Slow Life Fantasy 🎈
"Can life be slowed down in today's ultrafast world? Can we continue to work and provide good living conditions for my family? "
project info
Duration
Mar- Apr.2021
My role
Concept Design
UX Research
Design Fiction
Future Analysis
Key words
Speculative Design
Futuristic Design
Design Fiction
Group members
Xinyi GUO
Pin HU
Overview
Background
An Ultrafast World
The world only seems to be moving faster and faster as society continues to develop. Expectations are going higher. Technologies are pushing us towards efficiency and all we do.
Productivity is becoming a religion: things must come immediately conveniently and quickly. Whether it’s an answer from a simple Google search or a package that arrives on our doorstep.
👆😭When your are expected to be productive and multitasking...
But are we going to fast beyond what human beings can handle?
Is it possible to be too productive and efficient that becomes a detriment more than a benefit to us?
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Let's see people's real life in such "productive" world
Take some example data in China...
Data from a survey in 2019 in China.
👆These are some statistics about overwork. In China, over 80 percent of working people are facing the problem of working overtime, which is quite common for Chinese working people.
Interestingly, there is a buzzword among Chinese people like "996,ICU"means if one work from 9am to 9pm everyday and work 6 days a week, one day he/she gotta go to ICU (Intensive Care Unit). Like this buzzword, a increasing number of people become aware of such UNBALANCED life and trying to get away from the situation of overwork.
Recently, a piece of news burst into public view that a girl (only 21 years old) passed away because of high-intensity work overtime. And the news quickly blew up the Internet and also raise people's attention about the importance of life and healthy living....
🧐So when people become aware of the detriment of overwork and unbalanced life, how can we design for them to slow down their life into balanced state?
Our design & envision
In this design, we advocate slower pacing living and cultivated self-awareness. We hope to design to resist the unbalanced rapid-paced lifestyle, pursuing a healthy balance of dead life status.
We envision a future world that the culture of "slow life" will be an overall trend in society. At that time, technology will slow down our life, and help us find a balance between everything, instead of just pushing us. People will work together and AI, to reduce human effort and people's communication is smooth, no longer need to inefficient work all day long, the social atmosphere gradually developed to the direction of the various elements of life balance...
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The balanced world we build in our "design fiction"
Here is a concept video of the slow life we illustrated, But it might be a little abstract... : )
If you wanna take a close look at our design, you can see the following design and explanation words.
design process
Desk Research about the unbalanced life&work
Sign of the Future
User Research
Research: Multitask or Concentration?
The biggest reason behind this terrible phenomenon
Some people think that working overtime is a reflection of young people's enterprising spirit and dedication to work. Refusing to work overtime means refusing to struggle.
But is it true?
According to a survey on overtime productivity, only 17 percent of workers are more productive, while 40 percent are less productive, and 43 percent remain as productive as during the day.
Among the reasons that affect overtime work, physical fatigue is the main culprit of low efficiency, accounting for up to 71 percent.
Moreover, after several fied research and interviews with some wihte-collar workers, we also get to know some other factors related to working overtime culture, like long and drawn-out meetings in daytime, rat race and peer pressure among colleagues, etc. Overwork will definitely be harmful to a person, more seriously, it can reduce the interaction with one's families, destroying family happiness.😢
Physical Fatigue
The most straightforward effect from overwork, can lead to inatention and inefficient efforts, being trapped into a vicious cycle of working overtime.
Drawn-out Meetings
One of the main factors caused large-scale working overtime phenomenon, since most of the so called "progress-aligning"meetings are tedious and a waste of time. Many time they could have been concentrating on own work was spend on inefficient meetings.
Rat Race
When you see everybody around you are working overtime, can you insist on leaving the work on time?
Yes, we are all falling into a rat race.
Meanwhile, overtime work is very harmful to health.
sedentariness, irregular diet, frequent staying up late, not only lead to low work efficiency, but also cause cervical spondylosis, dry eye, mouse hand, periarthritis of shoulder these common diseases of white-collar groups..😢
So we think in the future the culture of "slow life" will probably be an overall trend in society since people now are adversely affected by the rapid pace of life
For long-term, even from the perspective of society development, excessive overtime work should not be encouraged.
A study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) shows that in order to make up for the lack of total labor, a country did not try to improve labor productivity, but adopted the method of long working hours, resulting in a long-term low economic growth rate.
Predicting future
Casual Layer Analysis
Predicting future
Design Fiction of Slow Life
In the future, technology will no longer push us towards efficiency and productivity. Instead, it will help people find the right balance between work and life, allowing them to focus and be productive without effort. We set up a new set of world rules and operation mechanisms through design to help adjust people to drive each other, settle together, and adapt to the life of slow culture collectively. Let people live fast and slow. Let the speed index "retreat" so that life becomes meticulous.
HJ Intelligence Brain
A neutral arbiter of work-life, balancing the various indicators of work. Such as everyone's mood, work status, and other indicators, judging people's final performance. Speed and efficiency are no longer desirable.
Mode: Normal
It seems to be going well for everyone right now, and IF anyone moves too fast, I will turn to red OVERLOAD mode.
Imagine a workspace filled with slow living paces...
"Visible" Head Ring
By visualizing everyone's work content and progress, communication between colleagues can be more barrier-free. From now on, leaders do not have to hold meetings every day but can also synchronize work progress at any time!
Enchanted Lamp
It interferes with people's perception of time at work, blurring the concept of time, making people focus on work and not care about the passage of time. When I get home, I will absorb the data of anxiety and annoyance at work so as not to affect the communication between people and their families so as not to bring the stress home.
SLEM Bubble
Providing support for the body allows people to concentrate on work in any comfortable position.
It will accompany you and adjust your shape to always be in the most comfortable place.
Relaxed mode: isolation external disturbance, letting you work alone
Fold mode: regular work, the SLEM would stay quiet there, won't bother you.
In the future sci-fi world we design
Tools & Metaphor in the sci-fi world we design
In the future sci-fi world we design
Design System
the World Outlook
•In the world shrouded by the slow life culture in the future, people in the future world will work with AI, and human's daily workload will be reduced, and they will gradually develop in the direction of the balance of various life elements:
•People do not use KPI as an absolute measure to be involuntary in their work. The company's supervisor will be a neutral platform, balancing various work indicators, comprehensively considering the living conditions of multiple employees, the best in the state / the most balanced life, and work is the best. And speed is no longer something people flock to.
•Everyone's knowledge and skills can be shared or exchanged under the management of the platform in some way. The more people who share, the more opportunities to be shared.
•Everyone's work status is transparent and visible, and the overall progress of the team can be analyzed by AI. The communication and assignment of each work team becomes barrier-free, saving time to complete work outside of life.
Feasibility Analysis
STEEP Analysis
From the several aspects of Social, Technology, Ecological, Economic, adn Political to analysis the day of our designed fiction come into our daily life.
Reflection
All of the above tools include physical and spiritual solutions. Each item can record the state you think is most comfortable. In the end, the collection of all comfort states is the "slow life" rhythm that best suits you.
Living comes with many benefits as we're not considered as productive machines but as human beings who need rest and time to recharge.
Don't worry. You can still be productive when you live slowly with more intention or function better with a clear mind and rest beforehand.