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HELLO !
This report is the documentation of our summer internship project at The Social Body Lab of OCAD University, Toronto, Canada (www.ocadu.ca). Were were design interns in the lab under the guidance of Professor Kate Hartman, who is an internationally renowned Wearable technology expert. The chosen area for the project is Wearable design in context of Self talking, which is referred as Automatic thoughts in Cognitive Psychology. The main focus of the internship was to learn the various approaches to wearable design; it is primarily an exploratory project. We took up two different approaches and made a series of prototypes to validate the idea. The intention of the internship was not to develop a nal product but to develop various functional prototypes to demonstrate the possibilities in this new product space and in that process, understand the design for wearability. The concept of having an audio journal emerged from our personal experience of we talking to ourselves quite frequently and in most cases, such self-talk sessions have resulted in immense clarity. So the project began with the investigative question of what if we could capture ones self talk sessions and help them self reect?

OCAD UNIVERSITY TORONTO, CANADA

About the lab...........................................................................................7 Project Team............................................................................................8 Acknowledgments.................................................................................9 Part : I Wearable Audio Journal: Meemo......................................11 The Idea: Function and Intent..........................................................12 Research : User Interviews and Precedent Study.......................13 Functional Prototypes.........................................................................14 Mobile Application...............................................................................20 Scope of the Product...........................................................................22 Part II: Conceptual Approach: Cueco.............................................25 Concept Ideas.........................................................................................26 Form Explorations.................................................................................27 Conceptual Prototypes........................................................................30 Conclusion...............................................................................................33

INSIDE SOCIAL BODY LAB

ABOUT THE LAB

The Social Body Lab takes the human body as a starting point from which to consider how humans interface with and relate to the world around them. Beyond the basic functionality of incorporating technology into clothing, the Social Body Lab focuses on meaningful and provocative interactions, questioning the relationship between humans and technology through its diverse projects.

Website: http://research.ocadu.ca/socialbody/home

LABS FOCUS & APPROACH

Critical engagement with technology not just asking how but why Interdisciplinary practices intersection of art, design, technology Meaningful Interactions moving beyond the cool factor Distribution of knowledge documentation, tutorials, DIY, open source Collaboration both internal & external

PROJECT MENTORS

KATE HARTMAN: PRIMARY GUIDE & MENTOR

Kate Hartman is an artist, technologist, and educator whose work spans the elds of physical computing, wearable electronics, and conceptual art. She is the co-creator of Botanicalls, a system that lets thirsty plants place phone calls for human help, and the Lilypad XBee, a sewable radio transceiver that enables your clothing to communicate. Her work has been exhibited internationally and featured by the New York Times, BBC, CBC, and NPR. Hartman recently moved to Toronto to join the Digital Futures Initiative at OCAD University where she is the Assistant Professor of Wearable & Mobile Technology Website: katehartman.com

ERIN LEWIS: SECONDARY GUIDE

Erin Lewis is an emerging Canadian artist working in creative electronics, wearable technology, and sculpture/installation. She is a graduate of OCADU with a BFA in Integrated Media and Wearable Technology. Her work has been shown at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada; World Maker Faire (New York); Nuit Blanche (Toronto 2010), Ontario Science Centre, Discovery Channel Canada, Discovery.com, in the Toronto Star newspaper and on various physical computing magazines. Website: erinlewis.ca

OUR TEAM

ACKNOWLEDMENTS

MANIKANDAN HK
With an early stint in entrepreneruship, Mani graduted as an electronic engineer and worked as a UI designer and currently persuing Masters in New Media Design in National Institute of Design(NID), India.

DR.PAULA GARDERNER
For concluding assessment and feedback session. Dr. Gardner, is an Associate Professor, Faculty of Liberal Studies at OCAD U.

DIANA GREENBERG
For invaluable feedback over email and skype on the design process and user testing. Diana is the Director of User Experience in Bridge Design, San Francisco and has 17 years of experience in User Experience Design.

Website: mani-hk.com Email: manihk@gmail.com

JACKSON MCCONNELL, AALOK JAISWAL & PAWAS AAKRSH

For assisting us in 3D model generation

DEVYANI JAIN
An emerging Visual Artist who works with hybrid medium, graduated in Fine Arts in 2012 and currently pursuing Masters in Apparel Design in National Institute of Design(NID)

Website: devyanijain.wordpress.com Email: devyanijain.18@gmail.com

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Yifat wearing Meemo on her sleeve

PART 1 - MEEMO THE WEARABLE AUDIO JOURNAL

This part explains our product-oriented approach to design a wearable audio journal considering the real world constraints and user requirements. Intentionally we tried not to fall into the category of wearable electronic gadgets but to come up with clothing-like wearable devices, which are confortable and could be perceived as a extension of the body.

THE IDEA

What if, if we could have all our personal verbal thoughts, maintained in a dairy, which is wearable and easily accessible?
The idea is to create a device which will help in recording self-talk sessions and introspect on our own thought process. When in doubt, when you want to make sense out of things, when we want to gain clarity, we delve into introspection, penning our thoughts or talking to ourselves. The verbal thoughts are tough to remember after sometime, also they are part of ones personal time, which he/she cannot/ do not want to share with anybody. Tapping these thoughts could help us in making better decisions and also lead us to become an increasingly self-aware person. All our personal verbal thoughts, if maintained in a dairy, which is wearable and easily accessible, could be interesting Knowing yourself --> Being Self-aware/Mindfullness --> Better decision making --> Better Living

KEY FUNCTIONALITY
1. A means to record ones Self Talk Sessions 2. A means to listen and reect on the recorded sessions 3. Manual recording

KEY INTENT
A) Where Should be Worn? Something which could be worn most of the times throughout the day, irrespective of your clothing, lifestyle and fashion preferences. Mostly to be located closer to the face, neckline or the ears, considering the microphone-mouth proximity requirement. B) How should it be? It should be a device which does not make you conscious of its presence. A device which could blend with most type of clothing and fashion preferences. Ideally, it should be something like an extension of the self and not just an accessory,

PRELIMINARY USER STUDY

We conducted preliminary user research with a dozen youngsters of age 23 to 30 to gain some rst hand information on (a) whether they have the habit of talking to themselves or not (b) If they do, what is the nature of such talks (c) In what context of space and emotional state of mind do such talks happen etc.

KEY INSIGHTS:
1. Most people talk to themselves, usually to gain clarity of their thoughts and to vent out what is their in their mind. A very important social connotation came to our notice that majority of people talk to themselves, and yet we never see anyone doing that. These talking sessions generally happen in private when no one can see you. 2. Traditionally it was believed that if you talk to yourself, you might be suffering/suffer in near future from ill mental illness. At the same time, some of the users we interviewed believed that talking to themselves is rather healthy and it helps them in making decisions, solving problems, calming down their anger etc. 3. The users expressed a desire to record these self talk sessions and that they sometimes try and do that by noting down their thoughts, scribbling or using a voice recording function in their cell phone but all they were clueless on why they fail to use them on a regular basis. 4. Also, we noted that majority of people who talk to themselves, refrain from doing so in the presence of others. Some remarked that it may scare them out. We are not used to seeing people talking to themselves and it could be said that it is still considered as a social-anomaly.

FUNCTIONAL PROTOTYPES
We were looking at designing a wearable that not necessarily looks like an electronic gadget, thus we had the freedom to consider many free forms. Also since we were looking at making a functional prototype, the dimensions of the electronic circuit were a primary constraint around which the forms were developed. The forms that initially came to our minds were more fun and quirky, but as we went ahead in project the forms began to become more and more subtle. As per our key intent of keeping the device as inconspicuous as possible, we explored various forms in various materials to ensure that the wearable blends with the users outt.

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ELECTRONICS INSIDE
Miniaturization was an important challenge that we faced in the design process. Right from the start we were keen on developing not just conceptual prototypes but fully functional prorotypes. Thus guring out a balance between size and the features was a challenge from the perspective of constructing the electronics required. After the initial explorations, we made a circuit board by hacking into an off-the-shelf video recorder circuit and made a circuit board which can records CD quality sound onto an inbuilt SD memory card and also connects to a smartphone or a computer through a micro USB port. It was powered by a rechargable 9V lithium battery.

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PROTOTYPES - THE MEEMO FAMILY

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1) MEEMO CLIP

2) MEEMO-STICKER

The material from an anti-skid kitchen mat was used to make this initial prototype. It safely encloses the electronic circuit and the perforations in the texture of the material provide opening for the microphone. The enclosure had a stainless steel clip-on to clip to your collar or neckline.

Inspired by the electronic tattoos, we conceptualized a skin sticker as one of the exploratory forms. A piece of skin friendly leather was used for this prototype although the suitable material for this idea is dragon skin silicone. The silicone sticker will be afxed to the skin by spirit-gum(skin-adhesive). We learnt about different adhesive types, which could be used to make either a multi-use sticker or adhesives, which can stay put for a couple of weeks.

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3) MEEMO DUMBBELL

In the previous prototype of the clip-on device, the metal clip was quite effective but at the same time, it limits the type of clothing on which it could be used. So inspired by the magnetic name badges which is a two piece product, we made a magnetic clip-on in leather in the shape of a dumbbell. One side of the dumbbell goes into inner side of the clothing while the other which houses the micrphone circuit stays on the exterior of the clothing. Powerful rare-earth magnet placed on both the sides of the dumbbell holds the wearable device in place. This device was quite light in weight and was easy to use. 14

The onboard recoding switch creates a small bump on the leather cover, providing the affordance of a switch. A small LED indicates the recording status. We used vegetable tanned leather. Leather is a highly durable and exible material. It is skin friendly and responds to temperature just like human skin. Hence it is quite suitable for designing wearables in leather.

Building on the Meemo-Dumbbell, we moved on to Silicone as the preferred material for the wearable. Experimenting with different densities of silicone, we chose Dragon Skin Silicone 30 for the fabrication. The mould was 3D modeled and then 3D printed using Makerbot in the Social Body Lab (See gure). The cast was then taken from the 3D printed mould. The cast encloses the microphone circuit, press button as the controller on one side and the battery pack on the other side. Both the sides of the dumb-bell shaped silicone cast enclose a rare earth magnet enabling the user to clip it on their clothing. Dragon Skin Silicone is the material used by makeup artists to generate realistic skin effects. It is a skin safe material. 15

MOBILE APPLICATION
The second major aspect of the concept is to design a mobile application that helps in visualizing the prominent themes of the recorded self-talk sessions. The mobile application is essentially an aid for selfreection. The user connects the Meemo to his smartphone via USB The smartphone application syncs with Meemo (g 1. Icon screen & Fig 2 & 3 Sync screen) The application is to help the users visualize the recorded data in a meaningful way. To do that, the audio data is transcribed into text just after syncing with Meemo. The application retains the original recorded track but presents the key highlights of the self talk sessions .

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Fig 4: Thought record is the home screen where the audio track is presented as it is along with text tags on the track telling us the content at that location of the track. This way seeking a temporal audio medium becomes easy and comprehensible.

Fig 5: Thought Trend screens displays the major thoughts of your self talks in the form of phrase clouds. The size of the phrases or words is proportional to the number of times you have used it in your talks

Fig 6: Journal View Chronological arrangement of all the audio les and its transcription

Fig7: What and Where : displays the audio les based on the context in which they were spoken. For example, while at work, while driving, while travelling etc.

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SCOPE OF THE PRODUCT

COGNITITVE BEHAVORUIAL THERAPY

As part of our explorations, we explored the possibility of using Meemo as an aid in certain kinds of psychotherapeutic practices which employs self-reective journal writing. We are extremely thankful to Dr.Tim Guimond, M.D, M.Sc, FRCPC, a Consulting Psychiatrist in Toronto, Canada for making us understand the various aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Theraphy(CBT) and his valuable inputs on how Meemo could be used in CBT. Later these thought records are jointly analyzed by the therapist and the patient to observe and understand what combination of situations, actions and thoughts have led to a particular emotion and feeling in the patient. By identifying this pattern, they can take measures to counter the negative feeling. This process of writing down ones emotional states, right at the instance of an emotional shift, makes the patient quite self-aware and that by itself solves many of the cognitive disorders. In our design project, we have designed a wearable audio recording device which can replace the printed form of thought records and can function as an audio journal to capture the patients verbal automatic thoughts (commonly referred as Self-talking). The system in tandem with a mobile application, presents meaningful visualization of recordings, helping both the therapist and the patient in effective CBT.

ABOUT CBT AND HOW MEEMO COULD BE USED IN CBT.

Developed by Dr. Aaron T. Beck, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy in which the therapist and the patient work together as a team to identify and solve problems. Therapists use the Cognitive Model to help patients overcome their difculties by changing their thinking, behavior, and emotional responses. Cognitive therapy has been found to be effective in more than 1000 outcome studies for a myriad of psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and substance abuse etc. CBT majorly uses the technique of self-reective journaling in the name of CBT Thought records which is a systematic way of writing down all the factors which may inuence ones negative thoughts and feelings. Traditionally the thought record is a printed booklet carried by the patient and the patient is expected to ll it, whenever he/she experiences a negative thought or feeling.

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Table1.1, shows one of the most commonly used CBT Thought Records. CBT thought records are crucial in understanding the patients frame of mind with respect to the emotional problems that he/she is experiencing. But the problem is in the medium in which these thought records exist. The patient is expected to articulate his/her complex emotional state of mind within the constraints of the written language. The signiers used in the written language may not signify the signied in its fullest essence, particularly when human emotions dont exist in isolation. (for eg. We may feel helpless as well as sorrowful, at the same time). Written word lacks many of the emotional markers which are otherwise found in spoken language, in the form of tonality, frequency and rhythm of speech. So by replacing the written format of thought records with self-reective audio journaling devices which can be worn on ones body or clothing, we can help CBT patients record their thoughts orally into the wearable recording device. Read Full Paper in Appendix.

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PART 2 - CUECO THE CONCEPTUAL APPROACH

How inconsipicous is inconsipicous? And while wearing it, are we talking to ourselves or is there an otherness involved in it? The idea of the otherness was interesting to us. We imagined what if if the device has a character of its own and the person wearing it could talk to it. This part of the project consists of a conceptual approach on the idea of self talking.

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In prototyping phases, we were constantly either discarding or approving the different prototype ideas that we had. Some of the quirky and expressive ideas were quite interesting but did not t into already dened intent of keeping the device as inconspicuous as possible. And at the same time, we were handing over Meemo_Dumbbell to our friends and were asking them to use it for a couple of days and give us their feedback. From their feedback, we learnt that Meemo is too inconscopicous that the person who is wearing it altoghether forgets that he/she is wearing the meemo. This posed a very interesting question to us. How inconsipicous is inconsipicous? And while wearing it, are we talking to ourselves or is there an otherness involved in it? The idea of the otherness was interesting to us. We imagined what if if the device has a character of its own and the person wearing it could talk to it. This seemed more of an artistic expressive approach rather than a product centric design approach. It is tangential to our approach so far but that seemed quite interesting to us. Thus we decided to parallel persuade the conceptual expressive approach to the project too.

INITIAL IDEAS
1.Exaggeration of the idea of exploitation of privacy : A complete private cover suit to express this exploitation. 2.Mindfulness : Various recordings have various moods, small vibrating jacket is visualized that will vibrate whenever a person listen to an emotion mood in his recording, to make him more aware of himself. 3.Interactive Wearable: An expressive wearable product/apparel that makes you aware of his presence by vibrations/ contraction etc.

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FORM EXPLORATIONS I

Exaggeration of the idea of exploitation of privacy: A complete private cover suit to express this exploitation. There are various social issues associated with privacy and technology making our lives more and more public. Various concerns are arising as social norms are been broken.

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FORM EXPLORATIONS II

Theory of Mindfullnes : Being self aware. Sync your meemo to these sensory devices and get to know yourself better. For eg. whenever you have spoken emotional sentence/word/phrase, the sensor at your heart will vibrate making you realise of your emotional self.

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FORM EXPLORATIONS III

Interactive Wearables : Its 2050 ! Talking to oneself is no longer a social issue, and human beings have essentially realized that all humans are same and it does not matter, who thinks what! So some of these designs have a big speaker sort of built so that others and listen to ones self talk sessions, people can freely speak their mind.These are wacky crazy designs critiquing the future cyborg generation, questioning what if all the wearable tech based on quantied self becomes successful and new social codes and costumes/apparels come into picture, then what it be like talking to one self?

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CUECO
Cueco is a bright green color neck hugging Pet wearable. It has these long tentacles which can be folded into expressive shapes of your liking. They sway as you walk. The base of the tentacles has a spiral vortex that acts as a touch sensitive switch to record your self talk sessions. The ends of the tentacles have the microphone in them. When you are not talking to the Ceuco for a long time (say 2 hours) the cueco tentacles starts to recede and curl into itself. The gradual curling in of the tentacles is symbolic of Cueco feeling sad for you not having spoken to it. And the moment you touch the base of the tentacle and start talking to it, it springs back to its expanded state.

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POSSESSIVE CUECO
On further note of exaggeration, we designed a ctional necklace which will slowly strangles you when you are not talking to it. To stop the strangling, you touch the center of the necklace and start talking and that is recorded as your self-talk session. We used nitinol to create the strangling effect. But the current requirements of nitinol to create the strangling made it difcult for us to demonstrate it.

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CONCLUSION
Yuppie! Its a good sign if you feel that 2months zipped away like 2 weeks. Our short term project in Social Body Lab, Toronto was an amazing learning opportunity. The method of approaching the same concept from the tangents of Industrial design and expressive media art was a valuable learning. Since it was a self-initiated project, the boundaries were not strictly dened. That enabled us to explore wearability in various contexts but also posed the challenge of applying the learning in a context. During the concluding phase of the project, our interview with a Psychotherapist gave a new direction to the project. It made us realize the untapped opportunties for wearable technology in Mental healthcare. For now, bye bye from Cueco & Meemo :)

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