RSA Boards

Our App intention and Summary

features of the app:

give people different environments to relax in. 
Using the binaural 3D sound, we can give the illusion of a 3D space, larger than the one that they might currently be in. Using this you can create an immersive environment by having things passing near the users ears. 
we also wanted to input an interactive element by having the scenes change slightly inside when breathing becomes controlled. 

scene example: City Scape
A distant hum of the city itself, people going about their daily lives. Traffic, Overhead distant planes, Boats passing on river, seagulls.
interactive elements:
When your breathing is steady and controlled the loud traffic shall dissipate, the weather in the scene shall improve  and the sun will come out. Breathing steady will slowly make the environment quitter and in turn more relaxing, things shall become more distant, planes in the sky shall pan from ear to ear as will boats on the river. 

how this achieves the aim of the brief:

Our app hits the brief because it cultivates peace of mind, and creates the right environment to possibly make people have an experience of transcendence. It also targets people who would normally not practice anything spiritual because of time constraints in their life, therefore opening up spiritual practice to more people. 

The summary of our idea is as follows:

THE AIM

Create something to help people engage in spiritual practise.

THE QUERY

Why are people not currently engaging in spiritual practice?

How do we change this?

RESEARCH
We did some data gathering and found that the main reasons was that people didn't have enough spare time to use to relax or spend doing nothing, a shortage of personal space to create the right environment, and a lack of understanding about what you have to do to be spiritual.

OUR SOLUTION
Use binaural 3D sound app to give people a virtual space to be spiritual in, which can be used even when there are lots of people around. This would make it perfect for use when travelling or at any other period when 'downtime' occurs.


TARGET AUDIENCE
Busy professionals, or anyone spending lots of time travelling that can use it when on the train or bus. 

Menu Showcase

This is a video we created to show how the menu system in our app is easy and simple to use. 

This is a video we created to show how each scene may behave once that a person has relaxed their breathing. 

Keep on moving

This is what we want our logo to look like whilst in movemnt.

This is how we want the app to behave when turned.

This is the logo of the app that will appear on start-up, the logo will stay on the screen un-till the screen is tapped. 

This video shows how no matter which way the device is, the apps scenes will always face the user. 

This is what we imagine the app to look like when it has been started up, clicked on, then a scene is selected. 

Planning it out.

We had our meeting with Johnny the other day, it went well. He liked our idea, seeing the potential of an app that can take your mind to other places. However there are still a few minor things that need to be addressed. In order to make sure we have the users full attention and involvement, we want to ensure the user is engaging with the product, almost being made spiritual without even knowing it. One idea is to use the bluetooth headset of a phone, to control the breathing of a user. The more controlled their breathing, the calmer the scene may get. This could almost make our app into a fun game the requires the smallest amount of attention while demanding the users full attention.

We believe that if an app controls how someone is behaving, it may be very successful. It will be a fun, relaxing, spiritual way of engaging the user, rewarding them with a greater experience as they obey the spiritual guidelines of the app.

This is a quick storyboard of how we imagine the app to be used. As mentioned before, we want the app to be as simple to use as possible, we want to relieve stress, not cause it through an overly complicated menu system. We also are aware our target market is busy people, people who don't have the time to normally perform spiritual activities. We want the app to look sleek and sexy, not like a stereotypical spiritual app, this is because we don't want people to be driven away by their view of spirituality.      

After some more logo design and development, we have decided to go with the cloud logo as it fits in best with our app. 

Thinking relaxed

In order to come up with a relaxing interface for our app we need to address some problems that may arise in the development process. The first problem is, in order for the app to flow well, it needs a easy to use interface in order the app it the lull people into a state of willing relaxation, before they even listen to the binaural 3D events. We hope to achieve this through a simplistic design that is colour coded.

The colours we believe should be used for our app are lighter, softer and generally easy on the eyes. 

This is the type of colour pallet we want, not too many colours but just enough for a distinctive interface. We're still wondering what shape to make these icon, whether to have them floating or not and if there is need for writing on these icons or just a sound preview. 

These are some icons we've created of places we personally find relaxing. It uses the colour pallet we previously selected, to show the user where they will be taken to. We believe this may be the best way to present our environments, the text will not be present as to add an air of mystery to the app. All the icons will have moving properties, when clicked the icon shall take up the full screen. We intend for the app to be quite dark as one again, it add a state of mysteriousness and relaxation.

  

This is just a quick low quality button test we decided to do. 

We have a name... Drumroll please.

After thinking hard about what we wanted to call our app we realised it was a lot harder to come up with a name, for two reasons. Reason one was that there are a LOT of apps out there with various names already taken. Reason two was that it's just hard to come up with a catchy name.

So we took to the thesauraus website in search for other ways to say, Spiritual, Transport and Holiday. Eventually after a lot of search we came across utopia and decided to call in YOUtopia because our app  is going to be more personal... however it was already taken.

Back to the drawing board we went, eventually settling on Envisage. This words means "to form a mental image of; visualize; contemplate" which is exactly what we intend our app to do. 

Changing it yet again

Well we had a talk with Matt, and it seems we have outgrown the coffee commute for a app instead. We believe the idea behind the app is strong enough on its own. As long as it has clean polished visuals to sell the product, it should be fine. The only problem with this is that we now need to do a bit of research into apps for various tablet and mobile devices to get a better understanding of what is needed.

Another thing we need to do is ask the public what there most relaxing environment is or could be. This approach will help us understand what environments to have available in the app, some environments might be relaxing for us but might not be for another person.

Trope is one app that was shown to us, it displays various colours on screen when you touch it, depending on which way you drag your finger it changes the sound generated. Apart from the obvious properties the app itself has catered towards relaxation and feeling spiritual, the app itself has a great yet simple to use menu system. This is something that should be highly considered for our app.

This is another relaxation app, it is more heavily focused on the visual and sound working together. All you do is focus on a ball that bounces around the screen while a beam of light shines from a central point. Sound is also made when the ball makes contact with the outer edges of the screen.

Ambiance is another great app that allows you to download a whole host of stock sounds in order to relax you, some of the sounds include rain hitting a tent, a sand storm in the Sahara and a thunder storm. This is what we aim to do with our app. The different between this app and our is that this app has stock sounds that are not Binaural 3D sound so they don't have the same impact. We also intend to have scenarios that have multiple sounds in the to create an image in the users head to give them the impression they're actually in the intended place of choice. We can however learn from the methods used in this app. Ambiance allows you to find any sound you would like to unwind to, we would like to use this same approach but instead of stock sounds we want environments.

Asleep is another app that uses stock sound, however the sounds are terrible quality. The app has a timer so you can set a certain sound to run for a specific time. The app is meant to send you off to sleep by using a various array of sounds such as, a person typing on a keyboard, bird song and much more. Although this app has a clever enough name, that's pretty much it.  

IChillout is yet again another app that uses stock sound to get people in a more relaxed mood, I would be worried that they're the same as our idea however none of these apps seem to use binaural 3D sound. The whole point of our app is to create an environment in a persons head where they can relax or self contemplate. All these apps seem to just be stock sounds to send you to sleep. 

One app we've found that uses binaural 3D is used to scare the user. This app is called Papa Sangre, it is a game that uses the imagination of the user as a core tool to drive the experience. 

Using binaural 3D sound the app puts you in a situation where a monster is chasing you, all the user can do to get away is to tap the screen. The user also has the ability to turn, however if the screen is tapped too fast, the character can fall over.  This is so simple but yet so effective,  it has the magic we want our app to have. 

Rethinking it.

After a quick talk with Sophie we both agreed the coffee commute was a good base idea but at the same time far too complicated. We wanted a way to get people interested in the app but we couldn't think how, it wasn't the interest that was the problem it was the app that was the problem.

So we thought of a different more interesting and engaging app idea, this started off as sounds and activates that people could do whilst sat down and traveling, such as breathing exercises ext. Then Sophie showed me an app called "Inception" This app puts a track on, then depending on the track it takes sounds from the enviroment then remixes and distorts them making a unique psychedelic feel for the user.

This then lead to me showing Sophie a audio clip on youtube called "Virtual Barber shop". It uses binaural 3D sound to trick your mind into thinking you're in room getting your haircut. The way it works is that your mind does all the processing of where the sounds are coming from and creates an image in your mind that you're in any place at any time even if your cramped in a room, you could potentially be in the rain forrest listening to a monsoon. Your imagination is now the limit. 

The way in which we will use this is that we realise it is hard to take people to a spiritual place, so why not bring the spiritual place to the person. Again the idea is that a person is on transport/sat down, they get a specific situation downloaded to their phone and get taken to a relaxing place. 

We want to incorporate the drink idea still however, this will be a way of getting people to be more enthusiastic about the idea. It is better to give people little bits at a time, the drink is a way of controlling this, each tie they get a drink, they take a picture of the QR code and they get given a relaxing scenario where they are taken to a safe place.   

Getting an idea.

We have come up with some good ideas for the RSA brief, they both revolve around the idea of people being busy and coming to work.

The first idea is something to cheer up a otherwise scary and pee soaked area of some commuters journey, this would be the underpass. Everyone hates going under these tunnels, they are viewed as a place where people get mugged, shot and beaten up. What if you could transform an underpass so more people would go under it? What if you could make people feel more relaxed and spiritual while going to work? Well it's a very early idea, but if we choose this idea we plan on selecting an underpass somewhere in or around the centre of Sheffield and setting up a dark room. Where relaxing sounds are played as relaxing words are shown on the walls through projection. As I said, early days.

The second idea we feel is much more grounded, as we keep coming back to it and adding to it. What we want to do is create a database for images by setting up a stall in each major train station in the country and give our free drinks to busy commuters that usually have the same boring daily trip. In the cup is a spiritual quote, written down the inside. While the person is reading this quote they can take a picture of the side of the cup that has a barcode on it, instantly downloading the app. Once they have finished the drink they can take a picture of the quote and it will be uploaded to the database. The database will be nothing but a mosaic of images that people have uploaded, each picture that is uploaded adds to a song.

We still need to work out what would make people want to do this, and how to possibly make them slow down as appose to them just getting our free drink and just drinking it. We need some sort of incentive or hook.

Fun is Fun

We were recently showed the work of a designer/artist that creates moments. Sound weird? I will explain, all of his designs are programs. One of these programs randomly generates images and music so that when it is viewed it is never the same thing, and that moment is lost forever, it is called Forever.

I'm looking At this not because it is randomly generated but because it is something that could potentially be part of an environmental in the future and I would love it to be, it almost looks like something from a 1980s sci-fi movie. Just watching clips in this video of the program makes me feel relaxed, if I spotted this in real like I would probably sit memorized for hours. It reminds me of snow globes, lava lamps and prophetical motion ornaments.

I've also been looking at other disruptive designs that improve peoples moods from performing everyday tasks. These are some winners and ideas from the fun theory, a competition that gets people to rethink ways of presenting everyday tasks as a more fun fresh experience.

This is an idea that it getting people to recycle more and have fun while doing it. The idea is that it works like an ordinary bottle collection machine except it behaves like a Blackpool arcade machine, you put the bottles in the corresponding holes when they light up. Simple yet effective, and it really brings people together at the same time making everyone feel better whilst having a great time. 

This does the same sort of thing, disrupting peoples boring lives and trying to make a task more fun. This idea for instance gets people to obey the speed limit by automatically entering them into a lottery when they drive under or at the speed limit. The people who speed past the camera don't get entered into the lottery but pay a fine as normal. The twist is that the lottery is made up of the combined fines of the people who have being speeding.   

This idea is my least favorite, but it seems to work. A sensor is attached to the inside of the bin and when rubbish is put in it, a sound is activated. The sound is a falling noise that gives the impression the bin is deeper than it actually is, I feel it lacks some of the charm of other ideas but as I said, it still does the job.

 This idea is trying to get people to wipe their feet before they come into a shop, when they wipe their feet it acts as if you're scratching a record. 

This idea is another recycling one, but is probably my favorite. You get your empty cans (which are currency) and recycle them within this beverage machine, then the machine gives you the chance to win another drink. 

  

Going to Church

Today was very beneficial, instead of being cooped up inside discussing what spirituality means to us, we went for a stroll. We first took a trip to the universities multi-faith rooms. Funnily enough it didn't feel spiritual at all, it just felt damn awkward, like someone had just died or farted in a lift. The colours of each room were all the same, but they were soft creams faded light blues and didn't evoke a seance of a higher purpose or being. Their was also no windows at all, just the horrible yellow glow on the walls and furniture you get from unnatural light which is quite funny considering spirituality is meant to involve nature and natural things. The main problem that I had with the multi-faith rooms were that they were tucked away right at the bottom of the university, like the university was ashamed and scared of having people express their beliefs. I've been at university for 4 years and that's the first time i knew anything of those drab depressing rooms.

This is a shot of one of the multi-faith rooms, horrible.

After being trapped for 15 minutes or so, we moved on the Sheffield's Winter Gardens, which is a massive arched greenhouse. In this greenhouse is a few nick-nack shops,a lot of exotic plants, benches, ponds and other relaxing ornaments. I do like the Winter Garden for it's massive overarching room/wall but it didn't in any way make me feel spiritual. I felt that the architecture and idea of the Winter Gardens would have worked a lot better if it wasn't slotted in between other building and was more a building on it's own. When you look out of the top of Winter Gardens you should get a feeling of inner peace and possibly a feeling of how small you are compared to the rest of everything. Instead you notice building at either side the grab away from the experience. 

This is the Winter Gardens. 

Another reason I don't think the Winter Gardens achieves it's full potential is because it feels cluttered, it's not well kept, some of the plants are dying and it's just not as clean as it could be. I feel like a spiritual place should either be clean at least. 

After the Winter Gardens we moved on to Sheffield Cathedral. As I mentioned in previous posts I'm not religious but I really appreciate the ways in which a Cathedral can make a person feel uneasy and insignificant. Just from the walk up to the Cathedral I felt like I was being watched by someone in the sky just  from the architecture of the building. Many buildings that are built for religious reasons tend to be overwhelmingly tall even by today's standards. They also mostly have spires that point towards the heavens. 

Outside.

Inside.

When we went inside the Cathedral I remember being astounded by the level of scale, it was probably only slightly taller than the Winter Gardens but was so much more effective with its use of the space. Most of the others were focused of the symbolism within the stain glass windows and statues but for me it was all about the space used. One other thing I hadn't considered until visiting the church was the use of the acoustics in the church that made you quite, if a person at the opposite end of the church coughed you heard it crystal clear at the other end, this made everyone quite not out of respect for the church but because if you were talking everyone would be able to hear what you were talking about. Another thing that made me consider sound more was a girl proceeded to sing as we entered the church, again because of the acoustics the sound carried through the church and sounded amazing, it made the hairs of the back of my neck stand on end. 

This got me thinking, the main thing that makes me feel spiritual is sound, and scale. So the project for me really has to focus on these two points in order to work. 

From talking with tutors they've helped me come to the conclusion we want to create something that will stop people in the street, and take them out of their busy lives for either 5 second or 5 minutes. With the sound elements introduced I instantly thought of this. 

This design was to encourage people to walk up stairs and be less lazy. I like it because regardless of where people are going they will stop for a while and have some fun, it is this i want to do. I want people to stop and take some time out to have fun. 

  

   

 

Walking to a lecture.

Just a quick post. Me and a friend were walking to a lecture and we were both pretty glum because we had to sit through this lecture. Then suddenly my friend spotted a stand handing out FREE chocolate.

Me being cynical I thought there would be a questionnaire or some sort of awkward silence where you feel like you should be asking about their product. There was none of that, just free delicious chocolate. We both thought nothing of this whilst we merrily walked a few feet further when we suddenly both had a realisation that we were now both happy. We both thought, if we could create some sort of environment where you could give people free stuff where (like me) nobody feels threatened to go up and grab the free item then this would make everyone happy.

I had two Ideas for this both involving the same sort of theme.

The first was to set up a stall early Monday morning when everyone is going to work, and hand out coffee which when are finished have something nice to say at the bottom of the cup.

The second was possibly encouraging people to smile somehow. Smile and get some chocolate. Even if you smile and don't mean it, it can cheer you up.

I feel strongly if a stranger does a kind deed for another then that spread happiness and happiness leads to peacefulness which for me is what spirituality is all about.

Here is an example of what I mean, these students may be having a terrible day but then this happens and turns everyone's day in the room into the best day all week.

This other example may not be about sharing but it does have the same effect on people, makes them live in the moment and puts everyone into a good frame of mind.

I would love to organise a random event to kick off on a certain day that is memorable and everyone around gets involved and just has a great time, forgetting all their troubles and is just truly happy in the moment whether that's for 5 second or 5 minutes. 

Delving deeper.

In our session today we talked about what could actually be perceived as spirituality. Some of the thoughts collected were:

Outer body experiences.
Insignificance.
Pure of Heart.
Personal.
Living in the now.
Lucid dreaming.
Not expressed in material goods.
Drugs.
Ghosts.
The unknown.
Fear.
Letting go.

I believe spirituality is a moment of clarity where pieces slot together as if they were a giant jigsaw puzzle. This can apply to anything as long as the person themselves feels it is important to them. I get this feeling when drawing sometimes, I feel so in the moment I forget that I'm alive and all I know is that I'm creating an image from my head and slapping in onto paper. Every problem seems to leave and I really am at peace.

I'd like to find a way to somehow create this feeling for all people somehow, because this feeling doesn't have any belief system attached to it just exists because the person feeling it is.

So what makes a person forget all their problems and makes them feel truly happy?

Money.
Love.
Comedy.

    

Looking into Spirituality.

There are so many religions, we have the main 4 Islam, Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism. It's very easy to look over all these other religions:

Bábism

Christianity:

CatholicismEastern Orthodoxy 

Protestantism

Gnosticism:

Christian GnosticismEarly GnosticismMedieval Gnosticism

Persian Gnosticism

Syrian-Egyptic Gnosticism

Islam:

Kalam SchoolsKharijiteShia IslamSufismSunni Islam

Judaism:

Rabbinic JudaismKaraite JudaismModern Non-Rabbinic Judaism

Rastafari movement

Mandaeans and Sabians

Samaritanism

Ayyavazhi

Bhakti movement

Buddhism

Din-i-Ilahi

Jainism

 

Meiv... and so on and so on. My own personal opinion is I dislike organised religion, I see it as a way for people to justify things that may or may not be stated in any given religious text, but that's just me. One thing about this project for example, I'm not allowed to be biased towards any religion or belief in either direction. This is going to be hard for me as I really am not religious in that sense however one thing I do believe is that we're not alone and that something has to be out there, not an after-life or an all omnipotent being, but some race more advanced and intelligent than us. That's enough of that. 

The belief that I'm more catered to if any, are the beliefs that if you area a good person you will get good things and good things will happen to you, and visa versa. Ying and Yang has always made sense to me, maybe because it seems justified somehow, "for every action there is an opposite reaction". However if I decided to base a project around this core belief it would still be siding with a belief system.