In the Fall of 2019, I submitted my application to be a part of the next cohort for a selective program at USC called Innovation in Engineering and Design for Global Crises. This unconventional year-long class guides students through a human-centered process to design products, services, and technologies to help solve the needs of people affected by global crises. Lives not grades, the motto of the class, really resonated with me. I had heard about the work done by the students the year prior, and their travels to Greece during the peak of the Syrian refugee crisis, and knew I wanted to be a part of building something that actually mattered. The global challenge my cohort was tasked to solve for ended up being the global pandemic we were experiencing at the time. Instead of traveling across the globe to immerse ourselves in someone else’s challenges, we had the unique opportunity to be the target audience.
TEAM: Amartya Ranganathan, Chloe Keywell, Isabel Bluml, Jena Tran, Maansi Manchanda
MY ROLE: User research, prototyping, product management
Discovery
In order to gain a holistic understanding of new challenges in the context of the pandemic, we engaged in both primary and secondary research. Through in-depth interviews and anonymized questionnaires sent out to users from Reddit, family, and friends we set out to learn more about unemployment, exacerbated addictions, and family life.
Key observations
The repercussions of unemployment caused by the pandemic result in people losing a sense of control, forcing them to change their daily routines without any present or future stability.
Unstructured solitude caused people recovering from addiction to relapse due to the lack of distractions, obligations, and stable relationships.
Confined home environments lead to the integration of work, school, and home life, causing friction between family members.
Definition
At the time, I was living in LA while my entire family and loved ones were all back in India. Synthesizing and condensing all our research made us realize, that folks were suddenly expected to stay calm through having to lose family members, not knowing when things were going to be better, and waiting for vaccines to come around all while being socially isolated from their support systems.
Scientifically, we also learned, that breathwork is an extremely effective technique for self-managing anxiety. Breathing is like our body’s own Swiss Army Knife; It can release stress, lower blood pressure, and even help control heart rate.
From the 114 people we surveyed, we found that the majority of them noted that their biggest mental health struggle throughout the pandemic has been the constant anxious thoughts, an increase in stress, and the loneliness of being stuck at home.
People responded that exercise, mindfulness apps (Calm, Headspace), and talking with family or friends were helpful. We also found that screen time had only increased during the pandemic. We were constantly on our devices, never really getting a break. Combining these two observations, it was important to also create something that was not on a screen to provide the option to really disconnect and we started exploring possible wearable technologies.
Development
Some of our initial sketches for digital and physical product ideation
The first part of our solution is an app where the users can convene with their friends to participate in a synchronized breathing exercise. Users can choose to either hop into a breathing room alone, with anonymous users, or send out a notification to their friends to ask them to breathe together. Inside the breathing room, the flame lights up to a box breathing exercise. At the bottom of the screen, it also shows you how many people are in the room breathing with you, reminding you that you’re not alone. We worked with a team of CS students for their capstone project to produce a fully functioning prototype of the app, and my role was to be their product manager and weekly stakeholder to achieve delivery within our projected timelines.
Delivery
Bubble is a cross-platform solution. The app links up to a bracelet that lights up when other people join and shows the breathing exercise for you to follow along. This animation demonstrates a breathing cycle on the bracelet. For each set of four beads, you alternate between inhaling and exhaling, and then holding your breath for four seconds. We worked with EE master’s students to supplement our prototyping efforts and used our $5000 stipend to compensate for their time and expense materials.
Different versions of our prototype of the bracelet with an addressable LED strip. Some of the essential parts of the bracelet are the lights themselves, the transceiver for Bluetooth communication, and a rechargeable battery mechanism. Some 3D renderings, interactions in p5.js show the actual structure of the bracelet with the goal to design an encasing that discretely hides all our working parts, is affordable, and is also attractive.