Designing for meaningful reflection
Try out our lo-fi prototypes.
As we develop our project, we continue to take time for reflection and inspiration to guide our design decisions. And we want to share five key decisions.
1) Staying Present: Documenting Without Seeing Yourself
Inspiration: Film camera, Polaroid, A blog post about the illusionary sense of capturing.
Well, you are not actually capturing the moment. The moment slips away, and your photo is just an impression of it. But that sense of capturing is valuable and meaningful, and can invite you to be more present with intentions.
Inspired by how film cameras and polaroids take you less out of being present in the moment compared to digital cameras, we wanted our documentation to not show its results right away. There’s no instant playback and you need to wait for the media to develop.
2) Letting Go: Designing the Warp Hole
Inspiration: Pixar Inside Out, Interstellar, Pixar Soul.
Most documentation tools focus on how to save everything. But more often than not, we end up buried under the weight of our own records, unable to find the very memories we were trying to preserve. When everything is saved, nothing feels meaningful.
Therefore, we’re taking a different approach by inviting users to practice the art of "letting go." We believe that keeping only specific segments makes them more meaningful. Inspired by Inside Out, we want to reframe the idea of a "bad memory," which isn’t necessarily negative; it’s just tucked away in the back of your mind.
To represent this, we’ve introduced the Black Hole metaphor. Much like real gravity, life pulls certain moments away from us, doesn't it? The difference is that we’re empowering you to do it intentionally, to release the past so that you can fully appreciate the present.
3) Intentional Break: Separate Devices
Reflection: Different head space for different devices.
To encourage a deeper level of thought, we deliberately separated the acts of 'doing' and 'thinking.' By moving documentation to mobile and reflection to tablets, we leaned into the natural headspaces people bring to each device. Mobile is for quick captures on the go; tablets are for the quiet, creative moments. This approach also creates both temporal and spatial distance necessary to actions and reflection.
4) Designing Reflection Experience: Different Spaces for Different Stages of Reflection
Inspiration: Muriel Cooper’s non-interrupted space, Pixar Inside Out.
Reflection: our invitation to a self-compassionate, present-grounded reflection
That being said, reflection is a major aspect of our creation. We strive to find a way to make the process intentional and meaningful. Taking in from all other artists and creative works, we found Muriel Cooper’s non-interrupted space inspiring. Connecting with the metaphor of “Black Hole,” we first had the concept of a constellation, where thoughts and memories are floating in space and users connecting the dots from their history at their pace in their unique way.
Another inspiration is from Inside Out (both 1 and 2) since we are shaped by our past. Through this project, we want to convey the message of being appreciative of everything that happens in life, and to create this space for others as well. We introduced the “color” concept where different pieces of the past collectively make up us as individuals.
5) Celebrating Nonlinear Growth: Space and Sun
Inspiration: Olafur Eliasson’s art on presence.
Growth is rarely linear, yet most digital systems visualize progress as continuous upward movement. In some cultures, downward movement is intimidating. However, we acknowledge the nonlinear growth, but how can we visualize it such that our users can embrace that in their life as well?
After seeing the Presence artwork by Olafur Eliasson, we realized everything is connected. The Sun, the star at the center of our Solar System, brings heat and light to us. The recognized planets in our Solar System revolve around it. But to every single individual, the concept of “Sun” may have a different meaning. What is your Sun that you are looking for or orbiting around? That’s the purpose of reflection, to find your own Sun. It may take a wiggle path, or it could be straightforward. Regardless of your journey, we want to celebrate it with you in the space, both physical and this digital space we are creating.
Behind the scenes:
How do you give your design process the time, space and trust to embrace ambiguity?
The center piece of our FigJam is there to remind us of many different things. To embrace deep thought, the joy in growth and the fact that we are growing only on the shoulders of giants.
“Art sees uncertainty as something productive” (Olafur Eliasson Art is, 2020)
Art and design have always been contrasted by creating either meaning or function. But the interesting space may actually lie somewhere between these two.
As designers, it’s only natural to want to do things fast, to optimize for output. But we’ve come to realize that sometimes there is as much power in patience as there is in momentum and that the key is in balancing them.
Much like the intersection of art and design, the combination of patience and momentum can create something unique. So we asked ourselves:
What if we prolong uncertainty in design and see it not as an obstacle but as an opportunity, much like art?
Design as meaning making
In this world, where we can create anything faster than ever, the question becomes:
What interactions are worth creating?
With growing oversaturation and cognitive overload, we as designers have a responsibility to understand and assess whether our contribution to the noise is justified.
To build or not to build, that is the question.
The designer might say that seamless interactions are the end goal of everything and that seamlessness justifies production. But with this project, we are more interested in creating a meaningful interaction. And with that, moving the role of meaning making from art to design.
Good things take time
The reason this project feels so precious is because it gives more time for questions and exploration. We could grow fast, sure, but we can grow even further and stronger by extending that time just a little more.
Trees that grow fast don’t last long. But those taking time to develop their roots, their wood structure and identity will stand past our existence.
Instead of quickly coding something on a weekend, we have continued and are continuing this project, giving space for exploration and time for meaning to develop.
We often hear this phase in our lives is so precious because we have time. So what are we going to do with that time?
We want to give it meaning. To ourselves and the world around us.