Project: Memento

Group: Daniel, Michelle, Safei

For our project, we are going to be making a tangible memento to track shared social experiences in a relationship. Below is a diagram for the information architecture.

As an example use case:
Two people in a relationship (parent-child, best friends, siblings, partners, etc.) who care about each other want to capture their shared experiences together so they can remember them later.
One person will get a pair of Mementos and give one to a person they care about, and keep the other.
These Mementos will be with the person at all times, and activate when they are near each other.
When these Mementos are activated, they capture information about the scene around them: if there is music, movement, light, geolocation.
These mementos then display a visual representation of the experience.
As experiences are captured and added onto previous experiences, creating a beautiful visual of the relationship.
When the two are apart, they always have these beautiful visuals of their time together, and they have incentive to hang out again soon to add more visuals to their relationship display.

This can be compared to the Pousman and Stasko ambient design principles (see image below).
The Information Capacity of the Memento is High: it is capturing multiple input from the user and the environment: geolocation, photosensitivity, movement, sound, and if the device is near others.
The Notification Level is Medium: the device exists primarily to showcase the relationship between the users, but can notify the users if they are not spending enough time together or opportunities to spend time together.
The Representational Fidelity is Somewhat High: the Memento does not display exact geo coordinates of the location or time of day spent together, but rather may change color or shape based on these features to represent them in a different way.
The Aesthetic Emphasis is Somewhat High: the device captures aspects of the relationship and displays them beautifully so users can reflect on their relationship and be reminded of the time they spent together from these abstract forms.