How the form of light can be used to wake people up?

What is form and form-giving in Interaction Design? In this one week long workshop I explored the various forms of light in the particular scenario of waking up people in the morning.

Exploration question

When I asked people what kind of devices they use for waking up in the morning, 4 out of 6 people answered they use the digital alarm application in their mobile phones. Apparently, sound-based alarm is used by majority of the people to wake themselves out of sleep, and this has been employed for a long time to bring ourselves into wakefulness. However, it seems this experience is sometimes not as pleasant for people but rather leads to an awful start to the day.

😴 +💡?

What could be a more natural alternative to the sound-based alarm system? I started my journey by exploring with this special form — light.

How different forms of light can create different sensory experience to people?

Outcome

During my time exploring this field, I saw a great opportunity to use the characteristics of light such as intensity, quality, color and directionality to create different interactive forms.

Usually, turning on the light and eradicating the darkness is a way of forcing people to get up.​

What will be an alternative way to turn on a light?​

By changing the direction of the light source towards the face of the person, it can be seen as a way to mimic the effect of a rising sun, giving a more gradual “waking up” process that is more in tune with people’s sleep cycle.

Changing the physical form of the light source can also alter the way how the light is perceived by the person. ​What about turning on the light just like opening a book?

A physical form like this can also restrict the light to a certain elevation.​ It is a way to notify people how much time they still have to wake up.

“I don’t want to wake up now”​

How can people interact with the light?​ I then came up with a scenario that when people hear the alarm and don’t wish to wake up at that moment, ​they often tend to turn off the alarm and go back to sleep. One way to accomplish this is that the person can wave towards the wall and the light-based alarm goes off.

“Okay, I am ready to wake up”​

When the person performs an OK hand gesture it triggers the light circle to zoom and then it makes the whole room brighter to start a fresh day.

What do you think will happen when you move your hands to follow the light, just like unlocking your phone? Have a look for yourself…

What I have learned?

To answer the question of what is form and form-giving in Interaction Design, I see form as the way to shape different interactions between objects, people and environment. It is the base for containing a certain activity to happen in a certain way.

During my time working with light, I learned how the physical form of light affects its physical appearance, which as a result provides different sensory experiences to people. How people interact with the light can result in different performance of the interactive form and thus, crafting an overall experience to the user.

Another learning outcome is from the exploration process, where I learned how to convey interactive concepts to the audience in an effective way through rapid and simple video prototypes.