2016

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BAKU
UXUI Design, AR

Concept

Project

BAKU is an APP that would enable individuals to transform negative emotions, Monday Blues, into something fun and uplifting. I started my design journey with the story of Baku，
a mythical Japanese creature “that eats people's nightmares.” BAKU app is designed as a modern embodiment of the story and is used as an intervention for the social phenomenon of complaining.

Role

Product Designer
Researcher
UXUI Designer

Research

Problem

#MondayBlues
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Typing “#Monday blues” in twitter turns up numerous posts about feeling low-spirited, annoyed, anxious, and even fearful about facing Mondays. Monday Blue is a social problem.Countless people are affected by Monday blues. As a result, the depression and low productivity caused by blue moods lead to negative performance at work which caused $450 billion to $550 billion economy damage per annum.  2/3 of the US workers are not engaged to their work which contributes to Monday Blues.

Insights

01/
A blue mood in the morning may lead to bad performance at work.

02/
A bad working environment contributes to Monday Blues problems.

03/
Employee engagement is an overlooked issue.

Story of BAKU

BAKU is a dream eater that eats people's nightmares. When people wakeup from a nightmare, they can summon BAKU to suck the nightmare away so that the nightmare will no longer bother them.


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Methodology

In order to build the inner connection between the BAKU story and Monday Blues solution, I deconstructed the story and map out its logic in story arc. Then as a way to analysis the real world problem, I uesed the structure of BAKU story to map out Monday Blues problem. Based on the storyline of Monday Blues, I tried to find out the method and philosophy of how BAKU solve nightmare problems. Inspired by how the dream eater brings peace mood and take away bad experience, I mapped our the value propositions of my solution to Monday Blues.

Solution

Goal

A fast, private and convenient way to cheer people up when they are in blue mood. Transform negative emotions to something visible and measurable to rise self-awareness. Turn negative into positive. Rise the awareness of working environment conditions

Ideation

People feel better after complaint.

Complaining is one of the easiest ways to vent negative emotions.

Sitemap

Persona and Scenarios

Wireframes

Mood Board

Early Exploration

Prototype

User Test

Feedback

I got feedback from users by looking at both physical and digital interaction with users.

"There was a moment when I wanted to save the balloon and keep my complaint."
"I don't want to kill them."

Comments like these inspired me to look for other ways of dealing with the complaints that would build on human interaction and empathy to transform negative into positive or to simply set BAKU free( rather than destroying it).

Final Design

next project

Smart Home App

Qi Ziyun

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