Living in the Interface Process:

My Figma Names and Labels: https://www.are.na/block/11288975

My Website Annotations: https://www.are.na/block/11301816

Final Statement: Roaming for distraction in the interface

Final Poetic User Story: As a passive user, I want to drift within the internet stream so that I can be stimulated.

My Final Prototype as a gif: https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena_images-temp/uploads%2F0b746b6e-9a72-4be9-967e-3531e1fe1041%2FMalika%27s+Bored+Game.gif

I begun by brainstorming and sketching ideas to visualise my statement. Here are some early stage options:

• Code drifting like a river, moves towards slight stimulation such as a glowing circle
• Floating cartoons on a loop
  • Mildly smiling, looking down at their phones
  • When they look up, they are bored and frustrated (fidgeting?)
  • When you tap them, the loop begins again (they look down at their phones and smile a little, temporary relief from boredom before the cycle begins again)
• Interface elements “beating up” boredom. For example icons or search questions shift from their position on the screen, to squash or hit "boredom".
• Something resembling tired eyes, or rubbing eyes
• an island or boredom
• Let’s write on the white bored
• The bored-er: making borders within the interface that are strict and defended
• Walking/ drifting loop of an interface
• Mood “bored”. Made of abstract elements that bore users on the internet

Because language was a focus of this workshop, some of my ideas used puns with the word "bored". This is how I came up with the idea of the "Bored Game" initially.

Initially I wanted the elements to be pulling the user deeper into the interface. I would do this by having a kind of tunnel, with the central loading circle as a distant goal, the "light at the end of the tunnel". The user would then close tabs that would glow or receive notifications, around the edges of the webpage. Each tab that would close, would draw the user further in, but would never actually reach the centre, just an endless loop. This was how I planned to visualise my statement. Some parts of this idea still remain evident in my final prototype.

While writing the poetic user story statement and having been inspired by the article about how "Skim Reading is the New Normal", I was able to identify that the main issue my user was facing was boredom. More specifically, the fear of boredom, and therefore clinging to mild stimulation to escape boredom.

Eventually, this lead me to come up with the idea of boredom training, to face the fear front on, in the hopes of having people become less dependent on mild stimulation. Instead they can pursue tasks that make them happier, but may come with boring or non stimulating components. My goal was to show that that is okay. To do this, I gave both a guided visual explanation of the importance of the issue, and an archive of activities and challenges to simulate and train boredom. Though the actual training may not solve the problem, the memorable gamification of the message may result in a shift in mindset.

These were some of the key sources of inspiration for this project:

MTV Music Festival Design Identity: https://www.behance.net/gallery/50951533/MTV-CONNECTION-MARCH-2017 I appreciated the nostalgic 90s website style. The vibrant colours and mood is also very stimulating, which was key for me.

"Glass morphism" style. I looked at many examples, this is just one: https://www.behance.net/gallery/115858147/Gaming-App-Concept?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Cglass%20morphism

The idea behind my visual design was to have an "overly stimulating" interface that incorporates familiar elements of code, tabs, and internet symbols to represent what it could mean to "live in the interface".

The early tasks involving choosing our favourite words, deeply analysing language used by our commonly used websites, and later formulating sentences based on our most popular words, motivated me to think deeply about the language I was using on my website. I knew that some of the main spaces on the internet that cause online dopamine addictions, are social media platforms. So I tried to use language that is social, engaging and relatable to an audience looking for stimulation in that way. Though I wanted the user to practise being bored, I reserved boredom for the activities and challenges, but ensured that the interface was stimulating enough to retain the audience.

If I'd had more time to improve this, I would have gone into more depth with the interactions, as I had intended to at the start. I spent a lot of time refining the design of the main page layout, because it was meant to be the basis of the dragging the user into the interface idea. However, when I pivoted to the Bored Game idea which I preferred, I was unable to go into as much depth. So instead of providing boring "games" or tasks, I provided funny boring challenges. I would also have tried to abstract my idea more overall. I personally struggle to present things that feel incomplete. So though I do like working with abstract ideas, I like to give clear directions and guidance.

Conclusively, I found the major takeaway from this workshop experience was to diversify my inspiration sources. Not only by being introduced to some alternative websites, but more importantly thinking about language and it's vital role in design. Texts such as articles, language already used by websites/ apps or personal brainstorming in the form writing, can be valuable tools for the development of creative ideas.