Willow: reminiscence of a dear departed


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Creator/Artist: Sukanya Mudaliar

Category: Interaction Design

Document: P3 Project

Batch: 2013-2015

Source: India,   IDC IIT Bombay

Period:  2009-2018

Medium: Report pdf

Supervisor: Prof. Pramod Khambete


Detailed Description

This project is a service design solution that facilitates people when they reminisce upon time spent with a parent, grandparent or friend who is no longer alive. It was inspired by a peer reviewed paper on thanatosensitivity, studying digital inheritance and its effects. It led to studying ways to cope with grief, approach towards death and common funeral rituals in India. Simultaneously 7 people who had lost a dear one were interviewed by asking open ended questions. Through the interview, nostalgic reminiscence was identified as the focus of the project. To further reinforce the ideas and maintain sensitivity, PD approach was incorporated. It set the tone and language of the design output. Based on these insights the final deliverables of this project were designed. The first deliverable was a service blueprint that explains the possible threads of service encounters. Initially, these encounters were tested through the Science Fiction Prototyping method and then more encounters were chalked out through a graphic novel and video prototype. The ideas were evaluated by taking feedback of people on various aspects on Likert scale and through a set of open-ended questions. This project has been a humble attempt to envision sensitive service encounters in a constantly evolving future, with the firm conviction that the future, after all is a product of our many stories and expectations.