EMBRELLA
OCT 2014 - DEC 2014 / Semester 1, MA: Design Informatics- Personal Project
Master Research Topic -Empathy and Design，Series 1
Embrella is an affective umbrella that can know which person near you needs your help. On a rainy day, when a person without an umbrella approaches you, a green light on the Embrella will turn on.
Embrella is not designed for helping people but showing some little empathy to others without paying too much effort.
Why empathy is important?
The best part of empathy is that a person feels and relates to another’s emotions and thoughts without any of these directly communicated to the person. Empathy has great relevance as a communication skill. Communicators can instantly relate to their audience and share their emotions. It is this sense of inspiration and mutual understanding that creates a rapport between the speaker and his audience.
Project Background
Chinese visitors please use this link :) http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTI4OTIzMjI2NA==.html?from=y1.7-1.2
The video describes the phenomenon that happens a lot in our daily life, but how to explain this kind of phenomenon?
Research Context
Why is asking for help so difficult?
There are many reasons people fear requesting assistance, primary among them not wanting to seem weak, needy or incompetent.
Other reasona such as fear of rejection, fear of being a burden and belief that we should not have to ask for help.
But actually, people fear of asking for help. However people love to offer help.
Prosocial Behavior
A 2005 British study shows that bystanders are more likely to help strangers in distress when they recognize such strangers as belonging to a common group.
There are two motives for helping: our desires for mastery (emotional rewards) and concrete rewards, and connectedness with others.
Sharing Economy
The sharing economy (sometimes also referred to as the peer-to-peer economy, mesh, collaborative economy, collaborative consumption) is a socio-economic system built around the sharing of human and physical resources.
Gift Economy
In the exchange process, the giver does not have any requirements and expectations of getting any value in return.
Gift Economy is a model for collaborative community.
Design Opportunity
Why do people ignore what is in front of them?
Such as in a rainy day, lots of people have no umbrellas are waiting for help.
"Because becoming involved takes a completely different type of courage. When you stand up for a bully victim, you are intentionally putting yourself into harms way.”
--- Charlie Davidson
Design Practice
What if the person with umbrella offered help –“would you like to share my umbrella with me?”, instead of making the person without the umbrella ask for help.
Green Light: A signal for the best time to help.
It works when the following conditions are met simultaneously
• Only works when the Embrella is opening
• Rain is heavy enough
• A person is approaching Embrella (Distance < 1.2m )
• The person is approaching has no umbrella
Data Visulization
Figure1: Data from Water Sensor
Figure2: Data from Ultrasonic Ranger Sensor
Figure3: Data Analysis from Two Sensors (Water Sensor and Ultrasonic Ranger Senser)