Outcome

Concept

Scent Memo is digital device that can store and diffuse various of odors related to one's memories. Researchers have found that olfactory is strongly wired with people's memories and emotions, and that's why when we smell certain type of odors, we instantly travel back  to a past moment filled with emotions. Which is why it's a perfect way for reminiscing one's past and recall our memories. With that in mind,  I am wondering what  if every physical object can store the odor information related to an individual's memory? What if a device can even diffuse that smell and help a person to reminisce? 

Inspired by some previous works on Joseph Kaye's olfactory display and David Dobbelstein's project inScent, which is a olfactory display for mobile notification, I started to explore the concept of utilizing smell for a kind of design intervention and help people to recall the memory. The initial thought was to shoot a concept video, in which a olfactory display facilitates people's reminiscing activities while also caused serious dissonances, and it eventually becomes annoying and disturbing for daily life.  

But this concept was commented by Daragh that might depend too much on future technology, as well as it puts a strong negative opinion on the technology and does not offer enough space of discourse. 

Therefore, I pivot to a little bit more to the near future and attempt to hold my opinion on it, instead to provide a possibility of future technology and discussing the consequences or potential scenarios that may occur with the technology. 

I borrowed  a wooden souvenir of my friend as a path way to trigger the memory. The souvenir was initially collected and  purchased in Japan, which help him reminiscing his past experience of that period of time in Japan, since he spent almost a whole year there. So he always places this object on his desk. I choose the incense mixed with cherry blossom scent, which I got it from the conversation of the best associate scent with his memory. Then I decide combined with an AR app to recognized this souvenir and trigger the device to diffuse that smell.

The wooden souvenir on my friend's desk.

Process and Prototype:

1. Particle Photon 

For the physical computing, I used a Particle Photon, 3 LED, and a small fan for diffusing the smell. It's my first time using Particle Photon, and it took time to figure out the Internet communication part.  I also wrote a bit code to make the 3 LEDs lighting up with different paces, so it feels it is running  from left to right. The light up process is using AnalogWirite, so it's smoother. 

The interesting part of the particle code is that it's constantly listening to a web server command, once it receives a "on"  command, it starts to work, otherwise stop working. 

2. Android AR App

For the Android AR app, I used Unity and C# to programming it, and there's not much resources for connecting Unity project to a Particle Photon through Internet, and that part is the most difficult one.  So I looked up the Particle example of sending a web request to particle and use the similar way, send a form through C# code using Unity Web  request  to realize the Internet communication.

The image recognition and augmented reality part, I also used Vuforia, which is a marker based AR SDK. I already had a lot experience with that, so it doesn't take much effort.

The final app is built into a Android App, deployed on my Pixel Phone.

3. Physical Prototype

The  physical  form is made with Laser cut in  3D Design Lab. Here is the original files made in AI.

Precedents

inScent: A Wearable Olfactory Display for Mobile Notifications

The olfactory display utilizes various scents to send different mobile notifications to participants. Different kinds of easy-distinguished scents are chosen, such as flowers, mint, lavender and lemon. Moreover, a mobile app called Anbient Smell is developed on android phone, through which a user can manually trigger the scents to get familiar with them. Then, the users can assign different scents for the given scentifications, including Scented message(text messages), Scented Reminder( Calendar event),, Time Sense(to trigger a feeling for the passing of time) and Scented Event (the delivery of an important parcel). Then, participants are required to wear the InScent device in university space setting, and a semi-structured interview is conducted to get the qualitative feedback of the process.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y09K4Mxb8dzg2z5rUgDgMqXmwoiG7LcHETf6GJEFAc4/edit?usp=sharing

Open Questions and Challenges

The project still left many questions and challenges to ask.

1. I didn't make a real odor display due to the time limitation, but adding a inventory of different smell that can be mixed by the device is hard. Especially how to decide which odor to add, which not. Should a user determines how many and what kinds of odor should in the box? Would it be able to diffuse interesting smells that are enough to recall the memories?
2. How to decide what scent is associating with an object? Should users decide by themselves, or should it be automatically collected and stored?
3. We store the GPS, time data associated with a photo or video, what if the sensor can actually collect and store the scent information along the way? Is it ethical to collect it? What if it reveals some of  your private information? For example, it reveals another women's perfume when he has an affair. 
4. If we do widely have the odor data as a promise, what products or services may take place? For example, like I demonstrated in the storyboard, would it cause some unexpected results, or making people annoyed by keeping diffusing the smell? If it can amplify our memory,  what if the connection of the smell and memory is too strong that it becomes hard to avoid?
5. In  this prototype, I used a phone to recognized an object, but why it's important to pull out the phone and scan an object? What the experience would be like? What can be used with this type of technology?

Reflection:

In  this project, I firstly employ the critical design and speculative design methods, even though my project is still not critical enough to rise the questions. I felt that it's easy to fall into the old trap of using design to solve a problem, rather than asking a question. From the project and the lectures, I realized that design can be used to push us into the future, and think about how a future technology can enable various situations, and those situations are not necessarily all good, but could be also problematic.

In addition, from the demo day, I learned that using a storyboard or a storytelling method is how  important to convey one's concept, even it's a demo presentation, but with a good story to imagery the scenario, audiences would be more engaging. Especially describing a scenario up front, make people enter that context is very critical.

Moreover, I kept thinking about the question Daragh asked in the class, what is the experience I would imagine users to use this device. I think for a purpose of reminiscing, it still feels thin. What if it can be used for training, like to enhancing people's ability to associate a certain odor with an object? Like a cook might need it to remember a lot of different smell of  Cheese. Or what if it can be used to help Alzheimer's patients to remember things they cannot remember? I think my scenario is not convincing enough to rise up many questions for discourse, which is something I want to explore for next project.

Attribution and Reference:

[1] Psychology and Smell

http://www.fifthsense.org.uk/psychology-and-smell/

[2] Jordan Gaines Lewis, Ph.D. Smells Ring Bells: How Smell Triggers Memories and Emotions

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-babble/201501/smells-ring-bells-how-smell-triggers-memories-and-emotions

[3] Brewster, S., McGookin, D., Miller, C. Olfoto: designing a smell-based interaction. Proc. CHI (2006), 653–662.

[4] Obrist, M., Tuch, A., and Hornbæk, K. 2014. Opportunities for odor: experiences with smell and implications for technology. In Proc. CHI '14. ACM, NY, USA, 2843-2852.

[5] inScent: a Wearable Olfactory Display as an Amplification for Mobile Notifications David Dobbelstein, Steffen Herrdum, Enrico Rukzio Ulm University, Ulm, Germany, ISWC '17, SEPTEMBER 11–15, 2017, MAUI, HAWAII, USA

https://dl-acm-org.proxy.library.cmu.edu/citation.cfm?id=3123035