UX of Goodbye
Brief: Design a novel way to say goodbye.
Group: Dahoon, Ellen, Jin, Karolis
Research Methods: Directed Storytelling, Affinity Diagramming
Week 1
The group commenced research by looking into several aspects of Goodbye, covering etymology in various languages, gestures, pop culture references. We also looked into the context of goodbye - What do we say goodbye to? When do we do that and why?
Linguistically, we found expressions fall into two main categories: the first a sort of blessing, and the second an expression of a desired reunion in the future.
We established that our approach to a goodbye is affected by our relationship with the entity to which we are bidding farewell to. Additionally, some goodbyes hold sentiments of regret, for not having a satisfactory sense of closure. This can be because we may not have known the goodbye would be final and we wished we’d have said or done more.
We found this to be quite intriguing. We thought about funerals, a custom that exists in plenty of cultures, and its role in giving closure to the living (Kastenbaum, 2004). We decided to conduct our Directed Storytelling around this subject. For this, we ask participants the question “tell about a time you’ve been to a funeral”. We pre-planned several follow up questions regarding the custom in their culture and their personal feelings to it. We also wanted to hear about their own funeral - have they given it thought at all?
↑ Our initial investigation covered linguistics, customs, pop culture. We analysed the individual components of the goodbye - timing, emotions, interaction, spaces, expectations, etc.
↑ Five participants were interviewed for our directed storytelling. Incidentally, each came from a different culture, which allowed us to cover a wide range of customs from around the world.
After interviewing five participants, we synthesised the data using Affinity Diagramming, where we group common themes from all interviews together and identify patterns and commonalities within them. One of the aspects we recognised regarded the habit of commemorating the life of the recently departed by sharing positive stories about them and looking through photos of their life. It seemed that many find solace in knowing the person they loved was loved by others. Nevertheless, despite the affair often being described as sad, our participants all wished their own funeral would not be.
We asked ourselves if it’s even possible to invent a funeral that isn’t sad. Perhaps, we wondered, the sadness can be framed as beautiful rather than agonising. We were also fascinated by the idea that some perceive the goodbye as temporary due to their belief of reincarnation or afterlife, and the belief that no one is truly dead as long as people have memories of them. One participant said “funerals are for the living” - to help the living deal with the death.
To generate ideas for a final possible outcome, we executed a Crazy 8s exercise where we had to come up with as many ideas as possible within 5 minutes. We incorporated several elements from the generated ideas into a rough concept we’d finalise in the following week - a new type of funeral.
↑ Affinity Diagramming
↑ Out of the Affinity Diagramming, we synthesised subjects that informed our design moving forward.
↑ Crazy 8s ideations.
↑ Inspired by our conversations and the crazy 8s, we began brainstorming ideas for the final outcome.
Week 2
Amongst one of our discussions, we brought up the way in which technology changes the way we say goodbye. One example is the way keyboard shortcuts like “BRB” (Be Right Back) and “G2G” (Got to Go) became mostly obsolete in a world where we’re always online (Livingston, 2018). Several episodes of the television series “Black Mirror” look into the relationship between technology and death. Often, these episodes take a dark turn. Whilst this heavy subject can be quite morbid, we wanted to have a speculative, utopian approach.
How can we utilise technology to allow for closure and enhance the way we bid farewell to the dead?
Artificial Intelligence can “learn” us, reconstructing a version of us that is always accessible even after our departure. This, we felt, was too similar to the Black Mirror episodes “Be Right Back” (2013) and “San Junipero” (2016).
Instead of relying on AI we opted for a solution that provides the person passing away with more agency. In our solution, a person can record a video to someone they love, similarly to the way we write a will. These videos can be accumulated over a lifetime, and one can record them whenever they wish. During the funeral procedure, the deceased loved ones will receive a token with which they can access the message left for them. These tokens can be personalised and become a keepsake.
We wanted the room where the message is played to feel airy yet private. We opted for white materials to symbolise optimism, a contrast from the usual association of funerals and black.
The final outcome is a technological addition to the funeral process that allows the dead to bid a final goodbye to their loved ones.
↑ Initial rough sketch of our “Goodbye Room” idea.
↑ Second sketch for final outcome, storyboarding the process.
Final outcome:
↑ Exterior of The Goodbye Room: the dedicated tokens are available for collection. Jin loved stars, which is the reason for the chosen shapes for the tokens.
↑ Interior of the Goodbye Room: Activated by an NFC reader, loved ones can activated their dedicated message and keep the token.
* this clip contains audio
↑ A walkthrough of the process: each person collects the token left for them, enters the room and plays a personalised final message.
↑ A participant entering and exiting the room after having received a dedicated message.
Feedback:
The participants we planned to receive a message for found it touching. We made a decision to warp the sound of Jin’s voice to sound echoey, leaving us a message from “the beyond”. It was pointed out that if this were a real experience for a family of a deceased, this choice might be badly received.
Reflection:
Our decision to tackle a somber subject such as funerals worried us at first, but I think we managed to uplift the topic and made sure everyone in the group and our participants felt secure when talking about this matter. We hoped our design removed some of the taboo around planning or thinking of one’s own funeral. Choosing to create a utopian, slightly comical design for this subject subverted expectations and whilst I agree some of our humorous choices wouldn’t bode well in the “real world”, we managed to carry our message across.
References:
‘Be Right Back’ (2013) Black Mirror, series 2, episode 1. Channel 4. 11 February, 22:00.
Kastenbaum, R. (2004) ‘Why Funerals?’, Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging, pp. 5-10. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26555297 (Accessed 4 January 2025).
Livingston, E. (2018) g2g, brb, and what the loss of early MSN language means. Available at: https://www.dazeddigital.com/science-tech/article/39832/1/g2g-logging-off-and-the-loss-of-classic-internet-language (Accessed: 5 January 2025).
‘San Junipero’ (2016) Black Mirror, series 3, episode 4. Netflix. Available at: Netflix.