E M O L L E I A
Emolleia project is to explore and design novel non-verbal interaction tools. We explore how to create expressive clothes and accessories that are able to instantaneously reflect our feelings. We design a wearable kinetic display in form of three 3D printed flowers that can dynamically open and close at different speeds. Users can define their own animated motions. The kinetic display is the result of several design iterations trying to capture the movements of flower ensembles. We want to explore whether this type of wearable accessory could be a novel form of non-verbal communication
2021
'Emolleia' was inspired by a poetry 'Shy Flower'.
"To the little shy flower
hiding beneath brush
petals extended
smiles
pink-white colors
for the butterfly
she drew"
Three blooming transparent flowers shape accessory can be wearing around the shoulder. With a web camera turned on, the onlooker's facial expression will be detected and categorized, according to the facial expression, the Emolleia will perform five pre-definded correlated motion.
Each of three flower has been equipped LED light unit inside in order to perform color change to assist better express wearer's emotion.
We sought to explore more possibilities that people can do to express their emotion through not only facial or body language, but also non-verbal language and wearable devices.
We present the concept, design and prototype implementation of Emolleia,a kinetic display consisting of three flowers (the 3D model, components andsoftware will be open-sourced).We conducted a user survey with 50 participants to elicit potential use andapplication cases. In the emotion elicitation study with the same participants, we evaluated8 designed animated motions of Emolleia regarding their perceived emotional qualities using the self-assessment Manikin.Several animated mo-tions show significant differences for perceived valence and arousal.
The aim of this study is to explore more possibilities utilizing wearables to assist on emotion expressing, ultimately enhance our conversation efficiency or even social life.
- PROTOTYPE
The device was constructed by three main parts, flowers, servo motors case and a steel chain to fix the device on the body. The 3d printing flowers are fixed at the stem and consist of five petals with a diameter of 6 [cm]. We chose Elastic 50A resin as flower’s material since the softness allows the prototype to bend over and reform motion freely, the special transparency of this material also matched our designed sketch.
- USER STUDY
To explore potential use cases, self-expression possibilities and the general perception of the prototype, we conducted a series of online survey. After watching eight animated motions, participants rated the arousal and valence for each. Based on the mapping to the emotion model, we picked three obviously distinguishable animated motions for our next stage user studies.
EMOLLEIA DEMO IN KMD FORUM 2021:
More details in related publication:
C R E D I T S
YIFAN ZHUANG Lead Designer
KEITARO TSUCHIYA Electrical & Technical Support
TAKURO NAKAO Mechanical
JIAWEN HAN Data Analysis
V I D E O C R E D I T S
YIFAN ZHUANG Director & Shooting & Edittiing
DALEN WANG Hair & Makeup
MARISSA MA Model
S P E C I A L T H A N K S
KAI KUNZE
GEIST LAB
Graduate School of Keio Media Design
C O L L A B O R A T I O N: