put your phone in the box and have fun
Class project for Professor Fred Abler's CSC 484 (User-Centered Interface Design and Development)
Basic Instructions
- Make a 12"x12"x12" cardboard box, or can be other materials.
- Give Box an AFFORDANCE, which is a clear invitation to participate. Box may also have additional affordances to keep the user participating (i.e. to make it sticky). Don't forget about emotional aspects as well.
- Make your AFFORDANCE 'sticky' so that people want to use your box as long as possible.
Upon interacting with a cardboard box, a QR code will invite a user to participate by scanning the code. Then the user will be able to access a web interface. The web interface will instruct the user to put the phone in the box. Finally, the phone will serve as a brain in the box using its input and output accessories to interact with the user.
What is/are the "invitation(s) to participate?"
- The "pull to unlock" signifier
- The QR Code
What are the "emotional aspects?"
- hmmm... idk
What makes it "sticky?"
- FonBox will interact by voice, instructing the user to play/dance/talk/meditate/etc
- hmm... it would be interesting to test FonBox as a jukebox vs meditation box vs game box
- or is FonBox fun by having different modes (activated by voice command)
- FonBox can reward the user by saying "good job" or "that was fun!"
- FonBox is infinitely updatable, simply by pushing new code to GitHub. Users can anticipate new modes the next time they interact with FonBox.
What makes it "viral?"
- The final payoff might be a sharable selfie with the FonBox website.
- User's might be more likely to share their "high score" in a game mode or "length of meditation" (although there may be a/an moral/ethical dilemma with allowing that if the intention is to truly help people increase mindfulness).
Here are images of version 1.1.0 of the FonBox
The "funbox" username on GitHub is already taken... that's just the way it is 🎵
Yes, some simple logic to detect the phone being inside a closed box ( see issue #6 ). Also, there may be some simple obejct/face detection for a different user flow.
Check out these issues that go into detail about the problems I encountered while UX testing the box with friends.
Yes! There are so many possibilities for a user experience with a phone in a box. Do you have any "outside the box" ideas? Submit a new issue