Project Overview

Conversations take on many forms. In dialogues where people are to exchange their points of view, one common issue is that there is an imbalance amongst conversation participants. Oftentimes, due to a mixture of personalities and conversational styles, some people dominate while others feel unable to express their point of view. Drawing inspiration from how a centerpiece is commonly placed on a table around which people have conversations, we introduced SociaBowl, a dynamic table centerpiece to promote positive social dynamics.

Approach

Yuehan and I first engaged in low-fidelity physical prototyping to explore the design space and outline an interaction language. After this, our team proceeded to create a functional physical prototype. Romy fabricated a tall standing table. I made the electronics. I used a laser cutter to engrave the acrylic surface. I inlaid copper wire on the surface of the table to serve as capacitive sensors. I coded an Arduino UNO that (1) read in capacitive sensor readings using a Capacitive Touch Shield and (2) controlled two stacked servo motors that governed the movements of the bowl. I outlined a design space for this work and also a series of interaction scenarios that varied across the design factors.

Results

In this work, we introduce the concept for an actuated table centerpiece to mediate group conversations, a functional prototype, the outline of a design space, including the Materiality of Feedback (Nurturing or Threatening), Interaction Styles (Implicit or Explicit), and Animation and Motion Patterns (Playful or Formal), and five example interaction scenarios that traverse the design space.

PUblicationS

J. Leong, Y. Wang, R. Sayah, S. Rossikopoulou Pappa, F. Perteneder, H. Ishii. SociaBowl: A Dynamic Table Centerpiece to Mediate Group Conversations. In Proc. CHI'19 EA, ACM, Glasgow, Scotland, 2019. 

Course

Completed as a final project for the MAS.834 Tangible Interfaces Course (Fall 2018), in collaboration with my classmates Yuehan Wang, Romy Sayah, and Stella Rossikopoulou Pappa.

ThemeS

Conversations, Turn-Taking, Tangible User Interfaces, Social Dynamics

Skills & Technologies

Interaction Design, Physical Prototyping, Fabrication, Arduino

My Role

I was the lead for this project and had a hand on all aspects except for fabricating the table. I built out the electronics and outlined the design space and applications. I also led the paper writing.

Press

SociaBowl equalizes across the table dialogue | 2019-02-27| Arduino Blog

This Table Centerpiece Moderates Conversation - | 2019-02-27| hackster.io