From my research and insights I got lots of ideas. I wrote them all down in a list, not judging them. and sketched out how they would work using five moods: humorous, sarcastic, flirtatious, stressed, and tired (these popped up the storytelling). I also sketched ideas for the general interface. Here is a list of all my ideas:
Solid Concepts
- weather in the background to communicated moods / feelings (e.g. sunny, rainy, windy, etc.)
- animate text bubble in ways to relate to water before the message displays text (e.g. drip, burst, shake / ripple, etc.)
- animate text shape to mimic facial features and gestures before message displays text (e.g. bubble vertically shrinks to mimic winking)
- animated avatar besides message that gestures and the user is able to interact with (e.g. wave, smile, frown, giggle, other person can rapidly swipe to tickle or stab to poke, etc.)
- different ways a user has to interact with the phone to open a message to elicit emotion (e.g. smack, shake, slowly slide with all fingers, etc.)
Unconventional
- using custom vibrations
- changing the lighting
- user control of sounds
- exploring the sound vibrations make
- scenery background for the whole app or individual messages
- using smell
- exploring handwriting analysis
- temperature of phone
Features
- usage of color
- recognition of the input of words and phrases to automatically set animation (e.g. typing "hehe" or "LOL" cues app to set message to joking)
- threads / rooms that work in a similar way to Facebook
- user can create a thread with a subject like hashtagging (e.g. happy hour)
- thread / room can be set to have a mood (e.g. happy hour would be set to a fun feeling)
- messages will be contained with a thread / room for easy finding and mood association (like returning to room that has a fun feeling makes you feel playful even though you may be coming from a stressful situation)
- alerts for when something to added to a thread / room
- ability to save texts for later / draft
Considerations
- spectrum between user customization and presets: voluntary gestures (e.g. waving, hugging, bowing) are based on culture and personal preferences versus involuntary gestures (e.g. laughing, vomiting) are universal
- exploring all the senses to investigate what works best / is innovative to inciting emotions: seeing something vs doing / touching something (interaction) vs feeling something vs hearing something vs smelling something
To see all of my sketches…