In class on 23.04., we worked on elevator pitches following a step-by-step guide on how to build a good pitch. This is what I came up with for my project:
Imagine you have a really beautiful dress that you love and use all the time. One day, while you are wearing it, you trip and fall, and the bottom of your dress rips and makes a big hole. You are devastated because now you can’t wear it anymore, and since you got it a long time ago, you can’t buy a new one.
BUT! With the help of my website ReIY, it doesn’t have to be as hopeless as it seems! On the website, you can enter what fabric you have and what problem you are facing, and with the help of a big archive of patterns, hacks, and an AI search engine specialized in redesigning and upcycling, it gives you suggestions and tutorials on ways to salvage your dress. For example, you could hem the dress into a shorter version, or turn it into a top by cutting off the bottom ruined part.
What’s special about the website is that you can use both the specialized AI and a large network of filtered online tools and tutorials to find the best solution to your problem. Whether that’s tips on tailoring your clothes correctly, creating personalized patterns, or fixing a stained top that you now want to dye a new color.
The reason I’m making this website is because I believe reuse and promoting longevity are the most sustainable ways to consume clothing. I am already doing it myself, so I want to show people how easy it is and help them do the same.
For many years now I have loved using old materials and creating new things with it. I use old materials from things like clothes, beddings or curtains, and I create stuff I need/want like purses, bags, new clothing items, wallets, or even shoes. The picture is a collage of some of my creations from a denim recyceling project i am doing.
Last year, I wrote a research paper about the fashion industrys impact on the environment and explored different approaches to addressing overconsumption. One of my key findings was that being involved in making, customizing, or personalizing clothing makes it much more likely that people will keep and care for their garments over a longer period of time. I also found that while buying second hand or thrifted clothing is better than purchasing new items, it is not necessarily as sustainable as it may seem. If people switch to second hand shopping but continue to consume at the same high rate, they still contribute to the ongoing demand for fast fashion on a larger scale. Ultimately, the most effective way to reduce the fashion industrys environmental impact is to lower overall consumption. This can be achieved by keeping clothes for longer and taking better care of them.
I love how sustainable this practice is, and how the things I make are customized perfectly to me and my needs. I also feel more grateful and attached to the things I make myself because I put time and effort into it. For me, doing these crafts give me some time off from real life, where I can sit and sew for example and suddenly 5 hours have gone by without me even noticing or checking my phone once. I would like to be able to find a way to influence and share this feeling with others.
In design and research 1 I worked with the topic doomscrolling. Researching how social media platforms draw you in and keep you trapped consuming content. I realized that what helps me most of all to stay offline and enjoy the real world are these kinds of physical projects. Therefore, I think a natural continuation into design and research 2 is to explore how i can try to share this hobby with others it might be able to have the same effect on.
My friends and family often ask me if I can please make them something too or teach them how I did it after I show my projects. Maybe there is a way to show, help, and teach this to everyone?
My current idea is to create a website people can use to get help on how they can recycle their own old materials into something new.
Possible features of the website:
Patterns for upgrades and remakes
Sewing tutorials
AI that generates patterns customized to your measurements. (maybe a paid subscription?)
Search filters for things like : tools, skill level, time, fabric available
I want to promote sustainable clothing consumption. I want to show people that it really can be quite easy to repair, tailor, and even make your own clothes. Studies show that taking part in the making and maintenance of your clothes makes you feel more attached to them, resulting in you taking better care of them and keeping the clothes longer.
Why should we care about it?
The fashion industry is one of the most environmentally harmful industries in the world. Fast fashion generates enormous amounts of waste, uses large quantities of water, and is one of the most exploitative businesses when it comes to labor rights.
What is the solution you are offering? How does it work?
Right now, my idea is a website for reusing old clothes and materials. It can generate sewing patterns based on the materials available, their quantity, and the user’s preferences. The user can customize the experience as much as possible by using filters to reflect factors such as their skill level, available time, tools, and workspace.
Who is the target audience? Who is the customer?
I would say my target audience would be young people that are interested in living more sustainably and are motivated to keep their clothing consumpion down.
Key words for my main taget group: thrifters, crafty, prctical, motivated, hobbies, sewing
What is going to happen? (Change & Impact)
People will realize how easy it is to take care of and customize their clothes. Early users will influence others, and hopefully the rest of society will follow their lead. This will decrease fast fashion demand and, in the long run, have a positive effect on the environment. 🙂
Going into this prototyping session, I was a little unsure if I wanted to continue with my theme from Des&Res1, so I created prototypes in three different areas.
Scroll prevetion:
The first one was a continuation of my work with doomscrolling prevention from last semester. The idea is to implement a customizable character into your phone that pops up on your screen from time to time to remind you to take breaks from scrolling and encourage you to do other things. The character’s appearance and personality would be fully customizable so that it feels personal and gives you a sense of care for it. During the peer feedback session in class, I received feedback expressing concern that the character might become annoying over time, and that users could grow to dislike it if it keeps appearing at inconvenient moments. I agree with this, so I think it would be a good idea to make the frequency and persistence customizable as well, giving the user full control over how pushy the implementation is. The idea received a lot of positive feedback, and several people said they would consider using it.
Reuse website:
My second prototype is not as well developed yet, but I think it is my favorite so far. I am passionate about recycling and reusing old clothes and fabrics, so I wanted to create something within that theme. I made a rough prototype of wireframes for a website that helps users reuse their old materials. It can be used to input the materials you have available and then generate ideas for what you can make from them, including patterns you can use. It could also be used the other way around: you specify what you want to make, and it provides suitable patterns along with information about which materials are needed and how much is required. The feedback I received on this prototype was also very positive. I got a recommendation to include different filters to make it more manageable—for example, filters for which tools you have available, or how skilled and experienced you are in sewing and crafting.
Scroll distraction:
My third and final prototype returns to the idea of preventing doomscrolling. It is a water bottle that connects to your phone and lights up to distract you when you have spent a lot of time scrolling. I thought it could be interesting to have the preventative element exist as a physical object rather than within the device itself. Sometimes, a reminder of the outside world can help break the scrolling cycle and bring you back to “real life.”The water bottle distracts you by lighting up or even making a sound to make you aware of your scrolling behavior. One downside to this product is that you would have to keep the bottle with you at all times, but for people who already do that, it could be an effective tool.
The paper introduces an interactive system that transforms an umbrella from a normal everyday object into a musical and spatial interface. A spatial audio image is created by representing the raindrops hitting the interface and the movements of the raindrops across it. It is supposed to allow the user to perceive and interact with their surrounding space through sound rather than vision.
The soundscape is created by not only using the impact of raindrops, but also the continuous flow of water, which they track by using a dense network of capacitive sensors embedded in the umbrella. The data is processed in real time and is sent to a virtual unity model where each drop of water triggers sounds. As a result, the user hears the movement of the raindrops as they move down the umbrella, drawing a spatial image of the space and external environment.
This study caught my interest because it stands out within the NIME research by combining interaction with both a natural phenomenon and spatial audio. Instead of creating artificial sound environments, it generates real rain into a musical expression.
The authors/designers conducted a pilot study that suggested that the system can enhance users awareness of spatial boundaries and create a sense of personal space. The testers experienced emotion responses to the product such as relaxation and curiosity, many actively exploring the interface by moving the umbrella around.
The article presents some practical limitations to the project, such as the weight of the umbrella with the finished interface, latency in the sound feedback, and limited variety of sounds. These challenges show the difficulty of trying to balance complex technicality with usability in a interactive musical device.
In conclusion, the paper presents an innovative approach to interface design by reimagining a common familiar product, creating a instrument for spatial perception and musical expression. The concept is compelling and opens interesting directions for future projects in interactive sound development.
To refresh, domscrolling is defined as: The compulsive habit of spending excessive time online scrolling through negative news or content that causes feelings of sadness, anxiety, or anger, even when it’s disheartening. And my main research question starting this project was: Can ethical and intentional design help decrease peoples doomscrolling habits?
How design promotes doomscrolling
through my secondary research i found that there are three main categories of ways design leads to an increase of doomscrolling.
1: Interface Features that Reduce Friction. For example infinite scroll, autoplay, and constant content availability.
2: Algorithmic Personalization and Content Curation. Algorithms prioritize content that maximizes engagement, often selecting emotionally intense, sensational, or negative material.
3: Persuasive Design and Reward Mechanisms. Notifications, social feedback, rewards, and habit-forming triggers.
My Personal Expriments
Did three personal experiments to try to decrease my own doomscrolling and screentime.
1: No phone in the morning. The one that worked out best for me
2: Time limit on apps. Worked to some extent, but too esy to ignore as is does not feel urgent at the moment. This method is the one that has do anything to do with the actual innterface design, having a notificatio pop up, maybe there is a better way to execute this?
3: 30 min deddicated scroll time. Did not work for me at all.
I did manage to decrease my wn screentime a little bit after a while, but I am not sure wether is is due to the exersises in my experiments or just by doing so much research and becomming more aware of the issue.
Interviews
I held 6 interviews with people between the age of 10 and 70. The most Interesting finds relevant to design were the fact that the most common hook that drives people to start doomscrolling was notifications from news, social media apps an such. Also that the type of content mostly consumed while doomscrolling is short-form videos with autoplay settup.
I also found that 4/6 wanted to reduce their own doomscrolling, so there is a wish and hopefully a maket for trying to solve this problem.
Posible design solutions
I also found three posible solutions designers can follow to decrease doomscrolling:
1: Introducing Design Frictions. For example manual content loading giving natural stopping points instead of infinite scroll
2: Regulating Addictive and Manipulative Design. For example transparency requirements, or restrictions on exploitative design.
3: Alternatives to Algorithmic Platform Designs. For example chronological feeds instead of algorithmic and user-controlled recommendation systems.
Future vision
I find this topic very interesting but I will probably not choose this as my masters topic as i am most interested in product design.
However, one posible outcome I have thought of is to elevate the time limit restricting notifications. This tool had did not work very well for me because it did not seem important or urgent to follow the notifictions nudging as i could easily ingnore it. I think that it would be more effective to impliment some sort of character that you could feel emathy for, or propose the break from screentime as a team effort.
