// THE PROCESS
The project idea is to show a scenario where a woman is walking home at night and begins to feel unsafe, sensing that she might be followed. We wanted to address a topic that is a problem which is unfortunately very common. In this day and age, we have a few options to help us feel safer, like calling loved ones, sharing our location or pressing certain buttons to call S.O.S. But what if a device could handle this automatically? Instead of being overly cautious about our surroundings, what if a phygital layers could make our walk home more comfortable by reducing fear and making it feel less intimidating? It might safe time when getting into a dangerous encounter with a person or even scare them away. So, the focus of our story is an 'emergency mode' that is triggered in situations like this.
Before finalizing our story our plot was a bit different. We originally wanted to tell the story about Sophia, who had been stalked by a former date and policeman named Ralph for weeks. After staying inside for a long time, she finally decided to go out again. As she walked, she used her physical device to change her surroundings into a beautiful snowy landscape. Her „social blocking mode“ was activated, making her invisible to others too. Suddenly, Sophia noticed footsteps behind her. Later, she found out that her stalker was Ralph, who had been abusing his power and physical abilities to track her down.
The critique we received was that the story was too detailed and that we should introduce at least one supporting character and maybe more phygital layers. So, we made some changes:
Our new supporting characters are Sophie's friends (Spencer and Nelly), who text her throughout her walk, who are also her emergency contacts. The identity of the person following Sophia is now unknown, leaving room for speculation. Is it someone she knows? Like that guy that has been texting her. A stranger? And does the person have good or bad intentions?
Additionally, we dimissed the idea of using a headband as the phygital device. Instead, it is now any device capable of enhancing vision, such as AR glasses. We kept 'reality adaption' as phygital layer card, added 'Environmental Transparency' and 'Sharing Option', but let go of 'social blocking'.
// THE STORY
New Story
Sophia is on her way home at night. To make her walk home more comfortable she turns on reality adaption to turn her dark and unsettling surrounding into a beautiful and cartoon-like winter wonderland. During her walk Sophias Phygital Device notices an unknown person who has been following her for an unusual time. The stranger then entered her predefined space and an emergency is triggered.
// THE PHYGITAL SPACE
To change the environment to a „Winterwonderland“ 'Reality Adaption' is used. The phygital layer card 'Environmental Transparency' and 'Sharing option' are the most important cards for the Emergency Mode. In order to constantly track Sophias surroundings it needs real time information for the Emergency Mode to be triggered. Therefore we need 'Environmental Transparency'. 'Sharing option' is used in the last step of Emergency Mode to record from Sophias perspective and to share video footage as evidence to the police.
KEYFRMAME ①
Sophia is walking and has her 'X-Mas' mode turned on to make the dark and unsettling street less scary. A Christmas songs is playing and she's now surrounded by christmas decoration and artificial snow.
KEYFRAME ②
An attention notification popped up because the system detected an unknown person following Sophia for more than 15 minutes. She can now see a map to track from where the stranger is approaching.
KEYFRAME ③
When the stranger is entering her predefined personal space an emergency notification is being activated. Sophia now has the choice to cancel emergency mode by clicking 'stop' or to let the system taking it one step further.
KEYFRAME ④
If emergency mode is not being cancelled manually, reality adaption is turned off immediately and the device starts recording her surroundings for safety measurements. Now there's an option to call the police and to notify emergency contacts and share the current location.
Open Questions
Even if this tool seems like a great idea to enhance our safety it also leaves us with questions we might have to think about.
Recording without consent ('Sharing Option')
What happens if a person is being recorded without a justified reason? Can footage be shared in that case? What if the device is malfunctioning and detects danger which is no danger?
Environmental Transparency
What are the potential dangers of monitoring the environment? What happens if data of our surrounding are being collected?
Reality adaption
What happens if we get too used to adapting our reality?
Safety
What happens if we put our trust into a device? Will we forget to rely on our own understanding?
// THE VIDEO
For shooting our video, we took advantage of the weather. There was still snow on the ground and it was getting dark early. So, we each went out individually to film scenes of us walking down a dark street. The best shot didn’t actually have any real snow, but it captured the dark and unsettling atmosphere the best. Since it was difficult to create a realistic „winter wonderland“ environment, we decided to give it a more cartoony and kind of a cheap look instead. For the interface we took inspiration from the apple vision.
// THE PRESENTATION
// THE CONCLUSION
This course was an interesting experience that taught us a lot about phygital spaces, the opportunities they offer, and the challenges that come along with them.We explored how these phygital layers can shape our interactions, expand possibilities and address present issues.
Although it took us some time to finalize our story, we are happy with the result. Our project is based on a problem that affects us as women and we thought about how phygital technology could provide solutions. This process not only deepened our understanding of the subject but also reinforced the importance of designing with real-world impact in mind.
