psychology.

　　KiKi, which was designed to heal a lonely soul and soothe lovesickness, is mint green to provide a sense of healing but still appear cute and relatively neutral. To pair with KiKi, BoBo was made light yellow. Yellow induces feelings of sunshine, hope, and happiness. Studies show that the color yellow is associated with warmth and cheerfulness.

DESIGN DECISION

　　I ended up deciding to present a solution that relies mainly on tangible objects as a touch point and exclusive emotional connection. The purpose of the physical device is to send out warm signals without being a nuisance, and the device is supplemented by an app to incorporate more detailed communication and interaction. I hope to turn inanimate objects into evocative extensions of living relationships.

NEEDS & CORE CONCEPTS

　　Through several rounds of brainstorming and surveying, important needs, decisions and high-level design factors were made to ensure the design would solve the pain points of the target users.

Tangible Device

For long-distance couples, having no physical contact with their lovers is the most painful thing. Having a physical product can be an emotional sustenance for them, bring back physical touch and convey emotions in a unique way.

Mobile App

Since the physical product is positioned to be a simple and easy-to-use device, the App would be the extension of the physical device to have more interactions that are not achieve by physical products.

Emotional Connection

Through the product, I wanted to bring emotional connections for people in long-distance relationships.

Share Feelings

The product would be a media for long-distance couples to share their feelings.

Gamification

In order to reduce the anxiety mood of waiting that most long-distance couples would face, communicating through games might be a solution.

MAIN FUNCTIONS

Hardware

　　The high-level assumptions of the hardware are to make the interaction as simple as it can. They are more focused on emotional connection and physical touch. The main reason of having the hardware device is to avoid the overwhelming messages and notifications that we might get when we are using our phone. The physical KiKi & BoBo represent the exclusive connection belonging to the two of them.

SAY "I MISS YOU"

　　When the user squeezes one of the characters , the other one will gradually and smoothly light up while changing color with a “breathing” light effect. The effect is to signal their partner “I miss you” in a more emotional but unintrusive way.

SHARE EMOTIONS

　　By pushing the buttons on one character, the other will light up with the corresponding color: yellow, red, blue and green, which respectively represents happiness, anger, sorrow, and luck. In this way, users share their current feeling with their partners.

Software

　　The app is designed to support and extend the user experiences on the hardware devices. The main functions are:

SHOW THE STATUS

OF THE LOVER

　　The character in the APP will show the current status of the lover. It is like an electric pet, while also a substitute of the lover. The idea is generated to solve the needs of "what to know what the other is doing" and "have a spirit to consign while their lovers are busy"

SAY "I MISS YOU"

　　This is the extended function of the physical devices. After sending a miss you, the character on the lover’s screen will have a love notification. At the same time, the physical product will light up

SEND A DIGITAL POSTCARD

　　For people in long-distance relationships, sharing things in real time is hard and waiting is usually required. By using the concept of postcards, users will lower their expectation of having immediate responses.

STORYBOARD

　　Storyboards were utilized to present possible solutions and scenarios combining multiple ideas into a service.

1. Say, "I miss you"

2. Send a postcard

USER JOURNEY MAP

　　I created the user journey maps of the app for the main functions:

3

PROTOTYPE

HARDWARE PROTOTYPE

　　In order to test how the idea actually works and if it indeed fulfills the needs of users. I developed prototypes through many phases from quick and dirty sketch models, renderings, look-like prototypes, work-like prototypes to α-prototype, and tested them and modified my concepts along the way.

CAD Model Design

Prototype 3

LO-FI WIREFRAME

　　I thought through the whole service with resources needed and how information and features can be organized on each app page. I sketched and tested them to clarify and fulfill the ideas.