Answers to Research Questions

Q1: Are candles usable as emotional communication interface?

Candles themselves were perceived mostly as pleasant items. The candles themselves created a warm, soothing ambience when they were lit and were perceived as an invitation to calm down and relax. In a way, by sending emotional message via a candle powered user interface, it is an invitation to relax with the sender.

As how they suit as part of a tangible ephemeral user interface, the choice was right for the task. The ambient properties of the candle as an ambient enhancer do get to shine in the final product. The materials used in candles place in the scale of ephemerality based on their size as in how much fuel, stearin, the candle is packing with. Since the small tealight candle used in the user interface can burn up to several hours, the ephemerality of the user interface is quite fast. The used candle is designed to be easily replaced with another tealight.

The ambience the candles create may, however, be perceived differently based on what kind of emotional and cultural properties the candle has within the culture. Based on this the Candle UI is not meant for everyone to use who are in a long distance emotional relationship, or have close relatives far away. The

Candle UI would have a small marketing niche targeted towards the users, who perceive the Candle UI as it was designed, as an ephemeral ambient communication device.

This is not a bad thing in the end, for to design a product that pleases all its users is still quite an impossible task to achieve. If the Candle UI was more customizable, it might have a bigger audience. This, however, would require a different production process and maybe even the change of materials from delicate porcelain to common clay.

Q2: How was the designed candle user interface perceived as a tool for emotional communication?

About the prototype

The Focus group gave me design drivers to use for the final Candle UI design.

Since it was first deemed as a gimmick that would be forgotten within few days, I redesigned the functions and added parts to it to be a two-way candle operated user interface to encourage the prolonging of the usage of the product in hopes that it would be received as a useful device for emotional communication.

The design of the user interface was perceived well with the Focus Group II. The shapes of the design were pleasant to the eye of the user and thus they would place the user interface to a place they could look at. Also the concept of the Candle UI / Connected Candles was well understood and the participants were able to imagine the demo in use in their daily lives. However the real flame brought up some concerns of fire safety issues.

Since the Candle UI was targeted towards long distance emotional relationships, for example, between lovers, friends or family members, I feel that that the Candle UI device fits in the task quite well. Because of the chosen parts of the Candle UI, mainly the wireless network adapters, the other pair of the candle stands can be anywhere in the world. This includes also users living in the same area like cities or towns, for there are no requirements of how long the distance between the candle stands should be. However, it seems that the user interface device works best when the distance of the users is not too large, for example, only couple of time zones away or the users are in different sides of the same country. People living half a world away do have difficulties to use the interface properly due to the time difference between them.

The Candle UI prototype has its pros and cons. Pros for being a unique product, which has no other product to compete. As shown in the chapter five, the benchmark results shows that there were no similar products that uses candles and ambient communication as part of itself. There were couple candle like products but when examined closer, there were no real flame used in the product.

Cons were about the cultural connotations of the candle in different cultures and how uses perceive them. These cultural connotations should be considered when using a candle as communication medium in certain cultures. Another was the fire safety issues with the real flame in use as part of the user interface.

About the functions

Like previously mentioned in the design process of the Candle UI, the user interface was designed to be a two-way interaction since the one-way – text or other signal to the candle as shown in the prototype evaluated in the focus group interview – felt too much one-sided. The focus group participants felt that

if the user has time to send a text message to the candle interface apparatus, they would have the same time to send an actual text message for the recipient.

By having the product requiring the user to perform two-way connectional tasks from both ends of the connection, it will engage the users to keep using the interface longer. This will prevent the product being one-or-two-time gimmick that would just be left in the shelf or closet to collect dust. This will also help to upkeep the emotional bond between the two users.

Since the Candle UI is essentially an ambient communication device, the sent message can be unseen in cases where the difference between the users time zone is great. The recipient of the emotional message could be at work or sleeping when the message is sent and thus be unnoticed.

The biggest requirements to the Candle UI hardware are, that the wireless network is up and running, there is enough stearin left in the candle to burn it properly and that the battery the electronic parts use has enough charging to keep sending the signal of the burning candle to the other candle stand. The user interface part that uses the real candle was designed to be easy-to-replace ephemeral part of the user interface and thus prolong the usage of the interface. The batteries inside the tea light used as the electrical flame and the electronic parts are also designed to be easily replaced. However, the other parts such as sensors would require more work to replace.