framing – Persuasion | CMU School of Design

d ; ECOlivery

Spring 2021

Overview

Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been an exponential increase in delivery in general as people start to avoid leaving their homes for safety. This includes food delivery as well, and one main problem with this exponential increase in food delivery is the excessive use of plastic containers. In fact, the majority of the plastic containers are actually not recyclable because of the contamination from food residue. This means that most of the plastic containers we have recycled are most likely being landfilled, which is a serious problem to start thinking about especially because we are using more delivery plastic containers than we ever had before. In this project, I wanted to do something that can persuade people to somehow participate in settling down this issue of excessive use of plastic containers that cannot be recycled.

Service

I designed a service where a delivery app creates their own eco-friendly package containers to sell as a monthly sponsorship. I’ve created my own delivery service called d ; ECOlivery, but this service can honestly be applied to any other delivery service apps as well. Restaurants will be buying the eco-friendly package containers monthly to use it for their food delivery, but this will also allow restaurants to earn sponsorship as well.

In the app, there is a pop up to notify users that eco-friendly package container service is offered in the application, and there is a separate category just for stores that use eco-friendly packaging. By making a separate category, it allows users to look at what the “eco” category is once more. Restaurants that have bought the monthly eco-friendly package containers from the service app will be sponsored and filtered up to the top of the list for each food category, which will make people look through these stores (that bought and use eco-friendly packaging) first than any other stores in the app.

The main method I’ve used is visual persuasion and framing, where I have offered specific visuals to make people learn about the eco-friendly packaging service (like the pop-up and separate category for “eco”). In fact, the whole concept of using the sales of eco-friendly packaging as a sponsorship to filter stores to be in the top of the list is also a method of persuasion that motives users to look at stores that they see at first glance.

Build-A-Family

Uncategorized

Tactics: framing, argument

Laurel Rountree(E) & Ashley Burbano(E)

What a family could look like in our present day is broad and the norms and expectations of families are constantly changing. Even still, the laws related to families have remained fairly unchanged and limit the capabilities of families that aren’t within the norm and create unhealthy stigmas that prevent people from establishing family and family roles that suits their needs in life and makes them feel fulfilled. The many norms that are used as examples when educating people about families that prevent people from seeing and understanding families that don’t fit that norm. This prevents families with unique issues from having their voice heard and the issues/discrimination they face addressed. Monogamous, heterosexual, nuclear families are the norm, but they don’t have to be. By having this norm, we have created an unintentional social heirarchy surrounding families, leading other types of families wants/needs to be devalued or not considered in certain scenarios.

The lack of awareness of diverse family types has been a major issue in the past. In U.S. education systems and elsewhere, often times the types of relationships and families discussed are very limited. For our project we designed an online learning activity for elementary and middle school age students to inform them on different types of families and the issues that they face because of certain discriminatory policies. Some examples we thought of were a single person being waitlisted for years when trying to adopt a child or a family with LGBTQ+ members in it facing certain stigmas that can cause psychological damage. The scenario we chose to present was for a chosen family trying to see a loved one in a hospital that restricts visitation to immediate family. We chose to depict this group specifically becaise we felt this family types is the least discussed type of family within the education system and so the stories and dilemas chosen families face goes unheard or misunderstood.

Our experience is intended to flow from learning about different family types to building them online and then informing them of narratives that these specific family types might face. At the beginning they would be prefaced with information on the experience and be asked to make a family or their family. After they finish that they would be informed on societal norms and the reality of diverse families and the need to understand their unique issues. After that, they would learn about a specific type of family and they would be asked to design the characters who will represent the people of a certain family type that will then be used in a narrative later. They would be able to change the appearance of characters as well assign names and pronouns to allow for participants to connect with the characters and feel as though they had some input into the story. When they complete this, the story will then be visualized for them using the characters they designed.

By the end of the experience we hope participants will be able to empathize with the unique problems different families and understand how societal norms around families have impacted

Mulch Monsters

Uncategorized

A Speculative Product and Service by Ray Pai [C]

Mulch Monsters are automated composting machines that subvert the common perception of composting in homes. Food waste sent to landfills break down into methane, a greenhouse gas that depletes the ozone layer. An approach to reducing food waste is to encourage composting, which breaks food waste down into mulch. Mulch can be used in community gardens or for your own houseplants. That’s why Mulch Monster is framed as an opportunity to be health conscious and prosocial towards the community.

Mulch Monsters subvert the common misconception that composting smells bad, takes up too much space, and is labor intensive. Insted, it’s compact, automated, and educates users on how to reduce odors. In addition, it encourages behavior change by providing encouraging data through a supplementary app, which shows the quality of the mulch. Lastly, Mulch Monster is designed with the consideration of unintended consequences. With the concern that Mulch Monster makes throwing away food waste TOO fun, the supplementary app encourages users to produce quality mulch instead of large quanitites of mulch.

Introspect: A Guide Towards Intentional Activism

Uncategorized

Shannon Ha (Products), Elizabeth Han (Environments)

In the speculative future of 2030, the bad actors of social media activism run rampant amongst young adults, especially college students. Many use performative activism on social media as a way to display outward projections of social awareness, when in reality, their ignorance and reposting does nothing to contribute to a social movement. Our intervention is Introspect, two voice AI characters ‘Guiding Light’ and ‘Inner Shadow’, built into existing social media platforms. ‘Introspect’ encourages people who post or repost about social movements to question their own motives behind doing so and ultimately change their ways of thinking over time by evolving the types of questions being asked. The hope is that people can form their own opinion about performative activism by interacting with the dialogues. As the user ultimately decides what to post, regardless of the advice, the power is in their hands.

The Voices: ‘Guiding Light’ and ‘Inner Shadow’

Guiding Light and Inner Shadow represent two ends of a spectrum in critical thinking. ‘Guiding Light’ helps users progress through their ‘activist’ journey by questioning their motivations to promote deeper reflection and by also suggesting meaningful acts of contribution to their social cause of interest. ‘Inner Shadow’ enables the user to act upon their mindless social media habits and encourages outward projections of social awareness as opposed to intentional acts. The hope is that people can form their own opinion about performative activism by interacting with the dialogues. Since the user ultimately decides what to post, regardless of the advice, the power is in their hands.

Progress Over Time: ‘Guiding Light’ At All Levels

Overtime, the ‘Guiding Light’ would give more advanced suggestions based on the level of activism the user has engaged in. The ‘Guiding Light’ not only suggests more challenging resources for advancing users, but also asks more provocative questions for the users to come to their own conclusion about what activism means for them. This would guide the users towards viewing activism as a lifelong journey, rather than a momentary gesture.

The Art of Parenting

Spring 2021

Alice Cai (Communications), Annalisa Pao (Products)

We all remember the awkward day when we sat down and had “the Talk” with our parents. Or do we?

Many parents forego having what society has labeled “difficult” conversations about sex, gender, and sexuality with their children. This can be for a number of reasons: fearing that their child will lose their innocence, thinking that they might tell their child too much, believing that discussion of these topics might encourage their children towards unwanted experimentation, etc. While intended to be in the best interest of the child, this parenting style, which we have named the Connect-the-Dots approach, creates a rigid framework that a child is expected to follow. By not providing resources and open dialogue in the formative years of self-discovery, parents raise their child in a manner that presents numerous challenges with emotional and physical consequences.

Instead, we propose that parents should follow what we call the Blank Canvas approach. Rather than outlining a path, parents should provide the tools and foundation for their child to discover their own identity in a safe, happy, and healthy way. Parents do not have to be experts in every topic—they just need to provide an open, safe, and non-judgmental environment to have open conversations with their children.

^Explore parent and child testimonials on experiences with Connect the Dots approach and Blank Canvas approach.

Our interactive article is meant to persuade parents to provide their child with a Blank Canvas. It provides real stories of how children raised on the Connect-the-Dots approach were affected and provides insights into how some parents are tackling a Blank Canvas approach with their own children. The article also offers key organizations, educational articles, and comprehensive resource guides so that parents have a strong starting point to begin these conversations.

Resources and Articles for further reading

Interact with our prototype here: https://www.figma.com/proto/IQ6XEkcORTyC6dI8skvJY2/Destigmatize-Sex?node-id=4%3A28&scaling=min-zoom&page-id=0%3A1

Museum of Childhood Things

Spring 2021

Caroline Song (C), Jamie Park (C), and Jina Lee (C) / 2D graphics, visual campaign design
Tactics: Emotional engagement, visual persuasion, relatability/empathy, framing (past experiences)

Overview

“We didn’t get to choose the childhood we were given, but we can choose what to do with the stuff of our childhood memories.”

It is sometimes difficult for families to relate to one another. Now, with the pandemic, we see families even more unable to connect, in person or at all. We have created a visual campaign promoting a pop-up museum in 2025 filled with childhood artifacts from each generation. This pop-up museum serves as a space for multi-generational families to come together to learn more about each generations’ childhood artifacts, and how that has shaped who each person is today. We see this museum as a conversation starter for families, and a time for each member to develop empathy and understanding for one another. We want to convey a safe environment that will allow families connect emotionally with one another, ultimately bringing them closer together.

Visual Campaign

Our group played to our strengths through creating a visual campaign in which we balanced the use of color, typography, and graphics to persuade visitors to come to our museum. Because the target audience of our museum are multi-generational families, we wanted to create and convey a welcoming, warm experience that is intended for all ages. This was done with the use of bright but soft colors (blues, pinks, yellows, and greens), simplistic rounded shapes and icons, and the use of familiar toy objects that viewers may have used as a child.

We chose to tackle creating both printed and digital assets in order to account for the wide range of ages that we are trying to target and to really cater towards multi-generational families. Potential visitors will be informed and hopefully attracted to the museum through promotional printed posters that will be hung all over Pittsburgh. We also created a digital campaign, which will be spread using the Instagram platform to attract younger viewers. For the social media feed, our group used this opportunity to use nostalgia and relatability in order to appeal to our younger audience (Millenials, Gen Z), using images from their childhoods (crocs, silly bands, Britney Spears) and also incorporating comments from actual museum visitors to establish more legitimacy.

Our team also created assets that the visitors can view and interact with once they are in the museum, in order to enhance the experience for them. One of the items we created was an overall map so that visitors are able to anticipate and understand where they are in the museum, and what exhibits will be shown in what order. We continued to keep these assets playful and welcoming to keep visitors engaged and really emphasize this safe environment that we aimed to created.

There is signage that will be placed at the start of every new exhibit so that viewers can, once again, understand where they are in the museum experience as they travel through the different generation exhibits.

Museum visitors will also be handed a brochure with an interactive activity that they can fill out throughout their time in the museum, and even after they leave. This brochure is meant to allow each visitor to reflect on the objects, ideas, and trends, that influenced them during their childhood and how these things have shaped their childhood memories and the person that they have become today. After internal reflection, visitors are encouraged to reflect externally as well, through conversations with their family members. Through sharing these reflections, families can understand their differences further, and also find some similarities to relate to. In all, this brochure aims to truly drive home the idea of our museum as a conversation starter to bring families closer together through increased empathy and a greater understanding of one another.

AI.plant

Uncategorized

A Tabletop Campaign by Emily Zhou [P]

AI.plant is a plant adoption campaign questions what it takes to feel fulfilled and how that differs from person to person. Expectations are shifting as younger generations are opting to remain child-free, instead devoting their love and attention to pets, partners, careers and interests. AI.plant pushes this into speculative territory by throwing AI-embedded plants into the mix, reiterating that your life decisions are yours alone, and only you get to decide your definition of fulfillment.

Surfaces

Uncategorized

Langston Wells (C) and Emily Spooner (P) / interactive photography display, packaging and CAD Modeling

Tactics: framing, behavior change, subversion, visual persuasion

As many of our experiences with media like images, text, and videos become increasingly digitized, we are headed towards a future where auditory and visual experiences outnumber experiences derived from physical artifacts. Our work highlights the affordances of tangible artifacts in a world where individuals become more and more inundated with non-tactile, digital experiences.

This project presents a hopeful future by translating 2D digital images into a dynamic 3D relief that users can interact through desktop and wall mounted models, heightening digital experiences like photos and video viewing while aiding accessibility for visually impaired users.

Design —

When designing this product, we were considering accessibility from all angles, from ergonomics of the surface to the user experience to our packaging design. We wanted to frame our product within a commercial, everyday setting to represent a hopeful future in which the general public understands the value of tangible products and experiences, instead of marketing only towards the visually impaired.

The ergonomics of the surface focus on creating a comfortable range of motion for the user’s hand by scaling buttons and sliders within easy reach for smooth interactions. This scaling helps user’s build a mental model of their hand position for ease of navigation and use. Each material was carefully considered to create unique hand feels for the user to aid memory, such as a soft, small-cell foam hand rest and brushed aluminum buttons, each with distinct textures and temperatures.

The product is designed for two use cases: one as a desktop companion for browsing photos and the other as a dynamic, wall mounted display that would be generated based on the user’s selected photo. This secondary option gives the user as well as their friends, families, or guests the ability to experience the photos in the same way but at a larger scale, which can promote conversations and new experiences. By situating it within this context, we hope to enable behavior change through socializing the interactivity of this artifact, working towards a future of greater accessibility and integration of tangible artifacts into everyday technology.

User Experience —

Our user experience would be derived primarily from audio prompts on the user’s computer that would help them through setup and use. The first interaction with surfaces though would be through a braille embossed instruction sheet that directs users through the initial setup and onboarding of their surface.

Another aspect of the user experience ties into the portability of the surface’s design as the hinged stand on the back enables user’s to place it in an upwards or downwards position, allowing it to fit into luggage, backpacks, or briefcases when traveling.

Packaging —

Our packaging focused on making information visible and easily understandable for visually impaired users by focusing on high contrast graphics, embossed braille directions as well as text instructions for caregivers, family, or friends who may be assisting in setup, and uncomplicated opening mechanisms with clear, tactile visual cues like finger holes and security straps for extra protection. Our final packaging would not only have the braille embossed, but also icons and diagrams at varying levels of depth so users could understand the directions from self-initiated, tactile interactions.

Below are detail shots of the instructions and packaging.

Sledu

Uncategorized

By: Janet Peng (P) & CeCe Liu (P) / furniture, CAD modelling + 3D renders

Tactics: subversion, framing

Our furniture company, Sledu, designs products that help individuals coexist with their pets. This product line will begin to radically revitalize the way we approach furniture, turning it from human-centered to animal-centered. Based on the furniture of today, this style will help humans understand their new place in the household alongside their pets or “spirit animals”. As pets transition from being more passive members of the household to becoming a family’s spirit animal who guides the household’s lifestyle and decisions, this furniture collection will persuade users to adopt this upcoming paradigm shift.