Digital Use Reduction Companion (DURC)
DURC is a companion designed to help you use your phone less, enabling you to do more. The goal of this project was to create a scoreboard that supported the positive practice of “unplugging” through the lens of positive design. DURC, through a week of evaluation, was shown to significantly reduce digital use and led to an increased awareness surrounding digital use.
About DURC
DURC eats your phone and would prefer not to give it back
DURC helps you to be more thoughtful and reflective about your digital usage
His mindfulness prompts paired with his snarky comments (and often insults) make him a perfect companion to assist you in putting down your phone and working towards your goals.
Interacting with DURC is simple. You insert your phone into his mouth, which he senses. To get your phone back, he invites you to reflect on a mindfulness prompt, which you can respond to through DURC’s eye-buttons. He keeps track of your progress, and the better you are, the happier he is. When DURC doesn’t get enough phone time, he gets hangry.
Experimental Prototype
An experimental prototype was used to test the effectiveness of mindfulness questions in conjunction with a physical barrier. Adding a stuffed bear offered useful insight into the value of a personified “companion” delivering the prompts.
Feedback guided DURC towards a sassy and mocking personality with an antagonistic relationship with the user.
The color palette draws inspiration from cartoons and plushes in order to reference toys and support the user in not taking DURC (and his insults) too seriously.
Assessing Success
DURC, through a week of evaluation, was shown to significantly reduce digital use and increase awareness surrounding digital use.
On average, the test subject spent 4 hours less per day on the phone in a week of using DURC than in the two weeks before and reported that the DURC was great at interrupting the rote movement of reaching for the phone.
Eyes
The eye design was essential for expressing DURC’s character because of eyes’ capabilities to anthropomorphize animals, toys, and cartoons. Cute eyes on animals, for example, makes people more careful and nurturing.
To research the impressions of different eye shapes, survey takers were asked to choose their favorites and score each design on scales of adjective pairs. Data from this survey was used to select eye shapes that best expressed the product character of a snarky and mischievous companion who’s still lovable and inviting.
DURC has five different categories of responses (mindfulness prompts, illegal removal chastisements, thank you for not removing messages, goodbyes, and time updates) with multiple randomly-chosen options.
When DURC hasn’t got a phone, he’s inactive, his eye colors show how hangry he is, and eye presses activate verbal status updates on today’s total phone time. Giving DURC your phone switches him into active state. His eyes softly cycle through colors while he counts how long he’s got the phone for. Eye presses lead to verbal mindfulness prompts answered through color-coded eye presses. After answering, DURC will say goodbye and you can grab your phone. Don’t take your phone without answering, though; DURC will yell until the phone is returned.
DURC’s Dual-Arduino Tech
DURC is running two Arduinos linked via I2C communication protocol. One runs the main program, taking in inputs from the pressure sensors and buttons, running lights, and keeping track of DURC’s phone time. The other is hooked up to a Wave Shield to play DURC’s pitched-up cartoon voice through the speakers hidden in DURC’s head.
