Video Prototype Process Log
Ambient Wellness: A Light Interaction for Stress Relief
Design
For this video prototype, I created a scenario about stress during late-night studying. The idea came from my own experience and from seeing many students at the University of Washington feeling overwhelmed during the quarter.
The video shows a student studying alone at night while dealing with deadlines and academic pressure. After studying for a long time, the system notices signs of stress and starts changing the room environment. Instead of showing a phone notification or alarm, the interaction happens through lighting. The room lights slowly become softer and warmer, and a Gundam model with LED lights begins to glow in a calm breathing-like rhythm. The goal of the interaction is to help the student slow down, relax, and take a short break naturally.
I wanted the interaction to feel quiet and emotional instead of looking like a medical or productivity tool.
Storyboards
I made a simple storyboard to organize the scenes and camera shots. The storyboard helped me plan the pacing of the video and how the lighting changes would appear on screen.
The storyboard included:
- studying late at night
- showing stress and tiredness
- The system detects stress
- lights changing gradually
- The Gundam LED is turning on
- The student is calming down and taking a break
Analysis
Overall, the prototype worked well in communicating the idea of using ambient interaction for stress relief. Most participants understood that the system was trying to support the user emotionally without interrupting them directly.
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One thing that worked especially well was the lighting transition. Participants said the warm lighting made the room feel calmer and more comfortable. The Gundam model was also mentioned several times during feedback because it made the interaction feel more personal and less generic.
Based on the evaluation criteria:
- Feasibility:
Participants thought the concept was realistic because smart lights and LED systems already exist today. - Usability:
The interaction was simple because the user did not need to press buttons or interact with an app. Everything happened automatically in the background. - Desirability:
Participants liked the relaxing atmosphere and thought the interaction felt comforting during stressful situations. - Impact:
The concept showed how small environmental changes could encourage students to take breaks and become more aware of stress.
During the crit, they suggested making the stress detection clearer in the video. Some participants also wanted to see more interaction besides lighting, such as sound effects or changes in other desk objects. One critique suggestion was to adjust the lighting to warmer and more emotional tones, such as red or purple, instead of using only neutral lighting changes. Participants felt these colors could create a stronger feeling of comfort and emotional atmosphere during stressful moments. Another suggestion was adding clearer transition shots between the stressful and calm scenes.
Reflection
I chose this idea because stress is something many college students experience, including myself. I wanted to design something that supports mental wellness in a softer and more natural way, instead of creating another productivity-focused app.
One challenge was making emotional changes easy to understand on camera. Since stress is invisible, I had to rely on lighting, pacing, facial expressions, and environmental changes to communicate emotion. It also took time to make the scenes feel natural instead of overly dramatic.
One thing I enjoyed was integrating the Gundam model into the interaction. Since it is something I personally like, it made the project feel more unique and meaningful to me.
This project helped me better understand how video prototypes can communicate atmosphere, interaction, and emotion through cinematography and environmental storytelling. I also learned that simple and subtle interactions can sometimes feel more effective than complicated interfaces.
Next Steps
If I continue developing this concept, I would explore adding additional ambient interactions such as sound, adaptive color changes, or movement from nearby desk objects. I would also improve the stress detection visualization so users could better understand how the system responds to emotional states.
For the video itself, I would add clearer transition shots between stressful and calming moments and experiment with warmer lighting colors, such as red and purple, to strengthen the emotional atmosphere.
(Note: All work is done by myself; ChatGPT was used to check grammar and completeness of sentences.)
