Keynect

Keynect brings a sense of reassurance and comfort to those in long distance relationships.

Context

Many people live far from their loved ones. Our team explored ways design could support these relationships better. With Keynect, placing your keys down will notify others that you are home safe.

Team

Hannah Levang, Ian Van de Kamp, Michael Owyang

Contribution

Research, Ideation, Storyboard, Prototype, App

> Design Process
> 2019 (10 weeks)

Starting

- Interviews with four types of long distance relationships.
- Personal inventory with participants.
- Directed storytelling with participants.
- Google survey to collect info on methods and frequency of communication in long distance relationships.

Research

- People find joy and comfort in sharing small moments with each other.
- Synchronous forms of communication allow for more valuable conversations, as opposed to asynchronous forms.
- While we may not be able to fully replicate the experience of being physically together, we can mitigate some of the challenges that they face from being apart.

Learned

- Permanent: To create a feel of personal attachment so that it’s used consistently.
- Reassuring: Bring comfort and security. It should mimic certain qualities of being together.
- Fun: It should not feel like a burden to use.

Goals

Process

As a team, we came together and developed 60 unique ideas through small sketches

Ideation

As a team, we chose three of our ideas to further explore and evaluate as possible long term implementations. After peer feedback and discussion, we downselected to HomeSafe and renamed it Keynect

Downselection

Storyboard

We conducted a participatory design workshop with our original participants to pitch Keynect and gain feedback. In participatory design, the user is considered an expert at their ways of living and working, making them a valuable collaborator.

1. Warmup
2. Make - With clay, participants envision a physical form for the product.
3. Enact - Through role play, participants show how they would use their clay product in their homes.
4. Tell - Participants tell us how the phone could be integrated with the product.

Workshop

Prototype

Finalized

Since we focused our deliverable on the video prototype, there was less emphasis on the development of the mobile app.
Looking forward, it would be essential to reexamine the architecture and consistency of visual elements.

Looking Forward

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