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UX of Skin
11 Nov - 25Nov
Design Breif
Design a way to express the skin/world interface.
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Team
Getting inspired
Nature has always mesmerized us with its craftsmanship, and skin is one of its best works. Plants, animals, and humans have this layered on their body acting very differently according to the environment and context. So we started our discussion on the UX of the skin by getting inspired by nature and the art of skin.
WEEK 1
Understanding skin beyond individuality
Skin does not exist on its own. It is embodied and is a part of the socio-cultural society of humans and animals. We saw skin being perceived, judged, and exploited in different forms with this lens.
Finding interest areas
Every idea popping in our heads was interesting and exciting, but we were intrigued by hybrid artificial skin, feeling of touch, Sustainable bio-skin fashion & pleasure, and politics of skin.
Ideation and performing AEIOU
We were rapidly ideating ideas and discussing how the skin interfaces our inner self to the outer world. Even doctors see your skin and understand what is going inside you. Suddenly, the conversation turned towards the privacy & politics of skin. It was so fascinating how different cultures think differently about showing and hiding certain areas of skin. While the conversation was never-ending, we brought in privacy. Not everyone can touch you everywhere, and a lot of it depends on relations, culture, and consent. Within the ongoing discussion of good touch, bad touch & touch me not, we turned towards the skin as the medium to feel and give pleasure.
We began to discuss the sexual pleasure one gets with the most sensitive but private skin, penis in men, and vagina in women. We learned that pleasuring women was much more complex than pleasuring men, and the G-spot is considered a myth (What men should know about pleasuring women, 2021). We finally loved the idea of making people experience how hard it is for women to get pleasure through vagina skin. No sooner did we perform the AEIOU research method in the context of this idea than we understood different perspectives, scenarios, interactions, and consequences that come into play.
Feedback from course leader
We decided to get feedback from our course leader to improve our design directions and understanding.
Pleasure isn't just about the vagina and is relevant to other skin areas as well.
Think more about the consent and narration in the experience.
Think about the staging and scale of the experience
Understanding pleasure of other skin areas
After gathering the feedback, we expanded our thoughts and began discussing women's sensual and sensitive skin areas. Pleasure is not only about sex but also about effective communication and touch in different areas. Interestingly men and women both have their perceived sensitive areas of pleasure. To understand this better, we asked a group of randomly populated participants to mark where they would like to be touched, and the results were surprising.
Experiencing the skin pleasure relationship
We went materialistic and became creative to bring out the tactile experience of touching women's most sensitive skin areas. The weaving of experience was going behind our minds. We wanted people to try and give pleasure to each skin area in their preferred order. To gain some feedback on the experience of giving pleasure through the skin, we asked we got a few participants. Moreover, we were blown; the experience was fun but more awkward. Participants were not comfortable giving pleasure this way or making the women arouse. Some also got offended by the objectification of women's body parts.
"It became awkward and objectified"
Going back to pleasure though vagina skin
Post the feedback, we decided to narrow our experience to one specific area. By the time we were more intrigued by G-spot and the chase along with it. With the experience of our last activity, we decided to add sarcasm, gamification, and abstraction to make the experience more fun than awkward. We carefully crafted the tactile experience of the vagina within a cardboard box with slime and water balloons inside and a soft foam top for people to insert their hands. Within our narrative made sure there was a sense of consent to which we gave her the name "Festive". People now would see her as a person, seek consent with respect and yet have fun with abstraction.
The experience was now about finding the G-spot, a mechanical button connected to the light hidden inside the closed box filled with water balloons and slime. Participants had to find the spot and press the button while one of our teammates would become the voice of Festive for effective communication of skin pleasure. Turning on the light would have meant an orgasm which we thought of representing with a firework.
Week 1 Presentation
Week 1 feedback
It should be either more abstract or more realistic
Festive could have multi sensory communication
Temperature inside should be more warm
Enhancing experience & speed dating ideas
In week 2, we wanted to demonstrate the different skin sensitivity levels of the vagina within the journey of giving pleasure to women. The new set of ideations was based on higher sensitivity of the outer/ upper part than the inner vagina. In addition to the voice narration as the only feedback, we wanted to add more audio-visual and haptic feedback aligned to how they interact and touch. In the search for suitable materials, we explored stretchable conductive rubber and conductive carbon paints to bring out this experience, but we had to drop specific complex ideas due to limited availability and time.
In the speed dating of ideas, people felt more engaged in the large-scale interactive slimy balloon experience.
WEEK 2
Planning the interactivity
We used flowing visuals made in touch designer to reflect on pleasure of skin and leap motion as the medium to detect and react to right pleasure actions. We tried using a webcam and kinetic, but we got the best distance and gesture control with a leap. The correct frequency and distance would enable the interactivity of visuals with the halleluiah song depicting the voice of skin pleasure. So we shifted from plain serene visuals to more psychedelic visuals to effectively bring pleasure.
Setting up the experience
We made variable skin sensitivity using multi-colour balloons arranged to show the spectrum. The visuals were projected on top of them using a protector, and the motion was controlled by leap motion kept at one of the ends. The experience was all about giving "Festive 2.0" true pleasure.
Week 2 Presentation
Week 2 feedback
The human communication aspect could have been better
The use of sound wasn't very clearly aligning to touch
Temperature inside
should be more warm
Citations
Bangalore Mirror. 2021. What men should know about pleasuring women. [online] Available at: <https://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/opinion/you/what-men-should-know-about-pleasuring-women/articleshow/69296876.cms> [Accessed 26 December 2021].
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