Thesis Research
SENSORY CARDS: Fostering Empathy and Connection within Community Groups
PHASE 3
Design Process and Outcome
Design process
ARTIFACTS AS TOOLS FOR CONVERSATIONS
Good communication is key for the development of empathy between individuals and I became particularly interested in understanding the potential role that physical objects might play in facilitating the access, expression and understanding of feelings and emotions.
What if we could communicate how we feel through material artifacts?
How would that change the way we interact with one another?
TACTILE FEELINGS
Tactile Feelings are a series of abstract and ambiguous forms that were created using easily accessible materials and processes. During conversations I noticed that people would associate different meanings to the artifacts I had created. More significantly, the meaning of an artifact would change radically depending on the people I was having a conversation with and the context in which the conversation was taking place. I realized that it is through the interactive triangulation of people, artifact and context that we are able to attribute collective meaning to the things that surrounds us.
SENSORY CARDS
The artifacts were translated in the form of cards. Each Sensory Card had its own image on one side and a texture on the other.
The Sensory Cards were used in different contexts and with different people who seemed comfortable expressing their feelings while interpreting the images and textures on the cards. I also noticed that people would use the cards in ways that I had not foreseen—combining an image from one card with the texture from another cards for example.
design iterations
Talking to facilitators and observing people interact with the cards allowed me to see the potential of the Sensory Cards and inspired me to take this project forward. I decided to look closely into the cards’ functions and forms in order to identify the features that needed to be kept, changed, or eliminated. My intent was to reduce the cards to their essential elements without loosing their functionalities.
ITERATION 1 - Material exploration
I began to wonder if I could completely eliminate images and instead rely only on the textured side of the cards. I prototyped a set of cards that would use only materials and patterns. The idea was to have materials such as leather, wood, metal and acrylic cut into a card size and laser cut them using vector patterns that I had created.
Looking at this concept I realized that the cards had lost the organic and spontaneous feeling of the previous set.
ITERATION 2 - Image exploration
I also wondered if I could eliminate the textures and have them only visually represented in the photos. I prototyped another set of cards using just images of textures found in the environment. Photos of concrete walls, soft fabrics, metal scraps, snow and the sky were taken and used on this set
The visual result of this new set of cards felt almost too ethereal to me and I realized that most of the images were lacking objects of focus. I was no longer able to access visceral feelings or unprocessed ideas through them.
ITERATION 3 - Moodboards
As a means to explore alternative ways to use both the photos and textures I created a set of mood boards cards. I soon realized that this iteration of cards still didn’t suit my need.
Each of the mood board cards had been designed in a way to evoke a specific sensation. This meant that the users would not be triggered to use the cards as a means for creating their own meanings, which was one of my main intentions.
design Outcome
Sensory Cards
Instead of having the texture on one side and the images on the other—as in the first set of the Sensory Cards— I decided to split the two sides apart and double the number of cards having twelve image-cards and twelve texture-cards. This would allow individuals to play with the cards and associate them in the way the want and not hold possibilities that other individuals could use.
The Sensory Cards became a set of visual and tactile cards with suggested guidelines intended to facilitate the communication—access, expression and understanding—of feelings and emotions in community groups.
Supporting Materials
and Guidelines
Two suggestions of use are presented in the brochure: expressing feelings and emotions and connecting with the present moment. These suggestions should not be seen as rigid instructions, rather as triggers for facilitators to adapt and dis-cover new use scenarios that best suit the context of their work.
Reflective Analysis
The Sensory Cards carry the potential to build empathy between individuals collaborating in community groups by fostering conversations during face-to-face encounters. It invites individuals to interact with one another and acts as a tool for facilitating communication and connection. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of the Sensory Cards in facilitating strong connections and resilient communities can only be fully assessed through time and ongoing experimentations.
The open-ended nature of the cards allows them to be adapted in different contexts and for different purposes. A number of possibilities of use for the cards emerged during the design process. Even though the Sensory Cards present an opportunity to help individuals engage on an emotional level, it is important to acknowledge that it does not intent to accelerate the natural process of building a relationship. Rather, the goal was to help establish a solid base of empathy, trust and consideration from which strong relationships can be built from.