Animote

Background 

This is a 10-week UX project for our Information Architecture class. To respond the rise of the hybrid workplace and social interaction, our team designed a smart device that helps college students for group work under a hybrid setting.

Tools: Photoshop, Figma, Paper Prototypes, Rhino, KeyShot 

Introducing Animote

Animote is a device that helps virtual students have more control over the way they engage with their on-ground peers.

It’s main purpose is to encourage and aid a student to express themselves through multiple means whether through features that allow them to singal when they want to speak or features that allow for their reactions to be seen.

By giving virtual students a new outlet for engaging in conversation, Animote strives to facilitate a comfortable social environment within a virtual setting.

The Challenge of Resocialization

In the past two years, the pandemic has changed our social life dramatically.

With hybrid learning being the rise of a new normal, virtual meetings between online and on-ground students are becoming more prominent, and so are the signs of social isolation.

Being able to pick up on nonverbal cues and maintaining engagement through a screen in a virtual environment can be difficult, a cause for the decreased social interaction during virtual meetings.

Physical separation from their on-ground peers have left virtual students feeling isolated and alone.

Virtual students feel disconnected with the on-ground interaction

1. Lower motivations for socialization
2. Less desires to meet new friends
3. Take more physical and mental effort to socialize 

What creates a high quality interaction? 

According to our research, there two types are two types of comfort: physical comfort and psychological comfort.

How might we....

1. Empower people to express themselves in whatever way they want?
2. Create a sense of belonging in a group setting?
3. Boost the confidence of people to have a meaningful conversation?

Design Process

Initial Sketches

We sketched out our ideas first and then further refined and develop the concept.

Use Case Scenarios

We illustrated the scenarios how users would use our product in real life.

Wireframes & Task Flows

Once we confirmed the concept direction, we started developing the wireframes for different features.

Paper Prototype

We used card boards to create a paper prototype to test the shad and size. Having a physical prototype allows us to evaluate the product from the physical interaction side such as where the users will place at and how they will interact with the product in reality.

User Testing

We created a lo-fi prototype to test out our concept and the function we were thinking about for Animote. For the interactions, we made it in Figma where it’s acting as how you’re going through the physical device. We totally invited 5 students to test the prototype and collect their feedback.

Final Design