To sum it up for the blog post:
Commute. It is a word many are familiar with, and experience on a regular basis. For something that is so routine to daily life, it is perplexing the little signi cance given to the event. After all, the time spent in transit starts to really add up when one thinks of it in units of months, years or even a lifetime. In spite of a majority who commute and thereby experience to a certain extent its
growing adverse effects, the rami cations of commuting are often too lightly weighed in proportion to their actual infl uences on life.
I filmed and interviewed several people on their commute, to get a better perspective of how people handle and regard this routine. Many saw the time as a waiting period before arriving at a destination. For some it was a time for inward refl ection, and others busied themselves with individual activities.
I was starting to get the feeling that we all commute together alone. My intention was to see if the social norms of commuting could be changed. Perhaps in the future, commuting could be a time to network and meet new people. I developed an experimental game as a means to start a change. The goals of the game were to increase awareness of time spent commuting, its in uences on physical and mental health, as well as make a positive imprint on the perceptions of the commute.
Summarized, the game, named goFaces is played so:
The game piece, a wristband, is the visage of the game. Located on the wristband is a face, whose design the participant can choose, before a commute, to react their mood. During the commute, a participant can visually see the results of interactions with other players in changes in facial expression. Additionally, a player can see changes in his or her body temperature refl ected through color change of the face. Upon connecting the wristband to a personal computer, a player can see a history of interactions.
In this way goFaces is intended to break down barriers that hinder communication during the commute. Especially within the realms of public transportation, commuters observing others wearing the wristband might be inspired to strike up a conversation about it, comparing faces. The amount of interaction is, however, up to each participant. The game is meant to be a playful, non-intrusive means of interacting with others. In this way, it is hoped to override existing social norms to make commuting a fun event where social interaction is acceptable.
