Meemo And Cueco

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HELLO !
This report is the documentation of our summer internship project at The Social Body Lab
of OCAD University, Toronto, Canada (www.ocadu.ca). Were were design interns in the lab
under the guidance of Professor Kate Hartman, who is an internationally renowned
Wearable technology expert. The chosen area for the project is ‘Wearable design’
in context of Self talking, which is referred as ‘Automatic thoughts’ in Cognitive
Psychology.
The main focus of the internship was to learn the various approaches to wearable
design; it is primarily an exploratory project. We took up two different approaches and
made a series of prototypes to validate the idea. The intention of the internship was not
to develop a final product but to develop various functional prototypes to demonstrate
the possibilities in this new product space and in that process, understand the design for
wearability.
The concept of having an audio journal emerged from our personal experience of we
talking to ourselves quite frequently and in most cases, such self-talk sessions
have resulted in immense clarity. So the project began with the investigative question
of “what if we could capture one’s self talk sessions and help them self reflect?”

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About the lab...........................................................................................7
Project Team............................................................................................8
Acknowledgments.................................................................................9
Part : I Wearable Audio Journal: Meemo......................................11
The Idea: Function and Intent..........................................................12
Research : User Interviews and Precedent Study.......................13
Functional Prototypes.........................................................................14
Mobile Application...............................................................................20
Scope of the Product...........................................................................22
Part II: Conceptual Approach: Cueco.............................................25
Concept Ideas.........................................................................................26
Form Explorations.................................................................................27
Conceptual Prototypes........................................................................30
Conclusion...............................................................................................33
OCAD UNIVERSITY
TORONTO, CANADA

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About the Lab
The Social Body Lab takes the human body as a starting point from which to consider how
humans interface with and relate to the world around them. Beyond the basic functionality
of incorporating technology into clothing, the Social Body Lab focuses on meaningful and
provocative interactions, questioning the relationship between humans and technology
through its diverse projects.
Website: http://research.ocadu.ca/socialbody/home
Lab’s Focus & Approach
Critical engagement with technology – not just asking how but why
Interdisciplinary practices – intersection of art, design, technology
Meaningful Interactions – moving beyond the “cool” factor
Distribution of knowledge – documentation, tutorials, DIY, open source
Collaboration – both internal & external
Inside SOCIAL
BODY LAB

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Kate Hartman: Primary Guide & Mentor
Erin Lewis: SeCONDARY GUIDE
Dr.Paula Garderner
For concluding assessment and feedback session. Dr. Gardner, is an
Associate Professor, Faculty of Liberal Studies at OCAD U.
Diana Greenberg
For invaluable feedback over email and skype on the design process and
user testing. Diana is the Director of User Experience in Bridge Design,
San Francisco and has 17 years of experience in User Experience Design.
Jackson McConnell, Aalok Jaiswal & Pawas Aakrsh
For assisting us in 3D model generation
ACKNOWLEDMENTSProject Mentors OUR TEAM
Devyani Jain
An emerging Visual Artist who works
with hybrid medium, graduated in
Fine Arts in 2012 and currently pur-
suing Masters in Apparel Design in
National Institute of Design(NID)
Website: devyanijain.wordpress.com
Email: devyanijain.18@gmail.com
Manikandan Hk
With an early stint in entrepreneru-
ship, Mani graduted as an electronic
engineer and worked as a UI designer
and currently persuing Masters in
New Media Design in National Insti-
tute of Design(NID), India.
Website: mani-hk.com
Email: manihk@gmail.com
Kate Hartman is an artist, technologist, and educator whose work spans the fields of physical computing, wearable electronics,
and conceptual art. She is the co-creator of Botanicalls, a system that lets thirsty plants place phone calls for human help, and the
Lilypad XBee, a sewable radio transceiver that enables your clothing to communicate. Her work has been exhibited internationally
and featured by the New York Times, BBC, CBC, and NPR. Hartman recently moved to Toronto to join the Digital Futures Initiative
at OCAD University where she is the Assistant Professor of Wearable & Mobile Technology
Website: katehartman.com
Erin Lewis is an emerging Canadian artist working in creative electronics, wearable technology, and sculpture/installation. She is a
graduate of OCADU with a BFA in Integrated Media and Wearable Technology. Her work has been shown at the International Con-
sumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada; World Maker Faire (New York); Nuit Blanche (Toronto 2010), Ontario Science Centre,
Discovery Channel Canada, Discovery.com, in the Toronto Star newspaper and on various physical computing magazines. Website:
erinlewis.ca

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Part 1 - MEEMO
THE WEARABLE AUDIO JOURNAL
This part explains our product-oriented approach to design a wearable audio journal
considering the real world constraints and user requirements. Intentionally we tried
not to fall into the category of wearable electronic gadgets but to come up with
clothing-like wearable devices, which are confortable and could be perceived as a
extension of the body.
Yifat wearing Meemo on her sleeve

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The Idea
What if, if we could have all our personal verbal
thoughts, maintained in a dairy, which is wearable and
easily accessible?
The idea is to create a device which will help in recording self-talk sessions and introspect
on our own thought process. When in doubt, when you want to make sense out of things,
when we want to gain clarity, we delve into introspection, penning our thoughts or talking
to ourselves. The verbal thoughts are tough to remember after sometime, also they are part
of one’s personal time, which he/she cannot/ do not want to share with anybody. Tapping
these thoughts could help us in making better decisions and also lead us to become an
increasingly self-aware person. All our personal verbal thoughts, if maintained in a dairy,
which is wearable and easily accessible, could be interesting
Knowing yourself --> Being Self-aware/Mindfullness --> Better decision making -->
Better Living
Key Functionality
1. A means to record ones Self Talk Sessions
2. A means to listen and reflect on the recorded sessions
3. Manual recording
Key Intent
A) Where Should be Worn?
Something which could be worn most of the times throughout the day, irrespective of your
clothing, lifestyle and fashion preferences. Mostly to be located closer to the face, neckline
or the ears, considering the microphone-mouth proximity requirement.
B) How should it be?
It should be a device which does not make you conscious of its presence. A device which
could blend with most type of clothing and fashion preferences. Ideally, it should be
something like an extension of the self and not just an accessory,
Preliminary user study
We conducted preliminary user research with a dozen youngsters of age 23 to 30 to
gain some first hand information on (a) whether they have the habit of talking to
themselves or not (b) If they do, what is the nature of such talks (c) In what context of
space and emotional state of mind do such talks happen etc.
Key insights:
1. Most people talk to themselves, usually to gain clarity of their thoughts and to vent out
what is their in their mind. A very important social connotation came to our notice that
majority of people talk to themselves, and yet we never see anyone doing that.
These talking sessions generally happen in private when no one can see you.
2. Traditionally it was believed that if you talk to yourself, you might be suffering/suffer
in near future from ill mental illness. At the same time, some of the users we interviewed
believed that talking to themselves is rather healthy and it helps them in making decisions,
solving problems, calming down their anger etc.
3. The users expressed a desire to record these self talk sessions and that they sometimes try
and do that by noting down their thoughts, scribbling or using a voice recording function
in their cell phone but all they were clueless on why they fail to use them on a regular
basis.
4. Also, we noted that majority of people who talk to themselves, refrain from doing so
in the presence of others. Some remarked that it may scare them out. We are not used
to seeing people talking to themselves and it could be said that it is still considered as a
social-anomaly.

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Functional Prototypes
We were looking at designing a wearable that not necessarily looks like an electronic
gadget, thus we had the freedom to consider many free forms. Also since we were looking
at making a functional prototype, the dimensions of the electronic circuit were a primary
constraint around which the forms were developed.
The forms that initially came to our minds were more fun and quirky, but as we went
ahead in project the forms began to become more and more subtle. As per our key intent
of keeping the device as inconspicuous as possible, we explored various forms in various
materials to ensure that the wearable blends with the user’s outfit.
Electronics inside
Miniaturization was an important challenge that we faced in the design process. Right from
the start we were keen on developing not just conceptual prototypes but fully functional
prorotypes. Thus figuring out a balance between size and the features was a challenge from
the perspective of constructing the electronics required.
After the initial explorations, we made a circuit board by hacking into an off-the-shelf
video recorder circuit and made a circuit board which can records CD quality sound onto an
inbuilt SD memory card and also connects to a smartphone or a computer through a micro
USB port. It was powered by a rechargable 9V lithium battery.

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The material from an anti-skid kitchen mat was used to make this initial prototype. It safely
encloses the electronic circuit and the perforations in the texture of the material provide
opening for the microphone. The enclosure had a stainless steel clip-on to clip to your
collar or neckline.
Inspired by the electronic tattoos, we conceptualized a skin sticker as one of the explorato-
ry forms. A piece of skin friendly leather was used for this prototype although the suitable
material for this idea is dragon skin silicone. The silicone sticker will be affixed to the skin
by spirit-gum(skin-adhesive). We learnt about different adhesive types, which could be used
to make either a multi-use sticker or adhesives, which can stay put for a couple of weeks.
1) meemo clip 2) Meemo-stickerPrototypes - The meemo family

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In the previous prototype of the clip-on device, the metal clip was quite effective but at
the same time, it limits the type of clothing on which it could be used. So inspired by the
magnetic name badges which is a two piece product, we made a magnetic clip-on in leath-
er in the shape of a dumbbell. One side of the dumbbell goes into inner side of the clothing
while the other which houses the micrphone circuit stays on the exterior of the clothing.
Powerful rare-earth magnet placed on both the sides of the dumbbell holds the wearable
device in place. This device was quite light in weight and was easy to use.
The onboard recoding switch creates a small bump on the leather cover, providing the
affordance of a switch. A small LED indicates the recording status.
We used vegetable tanned leather. Leather is a highly durable and flexible material. It is
skin friendly and responds to temperature just like human skin. Hence it is quite suitable for
designing wearables in leather.
3) Meemo Dumbbell
Building on the Meemo-Dumbbell, we moved on to Silicone as the preferred material for
the wearable. Experimenting with different densities of silicone, we chose Dragon Skin
Silicone 30 for the fabrication. The mould was 3D modeled and then 3D printed using
Makerbot in the Social Body Lab (See figure). The cast was then taken from the 3D printed
mould. The cast encloses the microphone circuit, press button as the controller on one side
and the battery pack on the other side. Both the sides of the dumb-bell shaped silicone
cast enclose a rare earth magnet enabling the user to clip it on their clothing. Dragon Skin
Silicone is the material used by makeup artists to generate realistic skin effects. It is a skin
safe material.

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The second major aspect of the concept is to design a mobile applica-
tion that helps in visualizing the prominent themes of the recorded
self-talk sessions. The mobile application is essentially an aid for self-
reflection.
The user connects the Meemo to his smartphone via USB
The smartphone application syncs with Meemo (fig 1. Icon screen & Fig 2 & 3 Sync screen)
The application is to help the users visualize the recorded data in a meaningful way. To do that, the audio data
is transcribed into text just after syncing with Meemo.
The application retains the original recorded track but presents the key highlights of the self talk sessions .
Mobile Application Fig 4: Thought record is the home
screen where the audio track is
presented as it is along with text
tags on the track telling us the
content at that location of the
track. This way seeking a temporal
audio medium becomes easy and
comprehensible.
Fig 5: Thought Trend screens dis-
plays the major thoughts of your
self talks in the form of phrase
clouds. The size of the phrases
or words is proportional to the
number of times you have used it
in your talks
Fig 6: Journal View
Chronological arrangement
of all the audio files and its
transcription
Fig7: What and Where : displays the
audio files based on the context in
which they were spoken. For ex-
ample, while at work, while driving,
while travelling etc.

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Scope of the Product
Cognititve Behavoruial Therapy
As part of our explorations, we explored the possibility of using Meemo as an aid in certain
kinds of psychotherapeutic practices which employs self-reflective journal writing. We
are extremely thankful to Dr.Tim Guimond, M.D, M.Sc, FRCPC, a Consulting Psychiatrist
in Toronto, Canada for making us understand the various aspects of Cognitive Behavioral
Theraphy(CBT) and his valuable inputs on how Meemo could be used in CBT.
About CBT and How Meemo could be used in CBT.
Developed by Dr. Aaron T. Beck, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is a form of psychothera-
py in which the therapist and the patient work together as a team to
identify and solve problems. Therapists use the Cognitive Model to help patients overcome
their difficulties by changing their thinking, behavior, and emotional responses. Cognitive
therapy has been found to be effective in more than 1000 outcome studies for a myriad of
psychiatric disorders, including depression,
anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and substance abuse etc. CBT majorly uses the tech-
nique of self-reflective journaling in the name of ‘CBT Thought records’ which is a system-
atic way of writing down all the factors which may influence ones negative thoughts and
feelings. Traditionally the thought record is a printed booklet carried by the patient and the
patient is expected to fill it, whenever he/she experiences a negative thought or feeling.
Later these thought records are jointly analyzed by the therapist and the patient to observe
and understand what combination of situations, actions and thoughts have led to a partic-
ular emotion and feeling in the patient. By identifying this pattern, they can take measures
to counter the negative feeling. This process of writing down one’s emotional states, right
at the instance of an emotional shift, makes the patient quite self-aware and that by itself
solves many of the cognitive disorders. In our design project, we have designed a wear-
able audio recording device which can replace the printed form of thought records and can
function as an audio journal to capture the patient’s verbal automatic thoughts (commonly
referred as Self-talking). The system in tandem with a mobile application, presents mean-
ingful visualization of recordings, helping both the therapist and the patient in effective
CBT.
Table1.1, shows one of the most commonly used CBT Thought Records. CBT thought records
are crucial in understanding the patient’s frame of mind with respect
to the emotional problems that he/she is experiencing. But the problem is in the medium
in which these thought records exist. The patient is expected to
articulate his/her complex emotional state of mind within the constraints of the written
language. The signifiers used in the written language may not signify
the signified in its fullest essence, particularly when human emotions don’t exist in isola-
tion. (for eg. We may feel helpless as well as sorrowful, at the same time). Written word
lacks many of the emotional markers which are otherwise found in spoken language, in the
form of tonality, frequency and rhythm of
speech. So by replacing the written format of thought records with self-reflective audio
journaling devices which can be worn on one’s body or clothing, we can help CBT patients
record their thoughts orally into the wearable recording device.
Read Full Paper in Appendix.

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Part 2 - cueco
the CONCEPTUAL APPROACH
How inconsipicous is inconsipicous? And while wearing it, are we talking to ourselves or is
there an “otherness” involved in it? The idea of the “otherness” was interesting to us. We
imagined what if if the device has a character of its own and the person wearing it could
talk to it. This part of the project consists of a conceptual approach on the idea of self talk-
ing.

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Initial ideas
1.Exaggeration of the idea of exploitation of privacy : A complete private cover suit to
express this exploitation.
2.Mindfulness : Various recordings have various moods, small vibrating jacket is visualized
that will vibrate whenever a person listen to an emotion mood in his recording, to make
him more aware of himself.
3.Interactive Wearable: An expressive wearable product/apparel that makes you aware of
his presence by vibrations/ contraction etc.
In prototyping phases, we were constantly either discarding or approving the different
prototype ideas that we had. Some of the quirky and expressive ideas were quite interest-
ing but did not fit into already defined intent of keeping the device as inconspicuous as
possible. And at the same time, we were handing over Meemo_Dumbbell to our friends
and were asking them to use it for a couple of days and give us their feedback. From their
feedback, we learnt that Meemo is too inconscopicous that the person who is wearing it
altoghether forgets that he/she is wearing the meemo. This posed a very interesting ques-
tion to us.
How inconsipicous is inconsipicous? And while wearing it, are we talking to ourselves or
is there an “otherness” involved in it? The idea of the “otherness” was interesting to us.
We imagined what if if the device has a character of its own and the person wearing it
could talk to it. This seemed more of an artistic expressive approach rather than a product
centric design approach. It is tangential to our approach so far but that seemed quite
interesting to us. Thus we decided to parallel persuade the conceptual expressive approach
to the project too.
Form Explorations i
Exaggeration of the idea of exploitation of
privacy: A complete private cover suit to
express this exploitation. There are various
social issues associated with privacy and
technology making our lives more and more
public. Various concerns are arising as social
norms are been broken.

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Form Explorations ii
Theory of Mindfullnes : Being self aware. Sync your meemo to
these sensory devices and get to know yourself better. For eg.
whenever you have spoken emotional sentence/word/phrase,
the sensor at your heart will vibrate making you realise of your
emotional self.
Form Explorations iii
Interactive Wearables : Its 2050 ! Talking to oneself is no longer
a social issue, and human beings have essentially realized that
all humans are same and it does not matter, who thinks what!
So some of these designs have a big speaker sort of built so that
others and listen to one’s self talk sessions, people can freely
speak their mind.These are wacky crazy designs critiquing the
future cyborg generation, questioning what if all the wearable
tech based on quantified self becomes successful and new social
codes and costumes/apparels come into picture, then what it be
like talking to one self?

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CUECO
Cueco is a bright green color neck hugging Pet wearable. It has these long tentacles which
can be folded into expressive shapes of your liking. They sway as you walk. The base of the
tentacles has a spiral vortex that acts as a touch sensitive switch to record your self talk
sessions.
The ends of the tentacles have the microphone in them. When you are not talking to the
Ceuco for a long time (say 2 hours) the cueco tentacles starts to recede and curl into itself.
The gradual curling in of the tentacles is symbolic of Cueco feeling sad for you not having
spoken to it. And the moment you touch the base of the tentacle and start talking to it, it
springs back to its expanded state.
Possessive Cueco
On further note of exaggeration, we designed a fictional necklace which will slowly stran-
gles you when you are not talking to it. To stop the strangling, you touch the center of the
necklace and start talking and that is recorded as your self-talk session. We used nitinol to
create the strangling effect. But the current requirements of nitinol to create the strangling
made it difficult for us to demonstrate it.

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Conclusion
Yuppie!
Its a good sign if you feel that 2months zipped away like 2 weeks. Our short term proj-
ect in Social Body Lab, Toronto was an amazing learning opportunity.
The method of approaching the same concept from the tangents of Industrial design
and expressive media art was a valuable learning. Since it was a self-initiated project,
the boundaries were not strictly defined. That enabled us to explore wearability in vari-
ous contexts but also posed the challenge of applying the learning in a context. During
the concluding phase of the project, our interview with a Psychotherapist gave a new
direction to the project. It made us realize the untapped opportunties for wearable
technology in Mental healthcare.
For now, bye bye from Cueco & Meemo :)