If someone were to ask you a very vulgar question out of the blue, you would probably feel both startled and shocked. This is how it can feel when a child with autism is faced with tasks, questions and feelings that would feel normal to the averagely functioning person. Autism is a neurological disability that makes it difficult for the autistic person to express their emotions in words, which in some cases lead to frustration and anger or muteness. Both can be difficult for others to understand or cope with. At the moment, there is no aid for this communication problem.
We were faced with a brief that was brief in its true meaning: create the UI for an app on the theme "Future" and "Color". Both me and the classmate that I finished this project with agreed that we wanted to create something that would aid people with special needs of some sort. With inspiration from the classic mood rings of the seventies and real life experiences of close ones who's living with autism and aspergers, MoodWatch was born.
Timeline: October - November 2019
Role: UX Designer, Project leader, Copywriter
Created in: Figma
Moodwatch is meant to be worn by the child and monitored and used by the parent, guardian, teacher and/or health professional. It is meant to eliminate communication via words when needed and instead add a visual cue. The idea is that the watch reads the child's body temperature, pulse, and tone of voice to accurately decide how they're feeling. The watch itself only displays the color while the app displays all necissary information. We thought it'd be great if the watch could learn the child's mood patterns over time and with machine learning predict how the chid might be feeling next via notifications in the app.
You need an account in order to use MoodWatch. This is to make it possible for several adults to use it. After logging in the first time, the app asks to pair the Moodwatch.
When successful, the app will tell you how to use it. It describes the which emotion correlates to which color and it tells you about body temperature. Body temperature affects the pulse, so it could give varied results in the app, and being cold or warm are also emotions that a child on the spectrum might have problems expressing.
The main frame would update continuously and show both the emotion the child is experiencing and information about their pulse, body temperature and tone of voice (disclaimer: we are no health professionals and the information depicted here probably has much room for improvement).
To ease the usage of the app and the getting-to-know-process of the child there is a profile section. There is also a timeline where earlier experienced emotions are listed, with the possibility of adding a note to each listing, writing in what situation the emotion sprung up. Our intention is that this would help the app and the watch to get to know the child's patterns and also learn in what situations the child might experience negative emotion to be prepared for that further on.
Over time it teaches adults around the child to get to know the child's needs and act faster. It teaches children in the child's proximity to not dismiss them, but to have a greater understanding, as the watch is both a visual cue and a conversation starter.
We realise that the technology might not be there yet. If something like this would be built today, the results you'd get from the watch might not be accurate. However, since one of the themes of this brief were "Future" we allowed ourselves to experiment with the thought of that this someday could be possible.
We also realise that feelings are complex and that it is possible to experience mixed emotions. Perhaps not using solid colors but instead using gradients would solve this. The time we had was too short to further look into this. The app is meant to be used as a complement, an aid to help getting to know the child faster, not a set solution, but we realise that despite this the app has room for improvement in this area.
Our idea is that the product could be used in other areas of health care as well. We especially thought it could benefit dementia patients and their loved ones and nurses, as dementia patients often have similar issues with expressing emotions as people on the spectrum do.
