I asked them to explore the ways in which people currently 'hold on' to memories and why they do so. I asked them to explore situations where people would instead 'let go' of memories and how this could improve experiences. The conversations were very open ended, based on general questions and themes were explored in an unstructured way. I allowed participators to talk and explore their own ideas. Feedback from me was solely in a developmental fashion: to agree or to disagree and take the conversation forward to an unknown destination. The conversations were discreetly recorded.
This conversations were not only an exploration of the concept, but also a test whether users could relate to it and understand it and find a way that it could apply to their own lives.
The first conversation was between myself and Janelle, 21. The conversation was brainstormed. It was very unstructured and minimal prompting was required to drive the short discussion forward.
She explored the way that in an effort to capture and store 'the moment', you are arguably not IN the moment. In a way transient memory could force individuals to stop trying to cling onto memories, and instead enjoy the experience itself. She suggested the creation of an experience where people are not trying to 'take away' anything. Transient experiences are naturally more susceptible to false memory, but it doesn't necessarily matter as long as the people are able to fully engage with the experience. 'Once people know that they cant hold onto this memory, then they can stop focusing on that and free up their mind to just enjoy it.... changing peoples mindsets and focusing the moment, and now'. 'Maybe instead of a product to sell... make something for the public to see... make something to lift people up.... when people see certain things it makes people happy... stop trying to think about tomorrow....'. It is interesting how transient memory is about the future, not just the past.
Could i design a transient experience? Something to make people think about 'letting go'... Below is the sound recording.
listen to ‘Janelle ’ on Audioboo
Below is a diagram of the process of moving from the edge of an experience to being inside the experience as suggested by the participant. It is interesting how it has been drawn with boundaries, which represent both time and space to me i.e. the duration of the experience as well as the physical boundaries of it.
The next conversation was with Margaret, 53 and Marcel, 19 jointly.
The discussion was of sunsets and skyscrapers: how sometimes an experience is meant to be enjoyed but when you attempt to capture it, you are almost reformatting it into what you want it to be instead of what it really was. Perhaps this is the creation of false memory: when you edit something, you change it. For this reason i have not edited the recordings.
Capturing a moment is sometimes a very contrived thing, and you attempt to capture the best of it, rather than what it actually was i.e. trying to get the best camera angle and the right lighting conditions. 'You're meant to just see it and enjoy it... not dissect it and break it down... the minute you try to break it down you lose it... the experience just becomes your judgement of it'.
The third conversation a one-to-one conversation between Margaret and myself. It was about the reasons why people might try to hold onto things rather than letting them go. Margaret said that people don't want their lives to be meaningless, and they want to be remembered. Collecting things and physical memories are 'Ways of giving us some kind of eternal aspect', of permanence. I then asked the question 'what if we didn't do that?'. In response she said 'there is a lack of meaningfulness... the memory would be there, but there is a lack of connectivity to them... the memories are placed within objects which can give an idea of continuum, and if you didn't have any external memory, your memories over time would fail...'.
Memento's spark memories, and if they didn't exist would we forget them? In times where there were no photographs or videos, where there were just oral stories which naturally change as they are handed over she described it as 'creativity'. This natural change and 'false' memory may be just that, creativity.
http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/11/you_can_create_a_false_memory.php A phenomena titled 'boundary extension' in which we automatically extend the boundaries of visual input i.e. making up visual information which isn't there.
'Boundary extension is a phenomenon we've discussed a lot on Cognitive Daily. It's typically described as a memory error: We remember scenes as having bigger boundaries than what we originally saw. If you only saw picture A by itself, then later you'd remember seeing a picture that looks more like picture B. Intraub and Dickinson say this suggests that boundary extension is a fundamental part of the process of visual perception. While it's related to memory in the sense that memory is required to build a complete visual representation of a scene, it's occurring literally as fast as we perceive the scene.'
False memory enables us to 'situate' a scene more effectively and therefore identify with and remember it better. It is a form of creativity; we fill in the blanks. False memory isn't necessarily a bad thing; it exists in so many forms in the human cognitive system.
Below is a diagram of the process of moving from the edge of an experience to being inside the experience as suggested by the participant. It is interesting how it has been drawn with boundaries, which represent both time and space to me i.e. the duration of the experience as well as the physical boundaries of it.
The discussion was of sunsets and skyscrapers: how sometimes an experience is meant to be enjoyed but when you attempt to capture it, you are almost reformatting it into what you want it to be instead of what it really was. Perhaps this is the creation of false memory: when you edit something, you change it. For this reason i have not edited the recordings.
Capturing a moment is sometimes a very contrived thing, and you attempt to capture the best of it, rather than what it actually was i.e. trying to get the best camera angle and the right lighting conditions. 'You're meant to just see it and enjoy it... not dissect it and break it down... the minute you try to break it down you lose it... the experience just becomes your judgement of it'.
The third conversation a one-to-one conversation between Margaret and myself. It was about the reasons why people might try to hold onto things rather than letting them go. Margaret said that people don't want their lives to be meaningless, and they want to be remembered. Collecting things and physical memories are 'Ways of giving us some kind of eternal aspect', of permanence. I then asked the question 'what if we didn't do that?'. In response she said 'there is a lack of meaningfulness... the memory would be there, but there is a lack of connectivity to them... the memories are placed within objects which can give an idea of continuum, and if you didn't have any external memory, your memories over time would fail...'.
Memento's spark memories, and if they didn't exist would we forget them? In times where there were no photographs or videos, where there were just oral stories which naturally change as they are handed over she described it as 'creativity'. This natural change and 'false' memory may be just that, creativity.
FALSE MEMORY=CREATIVITY?
'Boundary extension is a phenomenon we've discussed a lot on Cognitive Daily. It's typically described as a memory error: We remember scenes as having bigger boundaries than what we originally saw. If you only saw picture A by itself, then later you'd remember seeing a picture that looks more like picture B. Intraub and Dickinson say this suggests that boundary extension is a fundamental part of the process of visual perception. While it's related to memory in the sense that memory is required to build a complete visual representation of a scene, it's occurring literally as fast as we perceive the scene.'
False memory enables us to 'situate' a scene more effectively and therefore identify with and remember it better. It is a form of creativity; we fill in the blanks. False memory isn't necessarily a bad thing; it exists in so many forms in the human cognitive system.
'NO PHOTO ZONE'
This was the product of a conversation between myself, Margaret and Marcel.
It started off discussing what if photos were still very expensive-would we have less of them? Children now have lots more photographs taken of them than say 100 years ago. If we had less of them would we value them more? My two users say 'yes'.
I suggested that there would be a 'no photo zone' in London. Marcel said that there would be a different kind of person there-the type who wanted to enjoy the experience for what it was. A zone like that could intrigue people, and draw people in... like in a museum in an area where you couldn't take photographs. People always want to do what you tell them not to. Margaret says that 'we are very aware of the finite nature of things so want to commemorate them'... Marcel disagreed and said that 'we take a lot of things for granted... when something is threatened, THEN we are interested in it'. Applied to making memories transient, it might make people more interested in something.
listen to ‘no photo zone’ on Audioboo
How to enforce a no photo zone? Does it need to be enforced or should it just be up-to the participators? It forms part of designing a transient experience for experiences sake.
Below: an early NO PHOTO ZONE sketch. Its intention was to demonstrate the concept. I have brought false memory into it in one way-where everyone can experience it different or to design slightly different things that can only be seen/experienced at certain physical locations.
How to enforce a no photo zone? Does it need to be enforced or should it just be up-to the participators? It forms part of designing a transient experience for experiences sake.
Below: an early NO PHOTO ZONE sketch. Its intention was to demonstrate the concept. I have brought false memory into it in one way-where everyone can experience it different or to design slightly different things that can only be seen/experienced at certain physical locations.
listen to ‘no photo zone’ on Audioboo
Finally was a discussion suggested by Marcel about 'what if people werent allowed to comment on their own experiences for a day'. Margaret suggested that when forming a judgement of an experience, we are in fact judging it and critiquing it which can be a negative process. She suggested that we might become happier as we might not see the benefits of a thing.
The things that i will take away from these conversations are the ways in which you can design an experience that cannot be captured or taken away, and to encourage users to fully commit to an experience and possibly have a positive effect on people for a day or for longer than that. In not reformatting our memories we are not judging them and in not attempting to capture memories we may not lose a part of them. False memory is also not a bad thing, and people will naturally always experience things differently. It could also be considered to be creative. Letting people know that they cant capture a memory may encourage them to fully engage with it. It can be applied to other aspects of peoples lives, and make a comment on many peoples instinct to hold onto things. It may be contradictory to human nature; this 'letting go'.
I am employing aspects of a user-centric design model in which users form the central part of all decision making. I believe that engaging users in the project at a conceptual level is can be very valuable and can help a designer to explore avenues of thought which cant just come from a single person. I found this exercise extremely useful.
Finally was a discussion suggested by Marcel about 'what if people werent allowed to comment on their own experiences for a day'. Margaret suggested that when forming a judgement of an experience, we are in fact judging it and critiquing it which can be a negative process. She suggested that we might become happier as we might not see the benefits of a thing.
The things that i will take away from these conversations are the ways in which you can design an experience that cannot be captured or taken away, and to encourage users to fully commit to an experience and possibly have a positive effect on people for a day or for longer than that. In not reformatting our memories we are not judging them and in not attempting to capture memories we may not lose a part of them. False memory is also not a bad thing, and people will naturally always experience things differently. It could also be considered to be creative. Letting people know that they cant capture a memory may encourage them to fully engage with it. It can be applied to other aspects of peoples lives, and make a comment on many peoples instinct to hold onto things. It may be contradictory to human nature; this 'letting go'.
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