Pulse + Presence
Project: Senior undergraduate capstone
Timeframe: 2 semesters, 2021-2022
Role: Sole designer
It's commonplace to use biometric data to track health goals, but what if we were to leverage it to satisfy emotional needs?
Our access to large amounts of personal data exists at the same point in history that some are calling a loneliness epidemic. Pulse + Presence is speculative design. The idea lives as both a physical and digital prototype. It spans the mediums of UX/UI, hardware, code, and physical fabrication.
Manage Pharmacy profiles
Feature: Profile management
Platforms: native and web
Timeframe: 2023
Role: I served as the primary designer leading the project. I worked with our product owner and product manager to define technical requirements and worked through to QA with engineers.
Connection
Through interviews, I discovered that people feel the most supported by their community in face-to-face interactions and when they have physical contact with loved ones. Today's communication technologies do not provide us this in person connection. While impossible to replicate exactly, there is room to increase the use of the physical body and senses into digital interactions.
From the body
I chose to focus on heart rate data since it is one of the most commonly tracked biometrics on devices like Fitbits, Apple watches, and Oura rings.Exercising, anxiety, sleep, sex, or a heart attack are all factors that change the heart and create intimate contact in a way that may go beyond comforting into uncomfortable. My goal isn’t to impose a right or wrong reaction. I want to allow the viewer to consider the ways this project would fit into their own relationships.
User Experience
The heart rate data comes from a wearable biometric device on the body and connects over the internet to a computer. The computer organizes and translates the information to an object in the home.
The objects can only receive data from one person wearing one heart rate monitor at a time. When they are together, each object represents an independent body of a member of your family.
User Interface
- Switched from 2 page concept to 1 page.
- More contextual content in the right-hand column.
- More contextual information in the page subtitle.
- Visually defined patient headers.
Physical prototype
The Object is meant to conform to the hand and amplify the heartbeat through warm-toned light that shines through the structure to create light and shadow patterns. The shapes of each component part mimic aspects of the human body at every scale and conform to being interacted with and held.
Skin and Bone
The skin is 3D modeled and then poured out of clear epoxy resin in a 2-part mold. It is then sanded to create a frosted effect that obscures the shapes in the object. I created a smooth and touchable surface to lay the hand on and used a material that enhances the glow from the lights inside. The skin fits snuggly over the bone tissue inside and clicks onto the wooden brain base.
The internal bone structure is a 3D print created digitally by carving the form out of a scanned block of real bone tissue with osteoporosis.
Brain
The base holds the technology and connects together the skin and bone, creating the overall cell-structure form. I made the brain out of mahogany and built it using a combination of hand and power tools. The center indentation on the base fits the breadboard circuit with a hole to let the cables connect to external power.
Process documentation
Object interaction
The objects can are configurable in multiple ways. They can live together in a common space of the home, so that the user can collect the heartbeats of all their loved ones. The objects line up like a set of cells in an organism.
C++ Code
The light and vibration systems run off of a teensyduino board connected to piranha LED lights and a vibrating mini motor disc. Heart rate data comes in from an external heart rate monitor that translates beats into a numerical data stream.
Reflection
I pushed my skills far out of their comfort zone with this project. Prior, I had never worked with electronics or circuits and had very limited coding experience. I'm proud that I was willing to push past my edge (although it did re-enforce that I do NOT want to be a programmer at any point in my career). I am much better suited for a collaboration role with technical experts, and I came to appreciate the art of multiple minds coming up with something that one person's skills alone can't accomplish.
The blend of digital interactions and physical interactions was a passion of mine throughout undergrad, so it was a great joy to spend dedicated time digging into this project.
Pulse + Presence
Project: Senior undergraduate capstone
Timeframe: 2 semesters, 2021-2022
Role: Sole designer
It's commonplace to use biometric data to track health goals, but what if we were to leverage it to satisfy emotional needs?
Our access to large amounts of personal data exists at the same point in history that some are calling a loneliness epidemic. Pulse + Presence is speculative design. The idea lives as both a physical and digital prototype. It spans the mediums of UX/UI, hardware, code, and physical fabrication.
Connection
Through interviews, I discovered that people feel the most supported by their community in face-to-face interactions and when they have physical contact with loved ones. Today's communication technologies do not provide us this in person connection. While impossible to replicate exactly, there is room to increase the use of the physical body and senses into digital interactions.
From the body
I chose to focus on heart rate data since it is one of the most commonly tracked biometrics on devices like Fitbits, Apple watches, and Oura rings.Exercising, anxiety, sleep, sex, or a heart attack are all factors that change the heart and create intimate contact in a way that may go beyond comforting into uncomfortable. My goal isn’t to impose a right or wrong reaction. I want to allow the viewer to consider the ways this project would fit into their own relationships.
User Experience
The heart rate data comes from a wearable biometric device on the body and connects over the internet to a computer. The computer organizes and translates the information to an object in the home.
The objects can only receive data from one person wearing one heart rate monitor at a time. When they are together, each object represents an independent body of a member of your family.
Design changes from testing
- Switched from 2 page concept to 1 page.
- More contextual content in the right-hand column.
- More contextual information in the page subtitle.
- Visually defined patient headers.
Physical prototype
The Object is meant to conform to the hand and amplify the heartbeat through warm-toned light that shines through the structure to create light and shadow patterns. The shapes of each component part mimic aspects of the human body at every scale and conform to being interacted with and held.
Skin and Bone
The skin is 3D modeled and then poured out of clear epoxy resin in a 2-part mold. It is then sanded to create a frosted effect that obscures the shapes in the object. I created a smooth and touchable surface to lay the hand on and used a material that enhances the glow from the lights inside. The skin fits snuggly over the bone tissue inside and clicks onto the wooden brain base.
The internal bone structure is a 3D print created digitally by carving the form out of a scanned block of real bone tissue with osteoporosis.
Brain
The base holds the technology and connects together the skin and bone, creating the overall cell-structure form. I made the brain out of mahogany and built it using a combination of hand and power tools. The center indentation on the base fits the breadboard circuit with a hole to let the cables connect to external power.
Process documentation
Object interaction
The objects can are configurable in multiple ways. They can live together in a common space of the home, so that the user can collect the heartbeats of all their loved ones. The objects line up like a set of cells in an organism.
C++ Code
The light and vibration systems run off of a teensyduino board connected to piranha LED lights and a vibrating mini motor disc. Heart rate data comes in from an external heart rate monitor that translates beats into a numerical data stream.
Reflection
I pushed my skills far out of their comfort zone with this project. Prior, I had never worked with electronics or circuits and had very limited coding experience. I'm proud that I was willing to push past my edge (although it did re-enforce that I do NOT want to be a programmer at any point in my career). I am much better suited for a collaboration role with technical experts, and I came to appreciate the art of multiple minds coming up with something that one person's skills alone can't accomplish.
The blend of digital interactions and physical interactions was a passion of mine throughout undergrad, so it was a great joy to spend dedicated time digging into this project.
Pulse + Presence
Project: Senior undergraduate capstone
Timeframe: 2 semesters, 2021-2022
Role: Sole designer
It's commonplace to use biometric data to track health goals, but what if we were to leverage it to satisfy emotional needs?
Our access to large amounts of personal data exists at the same point in history that some are calling a loneliness epidemic. Pulse + Presence is speculative design. The idea lives as both a physical and digital prototype. It spans the mediums of UX/UI, hardware, code, and physical fabrication.
Manage Pharmacy profiles
Feature: Profile management
Platforms: native and web
Timeframe: 2023
Role: I served as the primary designer leading the project. I worked with our product owner and product manager to define technical requirements and worked through to QA with engineers.
Connection
Through interviews, I discovered that people feel the most supported by their community in face-to-face interactions and when they have physical contact with loved ones. Today's communication technologies do not provide us this in person connection. While impossible to replicate exactly, there is room to increase the use of the physical body and senses into digital interactions.
From the body
I chose to focus on heart rate data since it is one of the most commonly tracked biometrics on devices like Fitbits, Apple watches, and Oura rings.Exercising, anxiety, sleep, sex, or a heart attack are all factors that change the heart and create intimate contact in a way that may go beyond comforting into uncomfortable. My goal isn’t to impose a right or wrong reaction. I want to allow the viewer to consider the ways this project would fit into their own relationships.
User Experience
The heart rate data comes from a wearable biometric device on the body and connects over the internet to a computer. The computer organizes and translates the information to an object in the home.
The objects can only receive data from one person wearing one heart rate monitor at a time. When they are together, each object represents an independent body of a member of your family.
User Interface
The companion app allows the user to manage their paired pulse devices as well as their 3rd party biometric reading device.
Physical prototype
The Object is meant to conform to the hand and amplify the heartbeat through warm-toned light that shines through the structure to create light and shadow patterns. The shapes of each component part mimic aspects of the human body at every scale and conform to being interacted with and held.
Skin and Bone
The skin is 3D modeled and then poured out of clear epoxy resin in a 2-part mold. It is then sanded to create a frosted effect that obscures the shapes in the object. I created a smooth and touchable surface to lay the hand on and used a material that enhances the glow from the lights inside. The skin fits snuggly over the bone tissue inside and clicks onto the wooden brain base.
The internal bone structure is a 3D print created digitally by carving the form out of a scanned block of real bone tissue with osteoporosis.
Brain
The base holds the technology and connects together the skin and bone, creating the overall cell-structure form. I made the brain out of mahogany and built it using a combination of hand and power tools. The center indentation on the base fits the breadboard circuit with a hole to let the cables connect to external power.
Process documentation
Object interaction
The objects can are configurable in multiple ways. They can live together in a common space of the home, so that the user can collect the heartbeats of all their loved ones. The objects line up like a set of cells in an organism.
C++ Code
The light and vibration systems run off of a teensyduino board connected to piranha LED lights and a vibrating mini motor disc. Heart rate data comes in from an external heart rate monitor that translates beats into a numerical data stream.
Reflection
I pushed my skills far out of their comfort zone with this project. Prior, I had never worked with electronics or circuits and had very limited coding experience. I'm proud that I was willing to push past my edge (although it did re-enforce that I do NOT want to be a programmer at any point in my career). I am much better suited for a collaboration role with technical experts, and I came to appreciate the art of multiple minds coming up with something that one person's skills alone can't accomplish.
The blend of digital interactions and physical interactions was a passion of mine throughout undergrad, so it was a great joy to spend dedicated time digging into this project.