F+R Hugs : body
| Click on the images to study them |
|---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
How did this design improve life?:
Technology occurs in most of our daily activities, it defines the way we relate to others, and becomes part of who we are and how we act. Technology is often adopted for utilitarian and practical reasons but turns out to be impractical to use because it is complex without being useful. Many of the computer operating systems and devices available are designed without any quality and emotion. Humans are made of emotions and it is necessary to construct technology able to fulfill our emotional needs and express the communicative function of human interaction. Interfaces and systems must be intuitive, natural, and compatible with our emotional status. Combining emotion and technology should be part of every design process. An increasing mobility of humans throughout the globe, due to business or study reasons, has brought family members to spend most of their time apart from each other. F+R Hugs could fill this gap. Humans need physical contact with each other. An infant may sink into depression and die without the closeness of her mother’s body (studies refer of increased sudden infant death syndrome if children are not being hugged during the first 40 days of life). Adults, especially elderly people living far away from their families, deprived of tactile contact for a long period of time will tell you just how depressing it feels. A hug, a handshake, a pat on the back, and a kiss are all very important and bring us close to others, reconnect us to our memories and accentuates our present perceptions. There is an increasing need of human contact, not only for fun and pleasure, but also for improving healthcare and solve learning disabilities, that finally can be fulfilled through F+R Hugs. F+R Hugs (novelty version) has been presented at Design and Emotion Conference in 2004, and CIBERART Bilbao 2004 where it received 1st prize for Best Artistic Project, that helped for refining the prototype. We would like to manufacture this product and be able to bring it to market in 2006 and make it accessible to a larger audience. We hope that INDEX can help the further development of F+R Hugs, and make many people very happy!
Technology occurs in most of our daily activities, it defines the way we relate to others, and becomes part of who we are and how we act. Technology is often adopted for utilitarian and practical reasons but turns out to be impractical to use because it is complex without being useful. Many of the computer operating systems and devices available are designed without any quality and emotion. Humans are made of emotions and it is necessary to construct technology able to fulfill our emotional needs and express the communicative function of human interaction. Interfaces and systems must be intuitive, natural, and compatible with our emotional status. Combining emotion and technology should be part of every design process. An increasing mobility of humans throughout the globe, due to business or study reasons, has brought family members to spend most of their time apart from each other. F+R Hugs could fill this gap. Humans need physical contact with each other. An infant may sink into depression and die without the closeness of her mother’s body (studies refer of increased sudden infant death syndrome if children are not being hugged during the first 40 days of life). Adults, especially elderly people living far away from their families, deprived of tactile contact for a long period of time will tell you just how depressing it feels. A hug, a handshake, a pat on the back, and a kiss are all very important and bring us close to others, reconnect us to our memories and accentuates our present perceptions. There is an increasing need of human contact, not only for fun and pleasure, but also for improving healthcare and solve learning disabilities, that finally can be fulfilled through F+R Hugs. F+R Hugs (novelty version) has been presented at Design and Emotion Conference in 2004, and CIBERART Bilbao 2004 where it received 1st prize for Best Artistic Project, that helped for refining the prototype. We would like to manufacture this product and be able to bring it to market in 2006 and make it accessible to a larger audience. We hope that INDEX can help the further development of F+R Hugs, and make many people very happy!
Name of Designer(s):
Francesca Rosella - Ryan Genz
Francesca Rosella - Ryan Genz
Designers professional status:
Professional
Professional
Status of realization:
Realized
Realized
Kind of design:
Tangible
Tangible
Produced by:
CuteCircuit
CuteCircuit
Year of production, realization or publishing:
2004
2004
Designed in country:
United States
United States
Used on continents:
Entire World
Entire World
Short description of design:
F+R Hugs is a wearable system that allows to feel the physical closeness of a distant loved one, bringing the pleasant sensation of a hug to body and mind. Is designed to satisfy a desire shared by many people: communicate emotions to distant people we love in a tangible way.
F+R Hugs is a wearable system that allows to feel the physical closeness of a distant loved one, bringing the pleasant sensation of a hug to body and mind. Is designed to satisfy a desire shared by many people: communicate emotions to distant people we love in a tangible way.
Functionallity and use of design:
The F+R Hugs system works through a mobile phone network. F+R Hugs shirts receive the input of heart beat, touch and body temperature of the remote loved one, and output it, recreating (through actuators embedded in the shirt) the pulsation, physical pressure, and warmth of a real hug.
The F+R Hugs system works through a mobile phone network. F+R Hugs shirts receive the input of heart beat, touch and body temperature of the remote loved one, and output it, recreating (through actuators embedded in the shirt) the pulsation, physical pressure, and warmth of a real hug.
Drawbacks of life improvement:
One of the possible drawbacks of F+R Hugs system could be that of using this technology as a babysitting device for distant children, elderly, etc, adding to the emotional gap between people caused by some telecommunication technologies. We now have a great variety of computing devices to fill our pragmatic needs– but there is a gaping lack of solutions provided for the more fundamental emotional needs. Our senses and our identity are already affected by this situation, we can meet our friends every 2 years, while e-mails or phone calls keep us in touch, but being really together and physically in the same place has a different emotional impact. There is an increasing need of human contact that finally can be fulfilled through F+R Hugs system, it will be up to people to commit their time and emotion for the better use of this technology. During the user testing users really wanted to be sure the hug would be a unique and precious moment, for this reason differently from mobile phones (that allow for talking while shopping or driving), the F+R Hugs system can be used when the users are truly touching it, that means that users must commit a certain amount of their time to the others. The longer the commitment the longer the hug, and while people are hugging they cannot really do very much else.
One of the possible drawbacks of F+R Hugs system could be that of using this technology as a babysitting device for distant children, elderly, etc, adding to the emotional gap between people caused by some telecommunication technologies. We now have a great variety of computing devices to fill our pragmatic needs– but there is a gaping lack of solutions provided for the more fundamental emotional needs. Our senses and our identity are already affected by this situation, we can meet our friends every 2 years, while e-mails or phone calls keep us in touch, but being really together and physically in the same place has a different emotional impact. There is an increasing need of human contact that finally can be fulfilled through F+R Hugs system, it will be up to people to commit their time and emotion for the better use of this technology. During the user testing users really wanted to be sure the hug would be a unique and precious moment, for this reason differently from mobile phones (that allow for talking while shopping or driving), the F+R Hugs system can be used when the users are truly touching it, that means that users must commit a certain amount of their time to the others. The longer the commitment the longer the hug, and while people are hugging they cannot really do very much else.
Research and need:
F+R Hugs was designed through intensive participatory design sessions, questionnaires, interviews, iterative prototyping and body storming with 150 to 200 users in many countries and of many different nationalities, studying people behavior and emotions, to create a design respondent to all the qualities needed by users of different age and cultural groups. We involved the final users in a participatory design practice from the early stages of the design process. This technique is very valuable, it allows for faster refining of concepts and prototypes and gives the possibility to bring desirable products to market in a shorter time and with better results. During the testing users reported what they felt about hugs, such as: real live energy, lovely and happy, safety sensation, they perceived passion, pleasure and felt unstressed, relieved. The users reported a sensation of acceptance and especially that of feeling desired by others, and to perceive through the physical contact that somebody likes them. A taxonomy of hugs was developed: soft hugs come from people that take care of us: mothers, sisters, fathers, grandparents, and friends. On the emotional level a hug makes us perceive the tangible presence of the other person. The hug closeness contributes a sensation of warmth and relaxed harmony. During the hug positive natural chemicals get released within our body, our blood pressure regularizes, and stress soothes. Rhythmic hugs to let a child fall asleep produce soft vibrations that resonate and calm. Bodystorming for F+R Hugs shirts was done at every stage of the design process. Users tried at first different kind of fabric and materials wearing them on their body, inside their clothes or outside existing ones, some slept with soft furry sponges, other have been squeezing tiny cushions for hours, others explored the oddity of inflating balloons under their shirts and others liked it very much. During the hugging sessions we mapped the position of participants’ hands on the other’s body. Major intensity points were identified on upper arms, on the upper back part during a condolatory hug, around the waistline, neck, shoulders, and hips. In these strategic spots we placed our soft technological sandwiches containing the hugging output actuators.
F+R Hugs was designed through intensive participatory design sessions, questionnaires, interviews, iterative prototyping and body storming with 150 to 200 users in many countries and of many different nationalities, studying people behavior and emotions, to create a design respondent to all the qualities needed by users of different age and cultural groups. We involved the final users in a participatory design practice from the early stages of the design process. This technique is very valuable, it allows for faster refining of concepts and prototypes and gives the possibility to bring desirable products to market in a shorter time and with better results. During the testing users reported what they felt about hugs, such as: real live energy, lovely and happy, safety sensation, they perceived passion, pleasure and felt unstressed, relieved. The users reported a sensation of acceptance and especially that of feeling desired by others, and to perceive through the physical contact that somebody likes them. A taxonomy of hugs was developed: soft hugs come from people that take care of us: mothers, sisters, fathers, grandparents, and friends. On the emotional level a hug makes us perceive the tangible presence of the other person. The hug closeness contributes a sensation of warmth and relaxed harmony. During the hug positive natural chemicals get released within our body, our blood pressure regularizes, and stress soothes. Rhythmic hugs to let a child fall asleep produce soft vibrations that resonate and calm. Bodystorming for F+R Hugs shirts was done at every stage of the design process. Users tried at first different kind of fabric and materials wearing them on their body, inside their clothes or outside existing ones, some slept with soft furry sponges, other have been squeezing tiny cushions for hours, others explored the oddity of inflating balloons under their shirts and others liked it very much. During the hugging sessions we mapped the position of participants’ hands on the other’s body. Major intensity points were identified on upper arms, on the upper back part during a condolatory hug, around the waistline, neck, shoulders, and hips. In these strategic spots we placed our soft technological sandwiches containing the hugging output actuators.
