About
Individual project over 2 weeks
Designing a digital interactive user experience that regards critical design and evokes certain chosen emotions.
Process
My goal was to make users aware of a disease and its impact on peoples lives. Alzheimer's disease appealed to me because of its high occurrence, yet in currently available simulations the users are aware of being in said simulation, which greatly undermines its effect. Therefore the experience was designed to run with the user initially being unaware, and only offering resolution at the end.
The disease's symptoms were researched and ideas  generated based on the chosen emotions 'confusion' and 'frustration'. These were translated through an MDA framework into interface mechanics that could be implemented to a phone's UI. 
The different screens were designed in order to get progressively worse as the experience goes on. The complete experience consists of 13 steps, from re-arranging app icons to eventually completely becoming locked out through 'forgetting' the lock code. At that point, the experience ends and the user is confronted with what has been going on. Some examples of what they have been experiencing are linked to Alzheimer’s disease, and they are invited for a debrief.
In order to get an idea of the design's effectiveness, the design was user tested. Participants were taken through the experience after which they could talk about what they thought was going one. Then the final screen was shown and the participants were invited to reflect on the whole experience:
Result
The experience was very well received by the test participants, and the goal of creating awareness of Alzheimer's disease was successful. 
“I did not see it coming, but it all makes sense now.
It's a strong experience, since I wasn't aware what was happening to me.”
“I think I recognize my own behavior [in the experience] in Alzheimer's patients.
It makes me think of my future.”
The design was also very well received by my supervisor, as the evaluation was finished as follows
“The design is very well executed. [...] Moreover, it is incredibly thorough. Simply brilliant!”
Personally I am very happy with the results, especially the responses from the involved as well as my increased understanding of both Alzheimer's disease and critical design. 
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