blu

Problem Statement

College graduates face new challenges dealing with their stress, worries and loneliness in their new workplace.

Our Goal

To combine voice interaction and empathy for users to effectively communicate their stressful thoughts and feelings.

Journal & Smart Pen

We have decided to go with a standard journal to ensure a sense of familiarity to provide comfort for our users. The smart pen has a button on the bottom to turn it on and off. Only when the pen is on, then it will connect to the app through Bluetooth. The journal features encoded paper in a dotted layout to work the pen and allow the pen to capture each stroke and recognize exactly where it is on the paper. After this data is transfer to the app, the app will use a widespread technology to recognize text inside images, which is the OCR technology.

OCR technology is used to convert virtually any kind of images containing written text (typed, handwritten or printed) into machine-readable text data. 

Device

In the left-hand corner, the stress level of the user is displayed through the LED strip on the side of the device. Users can push down to turn it on or off at any time when they feel the need to vent. It also sticks to surfaces so they can put it anywhere they want it to be. When the system is speaking, instead of showing stress levels it will give LED feedback through blue light to let the users know when our system is speaking and when it is done speaking. 

App

The app will be introduced to the user through an onboarding process that will ask about their most used apps and favorite hobbies in order to provide a personalized experience and distraction when conversing to the device. The app holds the connection about all the ways you destress. If you like to destress by listening to music then it will connect to Spotify through our app then our device will know you most played artist, song, and favorite genres. The app also holds all the past documents that you have scanned through the journal and smart pen. The negative phrases detected by sentiment analysis will be highlighted and the stress levels will be visually shown through the home page. 

Blu is a three-part system that consists of a journal and a smart pen, an app, and a device. The user will start by venting through the form of writing (just like how one writes in their journal/diary using the smart pen and journal) at any time and anywhere throughout the day, wherever is most comfortable and convenient for them. For example, they can vent at work, or on the bus, or even at home. 

Once the user is done writing, the smart pen will then send the document to the app. The app will then measure the stress level of the phrases and send that stress level to the device. Once the user comes home depending on the stress level, it will wait for the user to talk to it by pressing on it (when low stress is detected) or by automatically popping up and initiating conversation (when high stress is detected), allowing the users to verbally vent at the end of their day. After this it will then give suggestions based on most used apps and favorite hobbies as a distraction preventing users to overthink about their stressful thoughts. 

Storyboard

1. High stress scenario

2. Low stress scenario

Possible Scenarios

Rhino Files

Renders

From each sentence sentiment analysis will be used to find patterns of certain words. This will be broken down in categories for each pattern found. If they are related to location, events, and a person then they will be used as tags. To see which tag relates to which phrase you will tap the tag and the circles that hold the tag will stay saturated while the rest becomes muted. This is shown through each circle while the overall measurement is shown through the clouds, balloons and the flowers.

When we look at our users, we see how they might not realize the emotion in the beginning of an event. So, through finding matching words within your entries (such as you just started a project so you write about your project a lot) this pattern matching technology through sentiment analysis will pick up the repetition and create a tag and connect the circles that hold that tag. 

We relate the size and color of the circles with the measurement of valence and arousal. The other elements in the screen are also affected. When you have bigger red circles with storm clouds and wilted flowers then this shows the measurements of stress in that month is high. When the circles are green and bigger, with nice clouds and a lively looking flower then the measurement of stress was relatively low.

Vision Video