Erica DeSimone | Art Educator
In the summer of 2019, I applied for a program to travel to Edinburgh, Scotland and research the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I was accepted with a handful of other classmates to participate in this amazing opportunity. While there we conducted interviews and surveys with attendees. With that data collected, in a two person team we created a product solution concluding with a storyboard. On my own, I created wireframes and developed a prototype for a mobile device.
Attendees of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival are interested in socialization and meeting new people, yet they struggle with finding ways to initiate conversation. During this festival, people from all over the world travel to Edinburgh, Scotland to watch performers of many different types. These attendees find themselves surrounded by new people, but struggle with initiating conversation with the massive amount of people that surround them.
The Fringeship Bracelet provides a fun way to display personal information about the user. For festival attendees who want to meet new people, the Fringeship Bracelet offers a fashionable keepsake to create needed ice breakers and lasting relationships. This wearable device connects users with a non obtrusive interaction with technology, keeping them in the moment as they meet and make connections with those around them.
While observing the attendees of the Fringe Festival, the main areas where this research was conducted were The Udder Belly and Pleasance Courtyard. These two areas provided the festival goers with attractions like beer gardens, food trucks, and smaller activities. What was noticed in watching the interactions of these two areas was that the same people who told us they wanted to meet new people were only sticking with their friends.At times they sat right night to strangers who could satisfy that want, yet they never initiated a conversation.
The majority of our surveyed individuals want to socialize and meet others at the Fringe Festival. Although they expressed that in the survey, based on our observations they don't interact with others around them. These two key points right here is what we referenced in our design solution.
Festival Attendee #1
"It's like, I want to talk to this girl but at the same time I might come off as a creep? It's hard to just say hello."
Festival Attendee #2
"I was sitting down in one of the beer gardens, and I recognized the people that sat next to me, we had went to the same show earlier in the day. I wanted to talk to them, but I thought it would be weird to approach them."
The attendees are constantly surrounded by people that have common interests as them. Each time they are presented with an opportunity to make a new friend or talk to a stranger they fear it would be weird to approach them. If they had an ice breaker, or were confident in a talking point could these users make new friends?
After my initial findings from the data collected, I created 3 personas based of the needs of the Fringe Festival Attendee.
Before we broke off into pairs, a large sheet of paper was placed in front of us in the room. We were prompted to come up with potential solutions based on the data collected. This is where in big bright bold letters, I wrote FRINGESHIP, a play on words with a friendship and the festival. For this product, the name came first - as me and my teammate decided to dive further into the concept of friendship at the Fringe.
This program was all about how to create a Design Fiction that best represents out blended project. A blend is an unobtrusive way for humans to interact in the physical presence with digital aid. We were to create a concept around a wearable device that would provide a perfect blend for the Fringe Festival. Our product soon became known as The FringeShip Bracelet.
Later on in my undergrad this design concept was sent in to be published. A professional illustrator took this idea and put his own artistic spin on it. I do not own this art, however; I did create the concept. The link below will take you to a pdf file of his work.
FringeShip Illustration
