JINBLOG

Question: As I show the project to more people, simply introduce the title, some people will think that I do this to improve the efficiency of the following work, but I think about the problem from the overall happiness. It is to have a better mood and experience as a whole. How can people not associate work efficiency with rest?

Resting through nature never means letting everyone focus on nature to make a thorough mood transformation. Natural elements can be integrated into various rest activities, natural element music can be integrated into yoga, meditation, and the scene can be integrated in videos, video games, home furnishings. I think people who like pets or dancing should also be more inclined to have more interaction in nature from rest, so my subsequent intervention can be like this.

1, Find the stakeholder and ask everyone about the way they currently use for short breaks between work/study and the existing interactive scenes.
2.Try to investigate different scenes to replace the degree of preference, such as science fiction, industry, nature, electronic nature.
3.Ask about your preference for electronic nature and real nature; people need to consider money, space, transportation costs, etc.
4.Finally, I will ask whether this intervention makes the audience feel that their rest needs more natural participation.

After the intervention, I think that the audience will have an attitude towards nature faster so that the simple and step-by-step approach can be well promoted.

I have conducted some research on different ways of rest. However, attention restoration is still worth mentioning. Some people have suggested that sleeping can better relieve physical fatigue but cannot divert people’s attention at work. Although social media or chatting and other methods have diverted attention, the brain will continue to function without a good rest effect, so how to integrate nature into truly appropriate relaxation is crucial.

Fatigue of the eye can be released by looking outside the window for the eye fatigue problem, but the research shows that closed eyes and distant views play the same role in resting eyes. There are many stakeholders in the previous experiments of setting natural wallpaper and bird’s alarm clock. They sent me a picture of outside the window, which was very chaotic and noisy. One person mentioned that she felt more relaxed after seeing the photos of the scenery she had traveled before.

How to try to make people better close their eyes with nature is also a question that needs to be considered in the future.

I begin to think about how nature could suitably attract people’s attention; after research, I try to make it gentle and give people more space, so I have an idea to make people always feel that nature around them by their phone or computer.

1. Take a photo after carefully observing the scenery outside the window
2. Set as wallpaper
3. The mobile phone ringtone is set to the bird’s ring every hour of the working interval

I test it with 5people who always work or study in their home.

Feedback needs to improve:

1. There are significant differences between different mobile phones, so you can’t do too detailed guidance.
2. When it’s busiest, everyone hardly pays attention to the wallpaper.
3. At this stage of the experiment, I think the difference and uncontrollability of electronic products are too significant, but my title is to solve problems with electronic products; how can it continue?

Good part:

1. One people’s window views terrible, so she uses a travel view before making her mood better when she sees it.
2. If the software creates more links, people will have a more authentic feeling. The wallpaper used by one audience will pop up with his name and greetings, making him feel very cordial.

But one of the most critical problems is it’s hard for almost half people from my first intervention until now (about 15 people) to feel that nature can do this well, maybe after I show them some articles or evidence, they will improve the feeling. But I need to make people feel the reasonable thing is easier to get. Also, some people have some way to solve it, so my natural way needs to have some particular point or advantages, do some test and get an easier promote way?

So next step is to make people accept it first and then keep making it work better, so it’s time to move back.

MARCH

1.Regarding the healing effect of nature, many manufacturers package it and sell it at high prices (organic food). Still, the power of the brand is persuasive and can be used to promote publicity.

APRIL

2.Trying to get people to accept that a brand is not as good as directly cutting in from the target user’s most commonly used computer to influence users, so I started my research on screens. After investigation, I find two things necessary, attention restoration and a combination of online &offline. I also considered and did research about create surprise for people to have more willing to participate.

MAY

I talked with my stakeholders and target audience about some plans, the main feedbacks are: make the way friendly, let the ‘nature elements’ appeared on specific time and why we couldn’t just have a sleep for 10 minutes.

Obviously, I didn’t combine these well. My current approach may be very friendly, but why can’t I leave the screen? Maybe my action should be naturally integrated into life instead of requiring people to invest too deliberately.

（5.26 practice in campu)

So the combination of all parts is: Create a kind of nature interval combined online and offline , and make people value it through brand packaging.

A branding about nature interval?

About the workshop, I tried to hold it online and show it to a group of remote workers; it will be online because when people feel fatigued, they are always locked in the building. But the way also makes it irrational because I try to put it all online, so enhance the offline part is an essential thing to do.

This is a simple way but hard to make sense to all remote workers? So here need a reference to support. Another question about it is, do I need a more specific group to do the test? What is a suitable random?

Anyway, my point is to break the working process to make the interval, the before steps show that the way needs to be friendly enough. so the next step is about: 

1. combination of authentic nature and screen.
2. A pleasant way to create the interval.
3. More references from different stakeholders.

I will also try to simulate more interventions to discuss the possibilities.

In the beginning, in Project0 and 1, I tried to show something exciting and creative. Before the experience, I think that communication and attractiveness are essential ，, but I started to forget this in the following steps. SO how to make my project creative and not just like an only solution for temporary something I need to think more about in the future?

I also need to rethink the content in the Spring lab; I’m always not sure how to get the balance of Interest, good at and essential， but if I could get clear about it, things will go simple.

I used to experiment with familiar people before. I should increase publicity and promote it to more stakeholders and target audiences.
So I think it’s necessary to establish a platform; I have some ideas about its functions.

1. Establish a natural music library and video library, or just a reference web list (cooperate with stakeholders)
2. Organise target audiences to draw together or write down moments when nature relaxes themselves and used for phone wallpaper https://www.autodraw.com
3. Find the corresponding music or video and let people set it in the mobile phone program of the video alarm clock.

About the no.2, how to mobilise the creative desire of the target group and give them a sense of accomplishment is what I want to explore. In 2019, I tried to combined kite flying and painting, which successfully tried to integrate personal creativity and outdoor sports; maybe that could be a future reference. Still, this time I will also consider online possibilities. Wallpaper is not the final plan; this part also needs to think and change, but combined nature and active artistic creation will not be wrong.

1.On the premise of staring at the computer, leaving the screen may be a better decompression.

2.The form of pop-up ads is a test of personal taste. Some people like cute ones, while others like real ones.

I also tired nature sound list and shared to 7 people who are working and learning remotely recently before , I asked people to try for two days and give feedback.

I get some useful feedback from that:

1.The sounds of nature make me feel refreshed, and it is easier for me to imagine what I am in and really want to go out in my mind.

2.This makes me want to sleep. I think it’s a good way to calm people down, but I only want to hear it when I need to rest, not when I’m most motivated to start work.

Based on these two points, I realised that people need to temporarily leave the screen and need a very suitable time for the sound to appear. The image of the natural scene can be used more as a kind of inheritance. People can choose to click and watch, or just listen to the sound and get up and walk around.

So I went back to the original method and tried to make some improvements. I replaced the alarm sound with natural music and set a reasonable time to better integrate the Pomodoro Technique with natural and personal work and rest.

The natural sound of the alarm clock does make people feel instant relaxation and natural intervals, which is good, but these software have differences, so I think the easiest way is to directly use the mobile phone alarm clock to set the natural sound.

I think of two directions of future intervention. One is to let people’s minds exist and strengthen the concept of proper rest interval and natural contact during working hours. Another is to attract people’s voluntary attention through electronic screens to create opportunities for rest. About this,  a combination of pop-up advertisements will be an option. Some software commonly used in work can be used as cooperation platforms, and occasionally a tiny window simulation software will pop up in the corner of the software and shows the change between the interface and the natural scene.  Time change could also be showed from these nature videos so that people are more sensitive to the concept of rest time.   I  need to find a relatively balanced model to test people’s acceptance of ‘pop-up ads.’

We could check the part in the bottom right corner，and then go for a one minute’s trip by a video like:

I share the idea to some stakeholders, they think this could be an interesting way, one of them say if she really like the view she will remain it until have time to check, but they pointed out more problems:

1. The way is a little bit ‘aggressive’, one new information will make the brain in that situation more messy.
2. Sometimes people fell tired may because of the computer can’t work so well, pop-up ads may make the computer go worse.
3. Mental fatigue is often caused by working overtime at night, making people realize that the passage of time is more important.

Based on the three feedback , I think I need to make two main changes, One is to attract people in a gentler way，and the other is to have more room for people to choose. From these, I think of the desktop assistant that was once popular, and it may be a new possibility to combine it with nature.

This desktop assistant is often a kind of gentle existence and can better play the role of companionship. I think I can set the table name assistant as a tree (including coconut tree or cactus), and change it through the fall of leaves or the appearance of squirrels. In order to attract people to interact.

Based on the last interview I started to try some preliminary ideas for intervention measures, and found some references:

1. Pomodoro Technique（ todo list and timer)

This method is good but it is mainly aimed at creating gaps, but not about the content. Based on my natural theme, I would try to make the content in the middle more specific.

2: Set an alarm and watch natural videos at a specific time.

I tried this method, and it really worked well, but the process of watching ads(in YouTube) and searching in the early stage still made me feel a bit cumbersome, so it needs to be simplified, so I think searching and ads part need to be simplified or cancelled.

3: Try to help others open a specific video at a specific timeWhen relaxing:

a.This effect is not so good for others, because they don’t feel the need for such a degree of rest

b.When busy, people will feel that it is unnecessary and has no time, It will be better to have a complete rest after a thorough work.(?)

There are more problems with this strategy. Firstly, it creates unnecessary interpersonal contact. Secondly, it makes it difficult for people to have a choice, and the operation is deliberate. So what I need to do is to make things happen more natural?

Previous research and interviews made me realised that I should pay more attention to remote work rather than in a supervised office environment, it’s different two thing. so this time my interview focused more on real remote workers. So I interviewed some people and tried to summarize the commonalities.

I have done interviews about people’s rest effects on nature in the Project 3, so this time I mainly focused on the rest itself. The subsequent intervention can be more combined with the two interviews.（The following points of view come from designers, media, and advertising related practitioners）

1. Sometimes it is difficult to realise that need to rest.

2. Sometimes the rest time does not have a good rest effect.（ For example, sometimes reading controversial news during a break can make people even more helpless） .

3.Resting is often not very effective at the beginning and end, and the process in between is the most relaxing.

I concluded from the feedback:

1. Some dedicated workers need to be passively reminded about rest.
2. The rest itself should be more pure.

However, it remains to be verified that the middle of the rest process is the most effective. This part’s help to my project mainly lies in the design of the later content. I think this part can be temporarily retained and studied later?