SUMMARY
We designed an audience engagement event to mitigate Londoner's loneliness.
BRIEF
Design a way to mitigate the effects of loneliness
BACKGROUND
Loneliness as a new global epidemic can harm people’s physical and mental health and behaviour. The outbreak of the epidemic and lockdown cut off normal social interaction and physical contact and exacerbate the growth of loneliness.
Project Goals
Attention should be paid to the study of loneliness effects
The exploration of various creative or experimental approaches
The experimentation with a range of physical materials and digital technologies
Not to solve or get rid of loneliness but as a way to mitigate or counterbalance.
Research Method
APPROACH
To gather insights on the current loneliness experience from different people, literature reviews and benchmarket (competitor research), with a focus on both causes and effects of loneliness.
Research Methods
Literature Review
Target Audience Interviews
Prototyping
Directly Storytelling
Benchmarking Analysis
Target Group
Over 8 million people live in London, which means 5,701 people per square kilometre. Despite its large population, London has always been considered one of the loneliest cities. Therefore, we targeted our project at the people of London.
Key Findings
Literature Review
1. Creative activities help to alleviate loneliness
2. Doing acts of kindness can help ease loneliness
3. Four main interventions to reduce loneliness (Masi et al., 2010):
I. Improving social skills
II. Enhancing social support
III. Increasing opportunities for social interaction
IV. Addressing abnormal social cognition
Directly Storytelling
The causes and effects of loneliness are diverse and vary from person to person. Lockdown period can increase feelings of loneliness, mainly due to the lack of physical contact and material sensations.
Target Audience Interviews
Loneliness comes mainly from a lack of social connection, bonding and communication. Loneliness can cause anxiety, isolation, low self-esteem, etc.
Benchmark Analysis
As the target group is different, each product will have different features for alleviating loneliness.
Field interviews
Key Focus Areas
How can we raise public awareness of the issue of loneliness and lonely people?
How can we improve the social connection, bonding and communication between the city and its citizens?
What can we externalize the feeling of loneliness?
Lo-fi Prototype
Key Focus Areas
What is the key to countering loneliness?
How to make it easier for people to engage socially?
Lo-fi prototype feedback
FINAL IDEA
Create social connection by / between / within digital and physical.
I AM INVISIBLE -> I AM IN, VISIBLE
The slogan conveys two main metaphors: “I” can refer to lonely person, who are invisible, but through the intervention of others they will be seen and full of care and positive; “I” can also refer to loneliness itself, which is invisible, but through open activities, it will be seen by more people.
Result
This is an incredible experience. We succeeded in attracting the attention of more than 100 pedestrians, not only young people, but also old people and children. The clear introduction and simple interaction greatly increased their participation rate. We can directly observe the smile and joy of each participant after throwing the ball, and this behavior and positive will affect and infect the surrounding people.
Also during the interview, we noticed people were reflecting their own stories of loneliness during the experience. Furthermore, people were very pleased to be involved in the experience asking about the next location on Instagram.
This project is far more than just drawing the public’s attention to loneliness, but creating a sharing platform that connects the entire community. This platform will stimulate contagious discussions and reflections. Loneliness should not be confronted by one person, but by the entire community, city and society.
Learning
1 Simple Option Is Better Than Many
When you're communicating your process and solutions to a user or participant who isn't always the key decision maker, it's important to keep your points clear and concise enough for easy re-communication. Even though this user may appreciate the extra displayed effort, it can muddy the waters when feedback comes back out.
© Yiwei Han 2023.06