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Cuebic is a product design & prototyping project I worked on during my Mdes degree at California College of the Arts. I worked with a partner to design a product that would augment long-distance relationship(LDR) communications, a problem we both shared. We designed and engineered working prototypes where we demoed to visitors from Apple, Humane, Meta, and Google at the CCA End of Year Exhibition 2022.
In an increasingly globalized world, long-distance relationships (LDRs) are becoming more common. Despite technological advancements in communication, maintaining a deep emotional connection in an LDR continues to be challenging. Having been in a LDR for the past two years, I embarked on a journey to find a solution that goes beyond traditional digital communication methods.
Existing digital communication methods, while effective in verbal messages, often falls short in those subtle, non-verbal exchanges of affection: A comforting touch on the head, a playful nudge for attention, a warm hug to let you know everything will be ok...
Their daily lives can feel disconnected across the distance, especially across different time-zones. Did she get home yet? Is he working after hours? Is she mad at me or just asleep?
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© 2024 Chico Liu
Made with
Cuebic is a pair of smart connected devices that merges with the periphery and subtly demands your attention only when it has something to tell you. Simply put it on your desk or night stand, itâs becomes a fun embodiment of your partner!
Cuebic communicates without speaking, similar to how we often behave with our partners - one quick glance and we know what's happening.
We began with a broad interest in enhancing communication within LDRs. Recognizing the need to deeply understand our users' experiences and challenges, we undertook an explorative journey involving extensive research and interviews. We interviewed 8 couples with varying distances, locations, cultures, and relationship types.
Our research highlighted the crucial need for an enhanced sense of relatedness in long-distance relationships. They often suffer from asynchronous communication, loss of non-verbal cues, lack of schedule awareness, and diminished inter-connectedness. These challenges hinder emotional connection and intimacy, leaving couples feel disconnected.
Couples in different timezones often have very limited time to talk so they opt to communicate asyncronously over text.
Thereâs no small smile to tell you that your partners in a good mood, no soft squeeze on the shoulder to tell them everything is going to be okay...
It can be hard to keep track of each otherâs schedule throughout the day. Some even tried to import partnerâs calendar onto their own.
Couples notice a disconnect between their life events and experiences. People donât want to constantly disturb their partner asking for updates, which hinders communication, leading to reduced relatedness between their lives.
From our secondary research and interviews, we focused on grounding our solution with these four key value propositions.
1
Allow non-verbal, emotional exchanges
2
Enable an awareness of partner's life
3
Provide a synchronous experience in asynchronous communication
4
Achieve the above through non-intrusive, ambient connection
We started ideating by considering the medium and form factor of our solution. We had a lot of questions.
With the myriad of information couples might communicate, we had to narrow down to the most essential and meaningful info, while minimizing distraction and optimizing for the limited screen real estate. We chose these four core functions as we found they provide the most useful information for emotional connection, while reducing unnecessary clutter and distractions.
mood
status
heartbeat
time/schdule
weather
photos/videos
days together
anniversary
text messages
voice
Another big decision we had to make early on was whether this will be a physical or a digital product. We had a rough idea of what we want this product to do. Â So we explored our options by analyzing the benefits and drawbacks in interactivity, potential for distraction, ease of use, and design difficulty, before choosing to build a physical product. We were also heavily influenced by the philosophy of Calm Technology, which aims to create technology that seamlessly blend into the user's environment and daily routine, providing necessary information without demanding constant attention.
A physical device that couples can use to communicate moods, status, schedule, and send heartbeat. We knew we needed a screen to display these various information effectively. Considering we want to minimize the interaction and distractions, we decided to use physical inputs rather than a touch screen. We ended up choosing a cube shaped device as it allows for easy manipulation and multiple types of inputs. Setting a mood is as simple as flipping the cube to a different side, with each side representing a mood. And tilting the cube left and right, after a tap, will scroll through a menu of status to send.
We started creating prototypes with different levels of fidelity and functionality. We first made cardboard mockups to validate and test the ideal size for our product. Then we built the electronics inside using an Arduino and tested the viability of our input and output methods.
Cardboard prototypes to gauge the form factor and the interaction of the device
Testing different displays, learned to code visuals and display images
Prototyping the âflipâ interaction using the accelerometer and onboard neopixels
A single prototype made of cardboard. Able to detect orientation and display corresponding mood as color on the screen
Testing in true-size exterior with electronics exposed
The first prototype helped to test and verify the feasibility of our concept and ironing out technical challenges, so next we moved on to the exterior. We experimented with different ways of representing moods on each side of the cube. As well as prototyping with different materials including wood, 3D printed ABS, and laser cut acrylic. From our testing, people preffered the white frosted acrylic the most for its look and feel.
Me cutting wood to make the side panels :D
CAD modeling for 3D printing
Experimenting with Laser Engraving Moods
Laser cutting acrylic
Different types of acrylic exteriors
Different mood chip designs
Wood prototype with different shaped mood chips
Testing mood chip colors
The finished prototype uses an acrylic shell, features a screen on the front powered by an Arduino micro-controller. It uses Bluetooth to communicate and has a pulse sensor to it's side. Inputs including flip, tap, tilt, shake, are detected using the built-in gyroscope.
We conducted usability testing with participants to iterate our prototype. We asked participants to spend sometime with the device to test the feasibility of the interactions. As well as asking couples to use it over the course of a day.
We discovered that people often wanted to react to updates they received, especially to the sad mood. We went through another round of iteration to design the âvirtual hugâ and the âcheersâ.
We also observed that users wasnât able to check updates that they might have missed. So we also added a timeline function to allow scrolling through recent updates.
Sending Hug
Receiving Hug
Receiving Cheers
Recent Timeline
We designed an app to enable updates on the go and to personalize their Cuebic. Widget on the homescreen provides everything you need at a glance. Scroll through your history, view your mood trends, edit your avatar, and sync your calendar, all right in the app.
The front screen shows updates from the Cuebic it's paired with.
Each Cuebic comes with an assortment of mood chips that represent everyday moods. Any five chips can be attached magnetically to the side of the cube.
Cuebic connects via Wi-Fi & Bluetooth, it's also compatible with Qi-Wireless Charging standard, Â allowing you to charge with any wireless charger to stay connected. The built in battery supports over 30hrs of use.
Cuebic is designed to minimize distractions and maximize calm, while providing effective communication through it's screen and haptics motor.
Cuebic uses the built-in gyroscope to detect motion, simply flip to the side with the mood you currently feel, shake it to send a nudge, or hold it with both hands to send them a warm hug.
Night
Day
Available
Busy
Away
Home
Sleep
Work
Angry
Worry
Sad
Happy
Love
Work
Activity
Appointment
Personal Event
Angry
Worry
Sad
Happy
Love
We prototyped Cuebic using Arduino compatible Circuit Playground microcontrollers, due to limited I/O we had to include two to integrate all of the components. The CP Gizmo display is fully compatible with CP controllers however it was limited by its I/O connection thus suffering low refresh rate. We used a Qi wireless coil and a power controller to allow for simultaneous charging and usage. The vibration motors provided haptic feedback to functions like scrolling through status and receiving heartbeat.
Cuebic Assembly Stop Motion
Code written in Circuit Python
Circuit Playground Bluefruit Controller
Circuit Playground Express Controller
Circuit Playground TFT Gizmo Display
Li-Ion Battery
Dual Vibration Motor
Qi Wireless Charging Receiver Coil
Power Managment Controller
Haptic Controller
Pulse Sensor
Being both the designer and the prototyper, itâs easy to be caught up in the technical details of trying to achieve high fidelity prototypes. I spent a long time coding, soldering, looking for answers on 10yo forum posts that whenever I had a new idea, I found myself as the engineer constantly in battle with myself as the designer over technical difficulties, resulting in a tunnel vision that limits imagination. As a techie I started off looking down upon quick hacks and temporary fixes, as it was ânot doing it the right wayâ. Throughout this project Iâve learned to be more open to âWizard of Ozâ prototyping, and to integrate my technical knowledge in aid of design thinking rather than hindering.
From the beginning, we tested with different levels of fidelity to validate/invalidate different ideas. Starting with the most fundamental first, the input gestures, form factor. Then the screen and ui were tested and iterated, and lastly the exterior material, icons, finish... it allowed us to discover issues or even new ideas early in the process.
In the development of this project, we set aside some ideas that we donât have time to get to. Weâd like to explore what happens when the couple are reunited? What happens on special occasions like aniversaries or valentineâs day? How might we show growth and progress of the couple?
Weâd like to test Cuebic long term over a long distance. Due to our prototype using bluetooth, weâre limited by the distance. Integrating WiFi for testing would allow us to test it in even more realistic environment.
© 2022 Chico Liu
Made with
and a lots of coffee
always a work in progress
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