Design of Human-Computer Interaction Products for the User with “Mood Disorder”

Abstract

With the rapid development of society, people are facing increasing social pressure. Excessive pressure not only promotes production, but also has a lot of adverse effects on people’s psychology. One of them is feeling depressed. In view of this social phenomenon, this paper proposes a design scheme, which help people to alleviate their own bad emotions and have a good attitude towards life. The questionnaire are based on related theory and the analysis of similar competing goods, which analyzing the user’s psychological preferences, mining the user behavior pain points, finally designed a human-computer interaction intelligent products - ‘LOVE HUG’ and “DI LUO” APP, the intelligent products can through their own characteristics for the interaction with users, achieve the goal of relieve the user of undesirable mood.

1 Social Background

With the accelerating pace of life, people are generally under increasing pressure. This is how the term “mood disorder” appears. “Mood disorder” is what we call depression conventionally [1]. In today’s life, study and work, people tend to face a lot of situations that trigger depression. If such situations last long, it will easily develop into “Depressive Disorder”. How to relieve people’s psychological pressure and give vent to their emotions in modern society is pressing issue. By setting the immersive human-computer interaction mode, the product can interact with the user through the interface interaction and achieve a more perfect user experience for the user.

2 Theoretical Background: Concept and Significance of Human-Computer Interaction

Through the collection and analysis of the existing human-computer interaction theories, the design guidance related to the design have been obtained.

2.1 Interaction Design Guidelines: Interactive Design Criteria

• Ethical, harmless, improve the human condition. For users with mood disorders, it can improve the users’ condition and alleviate their emotions.

• Intentional, that is, it can help users with ‘Mood Disorders’ to realize the needs of self-awareness and self-acceptance.

• Pragmatic, that is, to achieve the expected goals after the product is designed.

• Elegant, the simplest complete scheme, with the appropriate accommodation and emotions.

2.2 General Design Principles

The principle of equal use, and the principle of fairness. As a product designed for all people, everyone can use it as equally as possible. In the use of the product, it is not targeted at a certain group of people but for all people. It is suitable for all people who suffer from short-term or long-term psychological trauma, and it can be used to comfort the body and mind when they are in bad mood.

The Principle of Simplicity and Intuition. The product can be understood and used regardless of the user’s experience. “Fool-style” design allows people to quickly understand usage and achieve the best user experience.

The size and space should be suitable for use. There should be space for the product when it is idle. In the process of using the product, taking into account different users’ stature and other problems, the space within the customers’ line of sight should be increased as much as possible.

2.3 Maslow’s User Demand Theory

In Maslow’s Demand Theory, people have five levels of needs, including physiological needs, security needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. The product meets the second level of needs, which means that the pursuit of security mechanism of the applicable population is satisfied while meeting their physiological needs. The third level of needs is the needs for emotions and belongings. Everyone wants to be cared and loved. The emotional needs are more delicate and sensitive than the physiological needs. The fourth level of needs is the needs for esteem and self-actualization. User with “mood disorders” mostly need the second and third levels of needs. Emotionally, they have more delicate emotions than ordinary people and are more sensitive to the surrounding environment. Therefore, in product design, great attention shall be paid to the product’s sense of protection, feeling of social affection and care as well as understanding of the true mind of the design object [2].

3 Related APP Interface Analysis: Xinchao APP

Xinchao APP was launched in May 2015. After three years of development, it has provided services for 6 million users. which ranks high among all mental health products. it’s similar with the design of following APP. By analyzing the similar APP to seek out the advantages and disadvantages, getting a conclusion to guide the next step of the design. Xinchao decompression APP is a main stress relief app. The most attractive module and the most important module of this APP are to test the users’ psychological pressure and give corresponding relief guidance. Analyze its index bar, decompression evaluation module, and decompression guidance module.

The interface of the decompression evaluation module is as follows: Click pressure index on the first interface to carry out pressure measurement. First select the corresponding picture for the users’ recent status. Then the app will open the camera to identify the user’s face and measure the user’s real-time heart rate and breathing. Next the user’s pressure value will be obtained based on the comprehensive data. Table 1 gives a summary of the interface [3].

Table 1. Shows the summary of the interface.

Guidance module interface: After the pressure test is completed, the user can select the guidance module for psychological relaxation according to their needs. Table 2 gives four parts of the decompression modules.

Table 2. Shows four parts of the decompression modules.

Index bar interface: The index includes the information of the entire interface. The index bar can basically identify the contents covered by the whole application. In the DI LUO APP, users can intuitively identify the module classification: home, decompression, discovery, and mine. Table 3 gives the other parts of the decompression modules.

Table 3. Shows the other parts of the decompression modules.

Analyze the interface, function and structure features of xinchao decompression APP. Table 4 gives the analysis of Xinchao APP.

Table 4. Shows the analysis of Xinchao APP.

Conclusion of APP Research Analysis.

Through the analysis of similar apps, a conclusion is drawn. In APP interface design, the hierarchy should follow the humanized design theory and conform to the user experience. Meanwhile, the APP module framework should be simplified to simplify the interface as much as possible. Interface colors should be low saturation, high brightness cool colors, such as light blue, light green, or low saturation, low brightness colors, such as dark blue, dark green.

4 Questionnaire Survey

The purpose of the questionnaire survey is to understand the different psychological preferences of the current population and summarize people’s general psychological needs and preferences by setting color perception questions and social needs questions. So as to get a good command of user psychological. The randomness of the questionnaire is large, so the final result is only for reference. The questionnaire questions are universal. The total number of respondents is 206. Table 5 shows the questionnaire survey [4].

Table 5. Shows the questionnaire survey.

Overall analysis of the questionnaire: A total of 206 questionnaires were collected, with a wide age distribution and diverse populations. Today’s society is developing rapidly, and the age range of social pressure population is mainly 27–35 years old. This age group is a group with high social work output, heavy social burden and great pressure. 80% of the respondents said that they would feel depressed in their daily work and life [5]. Most of them tend to get simple language comfort when they are depressed. They also need physical comfort. In physical comfort, it is head touching and hugging that makes the respondents feel more comfortable. When feeling down, 70% of the respondents said that they liked to share their feelings with others and hoped to get professional guidance to ease their mood. Through the analysis, the design of the APP should be attention to the users’ needs. Meanwhile, the conclusions obtained from the questionnaire will be applied in the following interface design [6].

5 Human-Computer Interaction Product Design

After theoretical analysis, relevant product analysis and questionnaire survey, relevant conclusions will be applied in the product design process.

5.1 Product Features

Target group: people with low mood (not limited to people with depression, but also those with low mood due to various reasons in daily life.

Name: The product is named ‘LOVE HUG’, which means hug users with love.

Product positioning: The product could sense the changes in human emotions with a sensor and give people comfort by simulating human body movements. At the same time, it will adjust its own temperature according to the external temperature. At the same time, connect to the mobile app, divert people’s attention and give encouragement through the APP, or consult professionals or communicate with others in the app to ease their emotions.

Entity product intention: close, stable, care, a sense of security.

Virtual product intention: natural, soft, fresh, caring.

Sketch.

Select five objects for line extraction. Including Human Arm, Seal, Panda, Love shape and Cat. (see Fig. 11).

Fig. 11.

Sketch.

Image Selection of Product Sketch.

The images were summarized through the image questionnaire survey. (see Fig. 12). Table 6 shows the selection of sketch.

Fig. 12.

Questionnaire survey about the selection.

Table 6. Shows the selection of sketch.

The panda is a lovely animal, it could bring user a sense of security. Other images are not completely consistent with our initial product positioning. So we finally chose the panda shape as the bionic object of the product.

Rendering of Physical Product Model.

(see Fig. 13).

Fig. 13.

The appearance of the model.

The product gives users a feeling of closeness and cuteness.

Home Use Scene.

(see Fig. 14).

Fig. 14.

The using scene of the model.

The product has a widely applicability can be applied in multiple scenarios, It can be used as an ordinary pillow at work. It can automatically detect the mood of users and provide timely interactive feedback. It can also be used as emotional support at home.

Design Description.

This product is designed to relieve stress for people who are in a bad mood. The external modeling is like a panda, adopting the cute panda modeling and simplifying the lines. The main materials of the product are organic textile materials such as cloth weaving. The inner bracket is made of carbon fiber, which can reduce the weight of the product. The color abandons the traditional black, white and gray of the panda, and adopts the sunny spring colors (green and blue cool color with low saturation).

When the user hugs the product, there is a soft robot sensor inside the product, which can sense the user’s heart rate. The soft robot technology is a new type of robot technology, is widely used in the intelligent medical treatment and grasping field. Body temperature and other signs and transmit the data to the mobile phone APP. The APP will analyze and respond to the data. At the same time, the product will close the “feet” to wrap the user and simulate the hug, so that the user can feel comfort and relieved [8].

5.2 Virtual Mobile APP-DI LUO- a Mobile APP with Smart Emotions

Intention of product name: The product name is taken from “DI LUO” which refers to users in a low mood. The homophonic “DI LUO” is used in the hope that the APP and the product can dissolve and eliminate people’s negative emotions like flowing water, and create a more healthy and positive living environment for people.

According to the results of the questionnaire survey and Maslow’s demand theory, the first level of the Demand Theory, there are six modules at the first level in the APP: Mood record, Mood monitoring, Equipment link, Professional communication, Personal settings, Message to remind. (see Fig. 15). There are three parts following the Mood record, such as music, the scenery and encouraging words. User could chose to click on the music button to listen to music so as to click on the scenery button to see the beautiful world.

Fig. 15.

The first level of the APP.

The whole interfaces are concise and clear, which are easily for user to understand, have a better User Experience. The overall color of interface is mazarine, compared with light color, Blue gives a more peaceful visual experience, for the user with ‘Mood Disorder’, it can make user feel better when they are dysphoric. Table 7 shows the selection of sketch.

Table 7. Shows the introduction of the interface.

6 Conclusion

With the accelerated development of society, the emergence of “mood disorder” is inevitable. “LOVE HUG” and “DI LUO” can accompany people at any time just like friends and mentors. By relieving the mood in a timely and effective manner through human-computer interaction, it can bring users a wonderful day!