Welcome Back!

We’re on week 3 and going full speed ahead to Quarters on Wednesday. Saturday was Rei’s birthday, so we brought in some treats on Monday to celebrate!

Poster

We have our poster concept nailed down and we’re working on finalizing the design. We were going for a retro feel to tie in with the telephone, the shapes were meant to feel like tree roots, while also giving the impression of blood vessels leading to a heart, which is what the color scheme was based on. The inspiration came from the “heart root system”, which is a root system that resembles blood vessels. The lines are more rigid than blood vessels to give the tree appearance, while the color palette is indicative of blood vessels. The tree aspect is the “intertwined” part, with our garden and plant-based imagery, while the heart is the more human side. 

Logo

Our logo is nearing completion. We created multiple options, but ended up going with the design below:

Here are some of our other ideas:

Script

We have written several drafts of our narrator script. Right now we are trying to find a personality that balances a friendly and informational tone. The current outline for the experience is as follows:

• Welcome to intertwined
• Disclaimer about recordings 
• Introduce the narrator
• [Here’s where a broad concept is introduced to tie into identity]

• This is what an Identity wheel is
• Shows how you relate to the world / mapping out your identity 
• These are some examples / each person has a unique identity wheel
• Let’s find out yours
• User fills out wheel
• Lets see how your identity affects your life (your specific identity affects how you go through life and how you perceive)
• Asking easy question and then harder question
• Everyone’s identity affects how they view the world
• [identity wheel changes to the random person]
• How would your response change if this was your identity wheel? Would it be the same? Or not? Why? 
• Put down the phone and reflect (whether outloud or in your head)
• Phone rings after 30 seconds
• Recorded voice picks up the phone. The silhouette is holding a phone.
• Why did you come to the conclusions that you responded with? 
• (Personal message) They also had something they wanted to say to you. 
• Plays personal message
• Would you like to save your responses to our database? Press 1 for yes or 2 for no. 
• Do you have anything that you would like to say to our community when they hear your responses?
• If you’re interested in viewing more responses, here is the phonebook. This is an archive of the recorded responses from people like you!
• When you are finished, please hang up. Thank you!

Mood Board and Concept Art

So we started brainstorming the room setup with a mood board and a color palette.

Given our emphasis on making this a safe space, we’re looking to make the room have an overall cozy or comforting feeling to it. One inspiration that we’re leaning on heavily for this is sensory rooms, as they are designed to be a calming space that autistic people can feel safe in. We’re also trying to go for a more retro feel to align with the use of a vintage style phone.

Rei created some initial concept art for the room based on the color palette, and it looks amazing. 

Flow Chart

We completed a flow chart that you can view below:

Quarters

Wednesday was very busy as we showed our concept to the faculty, but we got lots of great feedback that we will be considering as we proceed with the project. The telephone as an input device was well received by almost all of the faculty members. There was some concern about whether hearing the voice would be enough to form a connection with the person on the other end of the phone. There was also concern on the idea of social identity, where the experience as it stands may lead to stereotyping. We will make sure to take this into consideration and have our experience stay away from any sort of stereotyping. 

Tech 

Now that we have a clearer structure for the experience, it is time to start preparing the tech deliverable. At the beginning of the week, we set up a database to test recording and storing audio files. After quarters we met with Bryan and David Purta to discuss how we are going to hack an antique telephone and carry the entire experience on a Raspberry Pi. Some of the key elements we had to consider include:

• Size of the application: Where are we going to store all the recordings as our database expands
• Three-wall projection: How are we going to control and display contents on multiple screens
• Rewiring the telephone: How do we convert the telephone to an audio input/output device
• Remote content moderation: How will the moderator (most likely our client) approve and delete files from database

With those core features in mind, we came up with the following solutions:

• The experience will be built with Electron as a multi-window web application
• Use SQLite to store user parameters and timestamps of recordings
• Place telephone order by the end of the week so we can start breaking it apart as soon as possible
• Build a separate application with easy-to-use UI for periodic content moderation

Playtesting

We have created a draft script and chosen several questions for playtesting. We plan to record our own answers and let those be the responses that the playtester hears for the experience. We plan on individually doing some informal playtesting this weekend.