The design: Wiggle
Wiggle is a IoT product connected to your smartwatch and aims to support its user towards an active lifestyle. As habits are developed over times, Wiggle uses your activity data of the past period and will adapt itself. If you become less active, the system will become more active to provide more support and the other way around. The interaction of the product is abstract thus people will get to know how the product works over time. The materials and finish create a ‘warm but clean’ as people should be willing to place it in their living room.
In short: the philosophy of the system is that if you are able to maintain a lifestyle on your own, you don’t need a product thus Wiggle won’t ask for attention.
The video shows all designed interactions and behaviour of the product.
Project discription
Sports technology for unorganised sporters consists of apps and wearables that provide quantitative data and focus competition and performance during sports. What if we take a different approach, would an adaptive product focusing on a period of weeks work? In this project I explored if Slow Technology is a potential design philosophy for people to maintain an active lifestyle.
CLIENT / PARTNER
Bureau Moeilijke Dingen
TIME
February - June 2021
PROJECT TYPE
Graduation Project MSc. Individual
Key words
Physical activity / Slow Technology / IoT / Data / Product Design / Interaction Design / Business Research
“Slow Tech products must be generic enough to train habits but also must remain informed by data. Wiggle does this well. I also see immediate opportunities for other institutions, such as youth welfare, in offering them a habit trainer.”
– Pepijn Verburg, BMD Studio
The process
The activities described below have been executed during the project.
Summary
The project started with benchmarking and a literature review, to get an understanding of the design philosphy, and the domains of sports and slowness. This revealed a gap in both the market and academia. Next, I started to generate ideas to improve my understanding of Slow Tech. By means of storyboards and discussing them with experts, I developed Wiggle. To confirm Wiggle embedded the principles of Slow Technology, fellow designers reviewed the concept according the Aesthetics of Interaction during a workshop. This resulted in the confirmation of Wiggle being a Slow Tech-device
To explore the business potential of Slow Tech in the domain of health, I combined the Lean startup approach with design thinking and executed this project with Bureau Moeilijke Dingen as client. A business workshop about their company allowed me to get to know the company and take their values into account during the design process.
During the second phase of the project I exectud three MVP user studies varying from 11 till 14 days, with a total of 5 participants. These longitudindal user tests were required as Slow Tech relies on the experience over time. The first user test revealed two interesting directions which were explored during the other user test.
The first direction I explored through 3 interactive products which were delivered to participants in specially crafted boxes to create more realistic experience. The Wiggle Mini's did not show promising results, thus I pivoted and focused on the second direction which was also the final concept. This concept, Wiggle, was tested for 11 days. Wiggle was connected to a Fitbit and could be real-time monitored and overruled by the designer to manage eventual setback using a fully experiential artefact. It showed positive, preliminary insights that this direction was interesting.
Finally, all the results were presented to BMD Studio. BMD agreed that Wiggle embeds the values of the company and I suggested next steps, by using the the Lean startup approach, to further explore the business potential of Slow Technology in the domain of health
Explore
Literature review / profiling & user research / market research
The project started with an extensive exploration of the design space by means of a thorough market analysis, literature review and explorative interviews with potential target audiences. This revealed a market gap interesting to investigate for Slow Technology.
A target audience was defined. Next, user interviews combined with cultural probes and user journey mapping were conducted in order to create deeper understanding of the defined target audience.
Ideate
The ideation phase started with idea sketching. The 24 sketches from this exercise have been analysed and revealed several interesting directions to explore. Through several iterations these directions have been worked out into three concepts, which have been evaluated with Slow Tech experts during review workshops.
The workshop highlighted Wiggle as the most promising concept as it came closest to ‘Slow Technology’. I further iterated on this concept after which it was evaluated with fellow designers regarding the Aesthetics of Interaction and whether the concept embodies Slow Technology. The Aesthetics of interaction were confirmed as well as the concept embodies Slow Technology.
Initial concept
Wiggle is an ambient home device, designed according the principles of slow technology. It intends to support recreational spoerters in meantaining an active lifestyle by creating anticipation on one’s progress. First, it will wiggle a few times per week, an invite to unlock a stimulating expression of Wiggle. The more progress you make, the less “ wiggles” you receive. Yet if you have had a hard week, Wiggle will become more supportive again. Once you have reached your goal, it will suggest your next challenge. Up to you to accept it or to define one yourself!
The slowness relies in the slowly changing product behaviour, influenced by one’s progress related to their defined goal. The user defines the goal to create commitment and is not related to a deadline to respect the practical constraints of one’s current lifestyles.
Wiggle Mini's
The Wiggle Mini’s are three pre-programmed prototypes to test specific values of earlier defined Slow Technology continuums. They consist of a disk that is pulled upwards against a slope using a servo motor. For users, the purpose of a Wiggle Mini is to support them work on a self-defined sports-related goal. Yet, the true purpose is investigate how people perceive unaware objects in relation to their sports goal.
Interaction
The Wiggle Mini’s are pre-programmed and cannot be influenced by users. Yet, users provide input by hitting a button on top of the products. This input means they sported and is logged by the Wiggle Mini. Every 2 days the disk will climb the slope a little bit which acts as feedback they made sportive progress. In addition, every hour there is a chance of 1/12 the disk will start to wiggle. This is intended to support them to sport in a subtle manner.
Prototyping
The Wiggle Mini’s consist of three main parts, the casing, disk and the electronics inside. The casing and boxes are lasercutted while the disk is 3D printed. All parts are designed with Solidworks. The code is written in C++ and an overview of the electronics is shown in the image carousel.
14 days user study
3 participants each have tested a Wiggle Mini for 14 days. After the test period I had a semi-structured interview with each participant and they filled out a AttrakDiff questionnaire. The main take away was that the Wiggle Mini’s did not work. Yet they provided good directions for the next iteration.
Workshop @ BMD
To be able to take the perspective of BMD into account during the project and deepen my understanding of ‘Slow Technology’, I hosted a workshop with BMD focused on:
- The current and desired identity of BMD
- Sharing ideas of ‘Slow Technology’
Based on output of the workshop, I derived a mission and vision for BMD to work with in which BMD agreed they identified themselves with. Furthermore, we defined The results of the identity and future of BMD are partly confidential and thus not shared.
In the Slow Tech part of the workshop, existing Slow Tech products were discussed. From this, I derived eight continuums to work with during the design process.
Wiggle development
Wiggle is a connected and interactive system of which the disk station is placed in the house environment as an ambient device. It is a data-driven system, based on input from a Fitbit and acts as a state machine.
Data from the Fitbit is used as input for the developed algorithm to determine the activity-state of the system and the position of the disk on the track. To monitor if the system is active and runs correctly, a script is developed which sends out a status update of the system to the designer every hour. In case of malfunction, I included an option to overrule the system manually.
The data flow between all elements within the system is visualised in one of the images. The system is programmed with C++ and OOCSI (Javascript based).
The physical prototype is designed in Solidworks and parts are produced by 3D-printing and lasercutting. To move the disk, a stepper-motor combined with a rack and pinion construction is developed. This stepper-motor is controlled by a ESP8266 with a wi-fi connection. The electronic setup of Wiggle is visualised in the images.
Wiggle interaction design
The video shows the designed interaction of the Wiggle
Business development
First, I hosted a business ideation workshop with professionals to generate ideas for possible business models. Based on this input I designed two business model proposals from the perspective of Bureau Moeilijke Dingen. These proposals, together with the design and insights of the user studies, have been presented to the team of BMD.
BMD agreed the design embodies the values and identity of the company and immediately saw possibilities for such concepts in other application domains. The feedback from BMD was taken into account to finalise the business proposition.
The defined business model is designed as part of Bureau Moelijke Dingen and contains several confidential elements. Therefore, it is not shared.
