ROOM FOR TRUTH

A NEW RITUAL FOR MEANING-MAKING

IN A PHYSICAL-DIGITAL FUTURE

by

Bonnie J. Stinson

B.A. Government, Smith College, 2011

A Major Research Paper

presented to Ryerson University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Master of Digital Media

In the program of Digital Media

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2019

Bonnie J. Stinson, 2019

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Author’s Declaration for Electronic Submission of an MRP

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any required final revisions.

I authorize Ryerson University to lend this MRP to other institutions or individuals for the purpose

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I further authorize Ryerson University to reproduce this MRP by photocopying or by other means,

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 Abstract

ROOM FOR TRUTH:

A NEW RITUAL FOR MEANING MAKING IN A PHYSICAL DIGITAL FUTURE

Bonnie J. Stinson

Master of Digital Media, 2019

Yeates School of Graduate Studies

Ryerson University

Room for Truth introduces a new physical-digital ritual which strengthens the connection

between the self and the other by integrating the body’s sensory potential into social media. From

self-trackers to Instagram, people are using technology to facilitate self-observation and connection

with community, but mostly media fails to incorporate the body in two major ways. Firstly, the

storytelling options available on mainstream platforms are largely restricted to photographic content

and text-based commentary. This serves a visual-first design hierarchy which disregards the full

sensory capacities of the body as an expressive organ, a natural storytelling interface which is the

inheritance of all human beings. Secondly, the built environments in which people engage in

genuine self-reflection are often private, tech-free spaces. However, public truth-telling can pull

people out of filter bubbles, reduce polarization, instill empathy, and motivate people to take more

informed action. The Room for Truth project aims to resolve these challenges by imagining a new

social media which uses the body as its generative interface. It reimagines the method, the

environment, and the appearance of existing methods of self-reflection to better facilitate collective

truth-telling by focusing on uniting technology with the sensory storytelling potential of the human

body. Specifically, the Room for Truth prototype introduces a new visual language for truth-telling

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in three ways: 1) a public-private booth with theming that invites self-reflection; 2) symbolic

objects with embedded NFC tags which draw upon memory and sensory attributes to inspire

complex storytelling; and 3) a mobile application which captures data and translates it into

meaningful abstract animations which are publicly searchable. This paper discusses the Room for

Truth project and the implications of a truth-telling process which bridges the physical, digital, and

emotional to capture, reflect, contextualize, and transform personal and collective experiences: a

new ritual for meaning-making in a physical-digital future.

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 Acknowledgements

For the curious, playful minds that taught me the most this year: Steve Cober, Dr. Kathryn

Woodcock, Dr. Ali Mazalek, Daniel Harley. For my classmates, who embody curiosity and share

my commitment to building a better world by grappling with the temptations and limitations of

technology. For those who reflect my power rather than diminishing it: SHOUTIES, my Smithie

pals, my trans and genderqueer and neurodivergent sibs everywhere. And to those who give me

gifts that make my life possible: Ahna and her courage; my parents and their gratitude for life; my

brother for showing me how to better myself with gentleness; my sister and her commitment to

togetherness; Mo for her deep and applied spiritual practice; and Joey and Maeve for always

showing up at just the right time.

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 Dedication

To nine-year old Bonnie, whose bold declaration that she wished to be an artist and a pilot turned

out to be closer to the truth than expected.

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 Table of Contents

Author’s Declaration ii

Abstract iii

Acknowledgements v

Dedication vi

Table of Contents vii

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 8
2.1 Personal Tracking & Ritualized Digital Self-Reflection 8
2.2 Visualizing Self-Reflection in Physical-Digital Ways 12
2.3 TEI & Performance Art 14
2.4 Media Literacy & Society 15
2.5 Physical Spaces for Meaning-Making 17
2.5a Pattern Language 17
2.5b Themed Spaces 18
2.5c Conflict Zones and Peace Parks 21
2.6 Tangible Objects & Rituals of Self-Reflection 23

3. Research Questions 25

4. Design Rationale & Implementation 26

4.1 Objects 31
4.2 Environment 32
4.3 Interface 34

5. Discussion & Conclusion 37

Works Cited 43

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1. INTRODUCTION

The 21st century is the era of fake news, exacerbated by digital media. From political administrations

to personal relationships, digital media has made it more difficult for people to ascertain truth from lie.

In pursuit of survival and profit, mainstream news networks publish negative stories to heighten feelings

of polarization and viewership. On social media, and especially on Instagram, the inherent voyeurism

and transactional nature of the platform has turned the performance of authenticity into social currency.

The limitations of technology to facilitate collective and personal truth-telling are often inherent to

the infrastructure itself and deepened through prolonged use. For example, Facebook’s filter bubbles

and Instagram’s literal filters enable the compartmentalization of society in ways previously

unimaginable to previous generations (Pariser, 2011). The commodification of personal data along with

the embedding of influencer marketing have created an atmosphere of distrust around social media and

network technology (Pierce & DiSalvo, 2018). Social media is no longer a way to capture and share

personal moments (Constine, 2017) but rather a performance of identity in which content is curated in

advance and serves to elevate social status and career prospects. Furthermore, the corporate shadow cast

by persuasive design and the mismanagement of data (Fogg, 2009) came to a head in 2018 and made

people wish they could leave Facebook for good (Shane, 2018).

https://www.buzzfeed.com/louisekhong/fake-travel-tiktok-plane-challenge

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 As people are overwhelmed with fake news and deceitful technology, there is still a yearning for

better ways to tell and discover the truth. Some are turning away from technology, but others embrace it

as a comprehensive solution for self-reflection. People stay on social media, despite their knowledge of

data mismanagement and monetization, because of a deep desire to stay connected with friends and to

participate in a global community (Zantal-Wiener, 2018). They use self-trackers to manage their fitness,

Facebook to stay connected with family members around the world, and Instagram to explore other

ways of life. Instagram, after all, is truly a uniquely powerful platform for storytelling. Research shows

that many millennials use Instagram as a tool for accessing motivation, inspiration (Janicke-Bowles,

Narayan, & Seng, 2018), connection, and other “self-transcendent emotions” (Haidt & Morris, 2009).

Facebook offers unmatched opportunities to connect with friends, families, and identity-based

communities around the globe. Facebook’s live-streaming capabilities help people connect with the

rapid-fire spread of non-mainstream news and grassroots organizing efforts.

Social media has been wielded as a tool against democracy, as seen during Facebook’s disastrous

handling of the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections, but it can also be employed to pursue equity. In these

best-case scenarios, social media offers individuals a way to reflect upon their own life in the context of

a global community. Facebook has directly enabled or amplified some of the most societally impactful

moments of activism in the 21stcentury (Larson, 2017), like the growth in white Americans’ awareness

of the movement for Black Lives generated by the videos of Sandra Bland and Philando Castile (New

York Times, 2018), or the climate demonstrations motivated by photos of Greta Thunberg’s School

Strikes outside her Swedish parliament. Indeed, there are many ways in which technology can be used to

empower and facilitate major acts of societal transformation.

And yet there is a growing trend, from Waldorf parents to major players in Silicon Valley, to move

away from high-tech (Weller, 2018). This may be possible at some level, but the embeddedness of

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technology and the stranglehold of capitalism indicate that going completely Luddite is simply not an

option. Corporations will continue to prioritize technology’s capacity to generate profit, rather than

equity. In the end, although most startup algorithms are originated and managed by mostly white men in

California (Settembre, 2019), technology itself is a tool (Winner, 1980) which can be wielded and

forged by its users to serve a diversity of goals.

The deeper argument for social media is the notion that free and independent media is essential for a

functioning democracy and a healthy, equitable society. Media helps to facilitate the flow of information

and it can open up dialogue about societal issues. However, media literacy requires a fundamental

awareness of the self, specifically understanding of one’s personal identity as influenced by physical

ability, privilege and structural power dynamics, language, and symbolism. Thus, it follows that before

one can meaningfully analyze media and society, they must first understand themselves.

To some degree, people know this. The number of people who have seen a therapist, or who have

accessed a mental health mobile application in the last year, is just under half the population in the

United States (Barna Group, 2018). The field of personal informatics has inspired the creation of a

“quantified self”, logging and analyzing personal data to analyze one’s own behavior in ways previously

out of reach for the average individual. Today the trend is to pursue self-reflective experiences that are

data-based and community-informed (e.g., FitBit health trackers). In 2019, access to data is not the

problem; however, making sense of the data is. Ostensibly, people collect data to observe patterns and

improve their lives. Engaging in personal informatics, whether on social media or via self-tracking, is a

process which requires self-reflection and telling the truth. People are seeking to balance their need for

better self-reflection with their dependence on social media. Data and social media have the power to

literally world-build; Instagrammers present a manufactured reality to the world, which inspires others

to duplicate their appearance and lifestyle. In this way, social media influences real-world purchasing

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decisions and personal development. Instagram’s recent decision to hide the number of likes on a post

was, in part, driven by the awareness that many young people do not have the media literacy required to

survive the online popularity contest (Yurieff, 2019).

At the other end of the social spectrum are those who pursue meaning in solitary, non-digital,

tangible, and experiential (e.g., meditation retreats) opportunities, even as the number of young people

attending church is declining (Sherwood, 2018). Data indicates that many young people, aware that they

will never be able to afford a down payment on a home, are choosing instead to remain renters and

spend their money on tangible experiences like food and travel (Morgan, 2019). Certainly, purchasing

decisions among millennials indicate a general trend towards experiences as the means to create a

meaningful life while overwhelmed by fake news and income inequality (Woo, 2018). For example, the

growing popularity of witchcraft (Singh-Kurtz & Kopf, 2018) and off-the-grid-style homesteading

(Mellino, 2011) among young people is indicative of a desire to embrace traditional ways of meaning-

making. Under the pall of late-stage capitalism and climate change, Gen Y is making meaning by

reinventing (and often appropriating for profit) tangible, traditional methods of meaning-making, and

augmenting them with digital tools: tarot cards, tchotchkes, herb smudging, growing one’s own food

and homebrewing, crafting with hand tools (see: the resurgence of hipster hand-crafted Etsy wood

carvings), and nomadic lifestyles (see: #vanlife). It is noteworthy that many of these people pair their

off-the-grid lifestyles with cutting-edge media (YouTube channels, influencer lifestyles, high-tech

personal trackers to optimize health). There is an undeniable trend towards tangibility and experiential

meaning-making, and technology is still catching up.

New developments in transmedia technology helped to incubate this generation’s desire for tangible

storytelling and continue to lead the way when it comes to digital-physical platforms. Location-based

entertainment, cross-platform storytelling, and internet forums have magnified the popularity of

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broadcast mainstream entertainment by increasing the level of intimacy available to fandoms,

particularly in fantasy and sci-fi genres (see: Marvel, Harry Potter, Wynonna Earp, anime). Thanks to

new technology, stories have become worlds in which fans are co-creators (Johnson, 2007). These

worlds offer a way for people to engage in acts of collective imagination. Technology enables diverse

fans to experiment with changing the story, whether in fanfiction where outcomes, value systems, and

language can change, or in themed environments like conventions or amusement parks which offer real

opportunities to interface with the sensory elements of stories (costumes, props, architecture, actors). In

2019, fandom is a mainstream activity - enacted in the real world, not just existing in private online

forums. People enact their identities through a combination of real-world play and community building

inspired by fictional stories, and digital storytelling. They can meet up in costume at Harry Potter World

and experience the built environment in proximity with other fans, and they can use immersive mobile

apps to digitally overlay fictional worlds atop the physical world (Pokémon Go). Thanks to the kind of

storytelling made possible by technology, people see themselves as empowered consumers, citizens, and

fans -- and in every area, they expect stories to be multimodal, tangible, responsive, and experiential.

Moore’s Law (Moore, 1965) shows that it is possible to predict developments in new technology:

they tend to get smaller, faster, and more powerful, which facilitates the ubiquity of digital-physical

storytelling. It is worth pointing out that fictional storytellers tend to agree with researchers on this

general trend for the future of technology. Technology is becoming increasingly invisible, intuitive, and

embedded in the physical world (National Research Council, 2001). Frictionless is the name of the

game. Embodied and disappearing interfaces are being foregrounded both by real-life tech companies

and by Hollywood. From Minority Report’s touchless gestural interface to Joaquin Phoenix’s earpiece

with targeted advertising in Her, the silver screen envisions a future that is at once high-tech and deeply

motivated by the natural affordances and gestures of the human body (Russell, 2013). In the business

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world, augmented reality glasses like Google Glass are already pairing powerful computing with

minimalist interfaces; indeed, the upcoming 3rd generation of Google Glass supposedly reduces battery

size in order to make the product more comfortable to wear on the body (de Looper, 2019).

Developments in the field of tangible, embedded, and embodied interactions (TEI) are permeating

every area of society. TEI is aiding science, helping to analyze DNA with tangible manipulables

(Manshaei, 2017) and, in the creative arts, TEI has helped to inspire MIDI-style sound controllers which

respond to the movements of the musician’s body. A well-known example is Imogen Heap’s glove

controller for composing and modifying music with her body in live performances (Cooper, 2019). The

field of TEI is pushing boundaries everywhere, and reinventing consumer expectations for how body,

mind, and technology should work together.

These trends indicate the major challenge (and opportunity) of the 21st century. Technology must be

multimodal, accessible, and tangible in order to satisfy today’s consumers. There is a clear opportunity

to utilize physical objects, and the stories embedded therein, to better integrate the full human body as a

sensory entity into digital storytelling. Furthermore, it is feasible to pair new methods of tangible and

embodied storytelling with existing interfaces from mainstream social media. How might the role of

social media as a truth-telling platform change if it interweaves technology’s analytic and connective

affordances with the senses and rituals of the physical world?

The Room for Truth project is a first step towards articulating a physical-digital ritual of meaning-

making for human evolution in the 21st century, one that responds to the need for truth-telling and self-

reflection, foregrounds the affordances of social media and personal informatics, and respects the desire

for tangible, intuitive, and embodied (Núñez-Pacheco & Loke, 2015) experiences of meaning-making.

Room for Truth draws on traditional tangible rituals of self-reflection (personal diary, magic 8 ball, tarot

cards) and reinvents the public-facing social media model of performative authenticity. It employs an

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interface which guides users through a private “confessional” exploration of topics, capturing personal

data, visually and abstractly presenting it, and discovering and presenting patterns to the user that

facilitate better self-understanding, compassion, and decision-making going forward. Using simple

principles of embodiment and abstract data visualization, Room for Truth teaches users how to journey

from the deeply felt personal sense of self to a contextualized worldview that can highlight patterns of

belief.

Think of the 21st century as a great concert hall, but one which has neither audience nor sheet music.

Everyone is a player: the mind is the musician, and the instruments are technology and the body. Truth

is the symphony, and its score can only materialize when the players operate their instruments. Room

for Truth builds one more pathway into the hall, so that everyone may take up their instruments and

contribute to this collective opus.

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Personal Tracking & Ritualized Self-Reflection

The modern notion of a “quantified self” arose as a consequence and benefit of the shrinking size

and increasing computational power of new technology. The development of wireless

communication and improved sensors made possible the personal smartphone, and not long after,

wearable technology became available. Many products, like the Fitbit, now provide users with

visualized personal data regarding health and fitness activity. The idea is that direct feedback

works; when users can easily understand their personal data, they can set and achieve goals with

greater success. Wearables can collect all kinds of information, including biometric signals,

location, duration of stay, purchasing patterns, and more. This data also permits companies and

service providers to personalize interactions, manage crowds, and make strategic decisions

(Borkowski et al, 2016). This data is being extrapolated to broadly represent emotions and

preferences (Torres, Wei, Hua & Chen, 2018). All signs point to a growing trend in the use of

personal interactive wearables across industries (Kim & Park, 2019). Some studies have even

shown that wearables like Disney’s Magic Band actually increase enjoyment of the attractions

(Tussyadiah, Jung, & tom Dieck, 2018).

There are many mobile applications geared towards helping people track their moods and make

decisions. Some are casual digital diary or decision-making apps, and others are used by individuals

doing CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) under the guidance of a counselor. Some of the most

popular apps include EitherOr, FYI Decision, Reflectly (“the world’s first intelligent journal” using

a conversational AI bot), Youper, Daylio, Orange Diary (“comprehensive and irresistible features:

rich content: text, photo, voice, location data; tagging for fast organization”), Feelings Diary,

GridDiaryClassic, Perspective, Thought Diary, Moodtrack, Instant from Emberify (a quantified self

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company), Moodpanda, Get Happy, Live happy, Mood kit, Experial, In Flow, Knomee. Most apps

work by asking the user to input personal information on a regular basis and then using algorithms

to re-present that data according to user-selected trends. Some go as far as facilitating a process of

self-reflection by employing a chatbot.

A major problem with these apps is that they only work with regular use. Inputting personal

information can be strenuous, requiring time and focus which can be difficult to muster amid busy

schedules. If a user misses a day, it can interrupt the tracking mechanisms and make it harder to get

started again. Additionally, the interfaces can be difficult to use, with a tone that does not inspire

safety or vulnerability. Engaging in deep introspection typically happens in spaces that offer

privacy and safety, like a bedroom or a therapist’s office, but opportunities to input personal data

via a mobile app often coincide with being in transit, or in public. Another major problem is the

presentation of personal data. After all, it is a significant design challenge to create an app that

offers a pleasant experience for diverse users to review their emotions in a neutral, intuitive way.

Some apps use artificial intelligence, but ultimately people are still reluctant to trust an AI chatbot

with helping them make decisions or manage their emotions (Teich, 2019).

In fields beyond mental health and fitness, models for personal tracking do not really exist. This

is to be expected, since other data (like emotions) can be nearly impossible to quantify and neatly

represent visually. Beyond therapeutic applications, social media and smartphones do not actually

facilitate reflection but rather the performance of authenticity and the assemblage of identity-

signifiers. Apps like Moment do help people reflect on their use of technology, but they fail to

incorporate the body’s complex sensory and emotional faculties to reflect on the messier parts of

personal experiences. When technology is applied to a purpose like user testing or stakeholder

surveys, interfaces are typically limited to screens and paper, and they request people to evaluate

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themselves from the perspective of a company’s interests, rather than their own intrinsic perception

of self.

Nevertheless, as far back as ancient times, humans have always recorded and documented their

activities, even if the methods were less methodical. The earliest cave paintings date back to more

than 60,000 years ago, featuring shapes and colors created by the human hand. The ancient

Egyptians developed a very complex concept of the self (Singer, 2004). Around 12,500 years ago,

as human society moved away from hunting and gathering towards a more sedentary agricultural

lifestyle, people rapidly accrued more time and more materials which aided in the development of

more complex self-reflection. It is clear that no matter the culture or time period, it has always been

important to capture, for communal benefit, important moments in a group’s history like successful

hunts, marriages, migrations. The societal valuation of community knowledge-keepers is high

across classes, locations, and occupations, whether shaman, astronomer, or maritime captain (West,

2011). This collective knowledge is passed down and helps new generations to survive.

One well-known example is the Old Farmer’s Almanac, which has tracked the tides and seasons

to support North American agriculture since 1792 (Old Farmer’s Almanac). The 1400s, which

marked the beginning of an era of imperialism, launched a vast flood of diaries produced by

colonizing explorers who documented and embellished their journeys in new lands (McKay,

2005)(Cavell, 2010). Lewis and Clark kept detailed journals about their route and the people they

encountered crossing the American continent, and Robert Scott’s Captain’s Log contributed to

humanity’s scientific knowledge about the South Pole. These are examples of people who collected

knowledge with the objective to share it publicly and so benefit their community.

But there were also many people who maintained a private, personal diary. Perhaps the two most

famous personal diaries of all time were never intended to be famous, nor published: Anne Frank’s

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diary and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations (Welsch, 2017). Indeed, diaries and diary-keeping do not

only document information; they are a means of private self-exploration and discourse with the self.

As cultural artifacts, diaries provide deeper sociological insights into the social dynamics of culture

at the time of writing. The events and language contained within diaries, whether public or private,

become templates upon which culture is built.

Social media is essentially modern diary-keeping. Within the past two decades, it evolved from

low-fidelity, unmonetized spaces like LiveJournal and MySpace to the influencer-saturated and

highly public-facing platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. It’s now estimated that

around 2.65 billion people used social media in 2018 (Statista, 2019). Integrating wearable devices

like the FitBit with social media has enabled people to effortlessly capture and review data about

highly personal activities, and then publicly share that data with the world.

In the 21st century, the fundamental human act of self-reflection is accelerating and changing

dramatically, and designers and researchers are struggling alongside their users to figure out the

best way to manage digital self-reflection. Some research has been done on best practices for the

UX design of self-tracking applications, like contextualizing data, reinforcing desired behaviors,

and designing for delight (Falmann, 2019). There is much research on how persuasive design

creates ritualistic use of social media. Other research establishes the positive effects of

personalization upon public experiences (Not & Petrelli, 2018) and personal user interfaces (Kwon

& Kim, 2012). Innovations in themed entertainment highlight cutting-edge methods for using

technology to capture individual experiences. A patent registered in 2014 to Orion Photo Industries

Inc. describes a system that provides “coded personalized souvenirs linked to web-based

personalized content related to individual consumer identifiers, locality identifiers and/or both…

Additional embodiments also include laser engraved coded souvenirs.” Another team of researchers

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attempted an RFID-assisted souvenir generator system in 2014, but it was automatically generated.

That is to say, it captured a user’s individual data and produced a souvenir for them, but the system

lacked any meaningful participation or co-creation from the visitors themselves (Duan, Hou, & Ma,

2014), which is a key element in imbuing objects with meaning.

A lingering question is whether today’s consumers have the necessary mental model to derive as

much meaning from digital-physical personalization as they do from purely physical or digital

experiences. There are also unexplored ethical challenges that the technology of self-reflection

presents (Anastasiadou & Vettese, 2019). Research on avatars and digital selfhood do not yet reveal

any significant long-term findings about the effects of digital self-reflection on self or society, and

there is certainly not yet enough research on physical-digital self-reflection to guide the

development of new projects in this field. There is much work being done to understand the

connection between the design of avatars and digital personhood, especially as it relates to

consumer decisions in theme parks and branded experiences (So, 2017), but there is not sufficient

research on its effect upon an individual’s emotions or decision-making.

2.2 Visualizing Self-Reflection in Physical-Digital Ways

People generate more data than ever today, but that data is meaningless without a good way to make

sense of it all. Data visualization is a rapidly growing field with applications across marketing, business,

health, and science. Infographics and charts are often generated for stakeholder meetings, and data

visualizations are frequently employed to demonstrate market potential at pitch competitions. When it

comes to personal data, many people first encounter personal informatics through a health or personal

tracking interface (Rapp & Cena, 2016). Business projects and health/fitness visualizations remain the

most popular purposes for data visualization today. An extension of data visualization is data

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physicalization which bridges digital experiences with physical objects. Many installation artists draw

on this concept to create powerful community stories, such as inviting visitors to string yarn on a map

indicating their migration experience. Another powerful example of data physicalization is a study done

at The Municipal Museum at The Hague, in the Netherlands. Here, visitors could generate a

personalized souvenir postcard which illustrated their journey through the exhibit (Petrelli, Marshall,

O’Brien, McEntaggart & Gwilt, 2017).

Studies have been done that show certain types of data visualization affect users differently

(Herrmann, Brumby, Oreszczyn & Gilbert, 2018). However, not much is known much about how

data visualization affects post-event perception or loyalty. When it comes to UX, at the forefront of

designing digital-physical experiences like AR/VR is the video game industry. Although best

practices in UX are always being redefined, some work has been done to establish a methodology

specific to the affordances of mobile devices (Dirin & Laine, 2018). It is still early stages, but

trends indicate that AR/VR may soon become a domestic consumer experience, thanks to the

maturation of Generation Y and the continually increasing improvements to VR technology, like

reduced visual latency (Foundry, 2017). There is not yet enough information to determine how

these multimodal interfaces will affect people or society, nor to predict how the touch- and sensor-

based affordances of mobile devices may be fully exploited in the future, but it is apparent that the

full potential of the sensor-rich personal mobile device as a meaning-making tool has not yet been

realized.

Another way to visualize self-reflection is by engaging in dialogue with a benevolent,

intelligent interface. Some have humanoid faces (Walker, Sproull & Subramani, 1994), whereas

others tend towards the abstract, such as Siri’s flash of multicolored light. Robots, especially tele-

present robots (Latikka, Turja & Oksanen, 2019), points towards a 21st century representation of

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self that is both physical and digital. The overarching goal is to visually represent the self in a way

that facilitates trust, data flow, and clear guidelines for use. This field presents an opportunity to

explore the use of personalizable, abstract physical-digital avatars to make systems accessible and

effective for diverse end users.

2.3 TEI and Performance Art

Innovative artists and businesses are incorporating the body more and more into their

technologies. The field of tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction (TEI) captures a physical-

digital sweet spot which indicates the future of human-computer interaction technology (Shimojo &

Shams, 2001). TEI offers new opportunities for collaboration, intuitive navigation, and immersion.

Indeed, interactions with responsive environments seem to be the way of the future, already present

in smart homes and office buildings which anticipate and adjust to their occupants’ needs. In an era

of disappearing interfaces, experts predict more integration of the digital and physical, away from

computer and keyboard interfaces (National Research Council, 2011). From Dr. Ali Mazalek’s

work in Toronto to Dr. Hiroshi Ishii and the MIT Media Lab, researchers in this field continue to

develop new ways to bridge the digital and physical worlds. Theme parks have already caught on,

and TEI technologies are currently in use at the queues for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Haunted

Mansion at Disney World in Orlando, among others (Brigante, 2011).

Artists and researchers are at the forefront of projects connecting technology with the body.

Marina Abramović and Allan Kaprow are two such performance artists whose projects

fundamentally altered perceptions of time, boundaries of self, and the role of the onlooker. Many

contemporary artists use tangible, embedded and embodied technology for astonishing self-

expressive projects, some of which incorporate personal data or reprogramming smart voice

interfaces like Alexa (Lessio). Works like Shiva’s Rangoli (Gupta, 2018), useless machines, and

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The Blue Studio out of MIT Media Lab (Jaasma et al, 2017) are all projects that use embodied

feedback via smart interfaces to help put users at the center of their own storytelling.

But people from all age groups and disciplines share an awareness that screen-based

technologies are not the decisive solution to humanity’s need for imagination, analysis, inclusion,

and self-reflection. Everyday people already benefit from TEI technologies, which have proven

especially successful at engaging diverse groups by supplying highly accessible and intuitive

interfaces. That is to say, TEI interactions can be democratize participation for people from wide-

ranging age groups, who have differing physical abilities, and who speak different

languages. Another major boon of TEI is personalization; depending on the complexity of the

project and the input ranges offered, no two experiences of a TEI interface are ever quite the same.

To sum up, TEI technology is in the early days of its application to science and research, cultural

institutions, and theme park queues, but it has yet to be applied to mainstream social media and

individualized self-reflective practices.

2.4 Media Literacy & Society

Due to the convergence of new technology, low media literacy, and the impending effects of

capitalism and climate change, the ability to self-reflect is a survival skill which is in danger of

being lost. In fact, the capacity to perceive and critically engage with individual and collective

stories is a foundation of a healthy society. America’s Founding Fathers understood this when they

enshrined freedom of the press and independent media. Now it is 2019, and people are

overwhelmed with the convenience of data (Wong, 2019). Google can answer most any question,

and new computing tools offer ways to explore and understand large datasets that were

inconceivable in the 20th century. Access to data is, in large part, not a problem in itself. Rather, it is

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the interaction with and analysis of data which are problematic. Putting aside military technology

for a moment, the average citizen in 2019 is regularly exposed to mysterious black box algorithms,

artificial intelligence, machine learning, and persuasive design techniques (Fogg, 2009) in nearly

every technology. Many platforms do not include any transparency or guidance to assist users in

evaluating and navigating complex technology. Technology values people only as data and

attention. The commodification of attention is nothing new, but new technology is exacerbating the

intimate ways in which people can be taken advantage of by media. Most people do not read the

fine print and had no role in the design process, and yet media and algorithms are everywhere:

homes, workplaces, cars, public spaces, and worn on the body. Rich Gold, in 1995, explored this

idea to the extreme, writing

What if your smart house remembered important dates like birthdays and sent cards and

balloons, baked special cakes and chilled the champagne on the right days? Would you feel

good if you received a card generated by your lover's house? If your otherwise always forgetful

lover started remembering your birthday would you become suspicious? Would it be possible

that you would break up with your lover based on the forgetting or the remembering to program

their smart house to send a birthday card? (Gold, 1995)

Technology pervades society, but the majority of people are ill-equipped to manage its influence on

their lives. One way people are making sense of this new reality is a hyper focus on the

organization and presentation of data. In 2019, jobs in user experience (UX) design are one of the

top favorites for employment (Onward Search, 2019). Influencer marketing continues to grow as

generations of digital natives are poised to capitalize on their digital fluency and storytell for profit

on social media. The opportunity presented in this field is to help people take a step back from

addictive social media usage and reorient their relationship with technology. This could be done by

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creating a substitute which retains all the connective and aesthetic benefits of social media but

provides transparency and agency to the user and eschews advertising and other corporate

influences so easily exploitable in photographic storytelling.

2.5 Physical-Digital Spaces for Meaning-Making

Technology is helping to expand not only tools but spaces for meaning-making. Architecture is one

of the oldest human artforms, and it meets the dual needs of survival and communication (Neutra,

1954). Personal informatics is rapidly becoming “lived informatics” as adaptive architecture and live

computing grow in popularity (Epstein, Ping, Fogarty & Munson, 2015). Whether big or small,

sophisticated or simple, all technology must be embedded in some kind of physical space. It matters

where someone is when they use technology, because space informs usage. The act of taking a selfie

takes on a very different meaning when at home versus at a church service or at an holy site like Uluru

in Australia. Truly, physical spaces offer many lessons for digital methods of meaning-making that are

yet to be uncovered. Pattern language, themed spaces, and conflict zones all offer something crucial

which can inform the design of a truth-telling space.

2.5a Pattern Language. Every building tells a story by its very appearance and architectural

patterns, and personal and community structures naturally have different shapes and patterns.

Christopher Alexander’s much lauded book Pattern Language was published in 1977 (Alexander,

1977) and promotes the concept that patterns of architecture nest inside one another and can be

applied as systems to nearly any environment. For example, worship spaces and churches have an

architectural language familiar around the world (Meagher, 2018), with a vestibule for this and a

hall for that. Buildings generate a framework for interactions, even before any human being enters.

Theme parks are an example of public spaces that have an existing interior design and

architectural design hierarchy, usually to create a sense of immersion whilst meeting logistical

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needs for guest capacity (Cabanas, 2019). Much is currently being written about sensory design in

architecture and the ways in which responsive buildings can use technology to bring value to their

occupants (Lehman, 2011). But not much research has been done on the architectural patterns of

booths, however humble, and how they might connect to the architecture of memory and the

process of embodied meaning-making.

In particular, the nexus between architecture and disabled bodies is a potent topic for embodied

meaning-making. Beyond basic accessibility and universal design factors like ramps, there remains

much unexplored territory when it comes to disabled peoples’ sensory experience of physical-

digital meaning-making spaces. The gap in the field of architectural pattern language is the public-

private third place (Oldenburg, 1999). The booth stands out an untapped resource for facilitating

moments of reflection that accommodate individuals of all abilities.

2.5b Themed Spaces. With the arrival of the Internet and exponentially more powerful computers,

the 1980s and 1990s saw a fundamental shift in the nature of mass entertainment. Whereas amusement

had previously been limited to a particular location, online gaming, text-based storytelling, and virtual

reality opened up new possibilities for digital and physical spaces for storytelling. These powerful yet

enigmatic innovations rattled the public’s understanding of identity and participation, and warped

existing models of gaming, gambling, journalism, and politics. Young people suddenly had access to

stories, tools, and worlds beyond the reach of many people in older generations; their participation and

identities shaped the interactivity and principles of emerging new media. Modern production studios

caught on, and eagerly combined big data with behavioural psychology to deliver a power punch of

profit.

By the end of the 1990s, the attractions industry had undergone a critical change in function.

Traditional theme parks located beloved popular stories within simulated planned communities like

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Disney’s Main Street, planting opportunities for consumerism along the way. But by 2000,

attractions bypassed simple nostalgia and entered the age of imaginative and immersive world-

building. The Harry Potter series introduced a visual universe to billions of people, creating the

world’s largest fandom. In order to remain relevant and competitive, amusement centers responded

to fans. They introduced bottom-up designs using multisensory stimulation and emotional

persuasion borrowed from film and gambling. Location-based entertainment went from describing a

miniature golf course to encapsulating a physical replica of a whole fictional world.

By 2001, the dot com bubble had burst, and a recession was on the horizon, but casino culture

continued to steadily rise (Goodman, 2009). Persuasive design was no longer shady and implicit,

but rather explicitly de mode: a celebrated feature of technology, not a shameful tactic. With the

official launch of Facebook in 2005, persuasive design began to pervade all new media, which

extended greater social permission for physical parks to use these same tactics in built

environments.

Today, theme parks and cultural attractions tempt profit by utilizing gaming principles to produce

experiences that highlight nuance and diversity, prolong engagement, and invite imagination. Their

design strategies are enacted in physical spaces, and include variable rewards (Lewis, 2017), the five

planes of player experience (Ferrara, 2013), uncertainty, absorption (Higgins, 2006), and multisensory

embodied play (Waysdorf & Reijnders, 2018). Parks have learned to revere rather than reject fandom,

observing that fictional worlds, by design, speak to a certain public (Warner, 2005). When people

identify themselves as part of a public by entering a theme park environment, that space becomes

particularly “welcoming and special. Being in the park not only means being surrounded by the

narrative world but also being surrounded by this community” (Waysdorf & Reijnders, 2018). Designers

are beginning to see that safety and inclusion can be profitable. Theorists are cautioning against the

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trend towards gamification, a favored technique among many civic and entertainment bodies such as

Ontario’s Carrot Rewards program. Experts say that the qualities of the game itself has more merit than

any “strip-mined” gamification could ever offer: games can persuade, simulate real environments,

accelerate learning, and facilitate cooperative experiences (Ferrara, 2013).

But themed spaces have the benefit of well-fleshed out fictional worlds. When the Harry Potter series

of books was adapted to film, it was an easy next step to create the visual language for the Wizarding

World of Harry Potter. The fictional identities, usage patterns, and cultural values of the physical park

were embedded straight from the novels. However, real-world spaces do not often have the benefit of a

pre-scripted visual language. The field of political interiors explores the visual language of spaces like

courtrooms and public squares (Capillé, 2018), which translate rather abstract value systems into

physical worlds that support the negotiation and enaction of those values into reality. All too often, the

theming of these spaces fails to inspire meaningful participation by the masses. Sometimes, this is done

on purpose. For example, people do not experience the architecture of courtrooms very often. Most

people live in a world of concrete, drywall, and IKEA furnishings, and they control how their bodies

move in those spaces. At home, lighting levels and physical postures can be adjusted, and at coffee

shops, anyone can leave if they dislike the music or the furniture is uncomfortable. Contrast the private

domestic experience to a public courtroom experience, where visitors encounter mahogany benches,

high-ceilings, and Grecian columns, and are not allowed to lay down or shift around furniture. At court,

people are sworn to tell the truth, a process which is messy and intimate, but they are surrounded by

materials and architecture which communicate something very different from truth-telling: power,

control, rigidity, and intimidation (Corrigan, Robertson & Anderson, 2018).

So, what is the physical theming of telling the truth? Which materials, shapes, angles, and locations

might encourage people to share authentic personal experiences? It is known that nature and greenery

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can inspire healing – the Art Nouveau hospital of Sant Pau in Barcelona was an early effort -- (Schrank

& Ekici, 2016) and that different materials contain sense memories which affect behavior (Thelen,

Matusz & Murray, 2014)(Marschall, 2019). Therapy offices, courtrooms, and classrooms all attempt to

design spaces for honesty, however there is not yet enough research on frameworks for theming spaces

which inspire personal and collective truth-telling.

A goldmine of material on this topic can be found in literature about conflict resolution, which is so

often a disagreement about ownership of physical spaces. It is worth noting the importance of symbolic

and public space in the conflict resolution process during the Troubles, which took place at Stormont

Castle in Belfast where negotiators finally hammered out the Good Friday Agreement (Bryan &

McIntosh, 2005).

2.5c Conflict Zones and Peace Parks. Theme parks have transformative power specifically because

they have boundaries and rules, enabling players to explore new ways of being within a level of

acceptable risk. In this way, the idea of parks can offer a “framework to imagine potentialities and

alternatives” (Waysdorf & Reijnders). There is a “core assumption…that visitors would like to intensify

and bring a favorable experience into their real lives” (Dong & Siu, 2013). Public spaces can be seen as

civic theme parks. They are the physical places where civic identity is formed and where negotiations of

public issues occur. Playback theatre is one grassroots practice which uses art and physical space to help

people in conflict situations. Trained actors are given a real story and they collaborate with the giver to

act out, pause, replay, and try out different actions until a preferred outcome is achieved. There is peace-

making power in community grounded in physical space, where people forge a shared identity and

engage in a process of imagining new worlds together (Smigelsky & Neimeyer, 2018).

In the field of conflict resolution, physical space is an essential element of peace-making. Most

experts agree that successful mediation utilizes “cognitive-historical pathways” (Lejano 2006). In

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situations with two opposing “sides”, this means that conflict resolution occurs when each side 1)

affirms self-identity, 2) explores joint-identity, and 3) considers what a common identity might

mean for the future (Lejano). When the conflict is related to territory, as in the two Koreas, an oft-

implemented solution is a peace park which creates a neutral buffer zone. One limitation of peace

parks, though, is that they reinforce the attitude that physical proximity can only exacerbate

conflict. The peace park perspective also limits the concept of peace to a state-actor relationship.

Whereas much conflict resolution and policy negotiations happen between government officials

behind closed doors, the reality is that conflict is enacted by everyday citizens in a variety of public

and private spaces with long histories of embodied meaning-making, like restaurants and

classrooms.

An alternate way to view conflict over physical space is the model of care perspective, which

posits that peace parks actually work because people act in “coherence with the web of

relationships,” not because of “clear lines of authority or the pursuit of individual interest.” Under

this model, peace is achieved when the identities of individual and community-actors shift in

accordance with a new understanding of their relationship to other players. The space of the park

becomes a “template upon which a complex web of relationships can evolve” (Lejano). The park is

inscribed as “a moral ‘contract’ written not on parchment, but in terms of place.”

The opportunity in this field is to reinvigorate the role of public space as a location for civic

engagement. Beyond the voting booth, beyond the town hall, beyond protests at the park, public

spaces host a revolving door of micro-behaviors that, altogether, create the fabric of civic identity

and community life. In 2019, there are not enough public rituals of self-reflection that utilize the

physical landscapes of everyday life (Pfister, 2017). Physical spaces offer an interface for

negotiating community issues and activating a wide range of stakeholders, and there is an

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opportunity to use public physical spaces to capture data and tell meaningful stories using embodied

interaction.

2.6 Tangible Objects and Rituals of Self-Reflection

People have always collected objects as a way of making sense of their inner and outer worlds,

ever since the earliest days of pagan worship and pocket-size statuettes. Today, many people have a

habit of ‘collecting’. Sometimes they collect items which belong to a set, such as trading cards or

bobbleheads. Sometimes these objects are meant to be seen and not touched, as in mint-condition

figurines. But other times, people collect objects somewhat unintentionally in conjunction with

meaningful events, like pocketing a stone from the beach or holding onto a ticket stub. People retain

physical reminders of pleasant memories. Souvenirs are an obvious enaction of this behavior.

Souvenirs have their origin in holy pilgrimages, where pilgrims would complete their epic trek and

return with small holy items to commemorate their journey and mark their new status (Swanson &

Timothy, 2012). This line of inquiry reveals much about the process of imbuing physical objects

with meaning through spiritual and physical journeys.

At home, personal spiritual objects might live in a special location, removed and handled only

during very special moments of intention and self-reflection (Bey, 2012). A token might represent a

good memory, like a trip abroad, or perhaps a value system or spiritual practice which the person

aspires to embody, like a Buddha figurine. Ritual objects often serve as a phenomenological

replacement for the mysterious, complex forces of nature that cannot be easily explained like

ancestors, God, universe, or love (Shepherd & Kay, 2019). It is the tangible, ritualistic aspects of

using personal spiritual objects for self-reflection that are now beginning to be studied (Lucas,

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2014). Certainly, it is only in the last decade that researchers have begun to explore personal

tangible rituals as augmented by digital media (Gould, Kohn & Gibbs, 2019).

One study takes a different approach, highlighting the benefits of ritualization to position brands

in international markets (Sharma, Kumar & Borah 2017). Of course, there are capitalistic

motivations for adhering to a specific collection and acquiring a given list of items. There is some

research on customer motivations for souvenir purchases (Wilkins, 2011), but there is an

overlooked sensory motivation for the collection of objects. Even in research related to souvenir

objects and theme park visitors, there is a lack of work that studies the kinds of tangible qualities

people find meaningful (Haldrup, 2017) and how these objects affect their probability of returning

to the space, perception of their visit, and closeness to the brand. There has not been much

innovation in the modern souvenir industry although people continue to purchase items in large

quantities (MarketWatch), but this speaks more to the collective mentality of society than to the

quality of the souvenirs on offer. Objects are only as powerful as the experiences connected with

them: postcards from a backpacking trip to Europe and a wand from Ollivander’s contain meaning

because handling them recalls positive embodied experiences.

If tangible objects are spiritual souvenirs, tokens of inner journeys that keep their owners on the

path toward enlightenment (Mäkelä, 1996), it becomes obvious that any meaningful personal

development using digital media should be paired with physical objects for maximum impact.

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3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The research questions which guide this project are centered on the opportunities described

above. A first task is to understand the modern concept of the self as a basis for meaning making,

and how technology is currently mediating that process. Next, to explore how best to unite physical

and personal methods of self-reflection with the analytical and connective affordances of social

media. Yes, there are existing ritualistic uses of social media, but how might they be overlaid with

daily, sensory self-reflection, as opposed to the more removed experiences of self-reflection like

meditation retreats, where someone goes away from their normal life? Another area of study is

which physical spaces are best suited for individual and collective truth-telling. In which physical

spaces are people most in touch with the truth? Where do people feel most comfortable telling the

truth? Where do people feel most obliged to tell the truth? What would a space look like that

balances the sensory elements of both comfort and obligation to truth-telling? A broader zone of

inquiry is about which design languages most clearly transmit the theming of telling the truth. The

field of political interiors does not reveal much about the visual language of truth-telling. This is

perhaps because telling the truth requires a sort of neutrality and negative space, a receptacle for the

truth and a culture which encourages honesty. More practical research questions are which data

visualization tools might most effectively facilitate individual and collective self-reflection. What

are appropriate applications of persuasive design principles for user retention and behavior change

when it comes to personal development technology?

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4. DESIGN RATIONALE

This section describes the design rationale, including ideation (user personas, user journey), as

well as the significance and implementation of the objects, environments, and interface developed

over the course of the project. The symbol of Room for Truth is the ampersand, which signifies the

connection between self and other, self and society. Traditionally, the ampersand stands for

inclusion, collaboration, combination, expansion, and layering. The “&” introduces the premise that

the very act of engaging with Room for Truth serves as an act which unites self with society, and it

hints at a pluralist understanding of truth.

User Personas. Who might visit the booth, what do they want, and how might they achieve it?

• Someone with a complex personal truth to tell

• Someone with a nebulous current feeling (perhaps in response to the news - climate, racism)

• Someone who wishes to articulate a vision for the future

• Someone who feels a desire to dialog with “the other”

• Someone without anything specific in mind but who is interested in tech & others’ stories

• Someone who wants data, facts, plans, comparisons, clarity

• Someone who wants emotion, catharsis, creative experience, inspiration

User Journey. The Room for Truth user journey builds on the core user journey of all

transformative experiences: someone arrives with a story, goes through a transformation with the

aid of storytelling, and leaves with a different story and a physical token to help them remember.

1. The first step in a user’s journey is to identify a feeling of disorientation and connect it with a

desire to resolve it. Many people go to a diary, social media, a trusted friend, or a personal

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 spiritual space. Room for Truth offers a familiar alternative: a physical-digital space, designed

to facilitate self-reflection, which is easily accessible. The mobile application can be opened

with one touch, and push notifications could invite users to participate in regular, prescheduled

moments of self-reflection.

2. Next, the user sits down in the space with the objects. The user has moved from experiencing

the problem to attempting to resolve it. They physically and mentally move to a space that has

the tools they will need. At home, this physical space is wherever their precious objects are

kept. In public installations, this could be a booth in a nearby community library with a virtual

queue. The booth contains an iPad mount, a cabinet with objects, and a smart tablemat.

3. The user begins with a sensory orientation and settling in process. Like all rituals, Room for

Truth has a preamble and a denouement. To prepare the body and mind for the storytelling

process, the mobile app displays an ampersand as the Home button, a gently pulsing circle as

the baseline animation, and slightly slower than normal transitions between screens. The aim is

to encourage a user to begin paying attention to their own embodied rhythms, perhaps slowing

their respiration to match the pulsing circle and adjusting their hurried mental pacing to the

interface’s leisurely tempo. In public booths, the soundproofing and the neutral theming help set

the stage for the nervous system to relax and tune into sensation.

4. Now, the user is ready to select their topic. A list of general topics helps spark the imagination

and allows the user to fill in the specifics with their own private prompts. It works the same way

as tarot cards (Sosteric, 2014), where a user’s perspective on random patterns generates new

insight (Ruah-Midbar, 2014). It may be a feature of future iterations to allow private entities to

host their own Room for Truth topics, accessible only to relevant stakeholders, as an alternative

to conflict resolution or surveys (read more under 4.3 Interface below).

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5. After selecting their topic, the user is ready to tell a story using the objects. The interface invites

the user to handle the objects, which encompass a broad variety of sensory and symbolic

qualities. In private settings, a user will handle their own familiar objects, recalling memories

and values associated with them. In public settings, there will be a set of universally symbolic

objects (read more under 4.1 Objects below). Each object has a tiny hidden NFC tag. After

receiving sensory and emotional information from the objects, the user selects the three which

best represent their answer to the prompt at the present moment and places them upon the small

circles on the tablemat.

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6. The user now scans their three objects, thereby capturing and submitting their story. An

ampersand-adorned circle covers an NFC reader embedded in the tablemat, which connects to

the mobile device via Bluetooth. One by one, in a ritualistic fashion, the user places each object

upon the “&”. Each NFC tag generates a unique, abstracted animation on the screen. After all

three objects are scanned, they drift to the center and layer on top of one another, creating a new

animation which combines the aesthetics of all three. After a moment, a thin grey square

appears around the pulsing image and timestamps it, declaring ‘thank you for telling the truth’.

At the bottom of the screen, the user may either tap My Stories or Other Stories.

7. When a user taps My Stories, they see a collection of their own animations. When viewing

Other Stories, they see a public newsfeed of recently generated animations. Content is

searchable by date, topic, objects used, and appearance. When a given animation is tapped, it

29
 expands and replays the three-to-one animation process of the original story. It also suggests

similar stories based on any desired criteria, like Amazon’s recommender algorithm.

8. Finally, the user’s process of self-reflection concludes and their attention wanes. At home, the

user may leave the app, shut off their mobile device, stow the mat, and reset their precious

objects inside the original container. In a public Room for Truth, the user replaces the objects

inside the cabinet and simply presses the “&” to return to the home screen. The mental and

physical process of resetting the objects and exiting the temporary sacred space help the user

with the re-entry process.

Room for Truth measures success on two outcomes: 1) the user’s ability to tell the truth, and 2)

the user’s understanding of themself. A major focus of this research project was how to translate

non-digital and digital rituals of self-reflection into a system with appropriate UX / UI, including

data visualization tools, dialogue and interaction design, potential voice interface and machine

learning, as well as the physical housing and installation procedures, such as fabrication and

theming for physical elements. The final conception of Room for Truth offers both publicly and

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privately located versions. The public situating of a Room for Truth booth exploits the existing

societal functions of places like libraries, which are neutral, inviting spaces for knowledge and

collaboration. User testing was unfortunately outside the scope of this project’s timeline, but it will

be an essential component of evaluating its success in future iterations.

4.1 Objects

The technological challenges of object design led to the selection of NFC (near-field

communication) tags. NFC tags are accessible, affordable, require no external source of power, and

are nearly invisible when embedded thoughtfully; putting tags inside objects gives them a digital

personality whilst preserving their sensory affordances. This decision was influenced by comparing

the benefits of low-tech Montessori storytelling with high-tech virtual reality storytelling. Simple

wooden blocks used by children can be imbued with highly complex traits, and reused again and

again with different storylines, all powered purely by the imagination (Montessori, 1912). Drawing

on this concept, the final five objects selected for this project’s prototype offer the user various

sensory and symbolic characteristics (e.g., heavy/soft, personal/universal). They were selected to

represent concepts essential to understanding the world, while remaining abstract enough to allow

users to overlay their own meanings: self (white cube), other (key), time (clock), nature (vial of

water), and change (red string). Using symbolic objects with a simple technology like NFC permits

users to immediately begin storytelling, without the need for onboarding or purchasing additional

objects. There is no need for the user to learn a new operating system. Navigation is intuitive, and

individual object-meanings are already present; confirmation in the UX is limited to simple

recognition of object placement.

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 On the other extreme is virtual reality (VR) and virtual objects. VR is a fairly inaccessible

system of interaction in that it requires a lot of technical equipment and has non-intuitive interfaces

where users must grasp controllers and trigger buttons in order to “pick up” digital objects. Many

inventors are now exploring the use of expensive haptic wearables which can simulate resistance

and weight in virtual reality environments, but the human vestibular system cannot be tricked, as

professional gamers will affirm (Lang, 2018). There is simply no better storytelling interface than

the finely attuned nervous system of the human body. So, by using a low-tech solution like NFC to

enhance existing rituals of tangible meaning making, it becomes possible to unobtrusively generate

personal data which can become accessible to others as a repository of stories.

4.2 Environments

Personal rituals of truth-telling and self-reflection usually take place in personal spaces, like a

bedroom or home desk. Some people have an altar and perform a ritual with physical objects, or

they may write in a diary or sit down to meditate. Generally speaking, self-reflection tends to occur

in spaces where the user feels safe. This may be a space where they regularly practice self-

reflection, where they have already ‘themed’ it with art and objects that facilitate their own process

of relaxation and mindfulness. In public spaces, however, people are rarely invited to reflect upon

themselves or society, as this kind of behavior is typically reserved for private environments. There

are semi-public spaces where people are invited to engage in self-reflection: religious spaces,

therapists’ offices, and courtrooms. In these spaces, the invitation to self-reflect is suggested by the

décor (a painting of Lady Justice), the physical behavior of people in the space (bowing heads),

and/or through spoken or written instructions (“close your eyes”). This project’s research into the

physical locations of meaning-making led to the selection of third places as the best location for a

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Room for Truth booth. The balance of personal privacy with public oversight is a reliable recipe for

good behavior which has been used in environments from Bentham’s panopticon to public parks.

One fundamental influence on the Room for Truth space is the voting booth, a true blend of

personal and private space. Voting is an act which occurs in a public space and affects the public

good, but the voter enters a private booth to cast their vote and their decision need never be made

public. Catholic churches employ a similar tactic in the confessional booth, where parishioners

reveal difficult personal truths to a trusted guide within a private setting. In both scenarios, the very

environment of the booth encourages the act of disclosure and self-reflection by blending public

and private. In the ideation process of designing the Room for Truth booth, informal user research

among friends revealed surprising themes about which sensory elements inspire truth-telling. Many

people interrogated the environment of courtrooms, explaining a conflict between the language of

truth and transparency and the architecture of power. Some suggested elementary school classrooms

or wide-open fields as the best places to tell the truth. One early sketch for the Room’s interior

combined the solemn, structured theming of a church confessional (velvet, dark enclosure, candles,

pressure to share and receive penance) with the uninhibited, multisensory theming of nature (wheat,

river rocks, a gentle breeze). Ultimately, however, it is impossible to predict what connotations

these elements will provoke in unique users. There is no such thing as a neutral material or shape

(Winner). The final Room for Truth environment attempts to limit instructive interior design and

leave as much meaning-making as possible to the user while still providing a functionally private

space. The booth design incorporates principles of persuasive design and the pattern language

shared by experience designers across disciplines. It evaluates and build on theories of political

interiors and sensory design to presents a third place devised to invoke interaction scripts which

support reflection, personalization, safety, and play.

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 The installation opportunities for Room for Truth booths in public spaces present fabrication and

accessibility challenges. Ideally, any civic body could install a Room by downloading a free booth

template, 3D printing and assembling it, downloading the code, securely mounting the iPad, and

purchasing or DIY-ing the mat / NFC reader setup. The mat is a simple mechanism for creating a

temporary sacred space; it need only contain an embedded NFC reader capable of Bluetooth, and a

symbolic ampersand and three circles printed on the surface to indicate where objects can be

placed. The object circles have no labels because their sequence does not matter, except to the user.

It echoes the universal nature of storytelling, which is rearranging elements into different orders and

imbuing them with meaning. The interface of the mobile application affirms the user’s mental

model by mirroring the layout of the tablemat, with central ampersand and three-circles. The

embedded iPad is used for onboarding and storytelling, modeled after the purchase process in most

public photo booths. Maintenance for such a community space should be minimal, perhaps limited

to sanitizing the tabletop and cheaply replacing any missing objects. Ideally, visitors will cultivate a

sense of personal responsibility and community ownership over the space and treat it as a sacred

place of self-reflection.

4.3 Interface

Room for Truth moves away from GUIs (graphical user interfaces) and towards TUIs (tangible

user interfaces). It is designed to be experienced on a touchscreen device in order to access the

sensory experience of tapping and swiping, and also to take advantage of the ubiquity and

computing power of the personal mobile device. The interface incorporates best practices in the UX

of self-tracking and personal development, as well as popular features from social media like the

newsfeed. These elements allow users to immediately and intuitively begin to use Room for Truth,

34
without having to learn a new interaction system. The interface draws on the familiar newsfeed

functionality to connect users with others and display visual content. Like the FitBit and other

personal data tracking apps, Room for Truth enables users to search for content by date, topic,

objects, or appearance, allowing them to observe and reflect upon trends.

Inspired by hashtags, one iteration in the design process explored a topic selection widget in

which users and developers could submit their own topics, to be publicly or privately available. But

there is a stronger argument for keeping topics general rather than specific. For instance, “Parkland

shooting” could be added to a list of topics, but phenomenologically, this could limit the ability of

other users to make connections between more broadly related themes like violence, politics,

education, and activism. Additionally, user-generated topics enable the creation of filter bubbles of

people who use the same language, whereas Room for Truth aspires to avoid the filter bubble

phenomenon.

The data visualization of Room for Truth is unique among existing social media platforms. The

focus is on imagination and mood, rather than accuracy. The baseline animation for all interactions

is an abstracted circle, which is a universal symbol of self, wholeness, and a cyclical view of the

world. Abstracting the data into animations inspires curiosity and reduces the competition and

comparison which is prevalent on photo-heavy platforms like Instagram. Each object has a different

(but still abstract) effect upon the circle animation when scanned, inspired by the meaning of the

object itself. For example, the clock face symbolizes time, and thus adds a subtle ticking movement

to the circle.

The san serif fonts and minimalist grey and white color scheme present a sort of neutral slate to

the user, where the only visible colors and animations are user-generated. The more the Room for

Truth platform is used, the more personalized the interface will appear, which helps generate trust

35
and a feeling of ownership for the user. The physical-digital interface of the iPad, objects, and mat

utilize tangible, embedded and embodied interaction to create a highly interactive, accessible, and

personalizable interface for the majority of guests. As mentioned previously, tangible and embodied

interactions have the potential to be the most accessible for people with various linguistic and

physical capacities.

Ultimately, the Room for Truth interface creates a pop-up sacred space that is contained within

the user’s mobile device, lives in their pocket, and can be accessed and overlaid upon other physical

spaces when desired. The interface replicates the neutral benevolence of the best self-reflective

methods, like a good facilitator, priest or therapist might do, and it creates non-denominational

space for messy storytelling and gently suggests universal themes which may help the user put their

own personal story in context.

36
5. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION

Room for Truth contributes one solution to the quest for meaning-making raised by the looming

physical-digital landscape of the 21st century: equipping individuals and communities with better

tools and better spaces to tell the truth. The ability to tell the truth can help people free themselves

from societal structures not of their choosing, which is the foundation of human evolution. This

project addresses the concerns shared by all people, which include surviving, thriving, and crafting

an equitable and just world. This goal requires better, more thoughtful ways to use technology in

service of people and planet, and not the other way around. The world of the future appears to be a

physical-digital experience, neither purely tangible nor purely data. Room for Truth points to a new

framework for personal and collective truth-telling that can withstand the rapid development of new

technology while also complementing the ancient meaning-making faculties embedded within the

human body. This project also breaks new ground in the UX of personal development and

stakeholder management, turning away from literal accuracy and data analysis and introducing a

messier, more correct visual language for truth.

In 2019, the media is obsessed with “telling it like it is” while devaluing critical assessment or

presenting opportunities for action (Harsin, 2015). On the one end of the political spectrum is

Donald Trump (Avlon, 2018) and his Twitter rampages which literally displace fact with

individualized and tyrannical fictions. But the President is simply telling his personal biases and

prejudices as they are, speaking “truth” to the large percentage of Americans who share his white

supremacist and nationalistic opinions. On the other end is teenager Greta Thunberg, who points to

climate science and encourages others to understand systems of power. This is a climate of

polarized media, and it does not lend itself to much cross-community conversation. Poor attention

spans and filter bubbles contribute to low media literacy and encourage consumption, commentary,

37
and the spread of flashy stories and extreme content. Plus, truth-tellers are now, and always have

been, penalized by society (Peters, 2003). Whistleblowers get prison sentences (see: Chelsea

Manning), and people with Asperger’s or autism who have a proclivity to tell it like it is are reduced

to television tropes and social outcasts (see: Big Bang Theory). Most media conform to the

limitations and expectations of consumers. It is digital, bite-sized, and requires minimal

interpretation. Media answers the need to be involved in societal issues, and to know what one

‘should’ think and do. But the world is rarely quite so straightforward.

A major danger of the 21st century is the belief that truth is only that which can be quantified

(Rosenbaum, Billinger & Stieglitz, 2014). Similarly, it can be much easier to accept the appearance

of someone telling the truth rather than set aside the time and energy to do one’s own reckoning

with complex issues. Yes, the prevalence of data analysis tools and the convenience of photo-heavy

media platforms have generally improved people’s ability to storytell, fact-check, and learn about

different points of view. But more and more, technology is reinforcing exclusionary and polarizing

behavior, and replacing analysis with convenience. Media consumption practices have begun to

replace spiritual, community, and embodied self-reflection. There is a clear need for a new visual

language for truth-telling, one which can begin to wean people away from clear-cut, algorithmically

generated conclusions about highly complex themes. Ironically, in a physical-digital future, the best

way towards the truth might be away from the data. People must once again become suitably

suspicious, curious, and resilient enough to see past the guise of data and monetized media. There

is, of course, a difference between fact and truth, and it is precisely this ability to discern between

data-informed factoid and multifaceted personal experience of the world (truths) that can help

cultivate a just and inclusive future.

38
 This raises questions about whether people actually have the mental model to find meaning in a

project like Room for Truth. This is a visual-first world where photographs, books, and spoken

conversations are the primary ways in which people make sense of the world. With so much

accurate data visualization available, it is possible that abstract animations would not be

immediately satisfying storytelling mechanisms for many users. Even as people understand the

limitations of language, the legibility and immediacy of existing social media interfaces make it

easier to use Instagram and Facebook to evaluate the world, rather than engaging in lengthy and

messy processes of self-reflection. But Room for Truth presents a new way of thinking and

visualizing that is actually more in line with best practices in storytelling, conflict resolution, and

relationship building. For instance, researchers know that abstraction and physical objects are

excellent ways to communicate complex ideas and build common ground, especially in the midst of

challenging and enigmatic themes. This concept is seen in wide-ranging applications like preschool

children who use sticks and blocks to solve playground problems, or the peace process in Northern

Ireland, where murals and symbolic objects played a key role in facilitating inter-community

dialogue and ultimately laying the foundation to end the Troubles (Lisle, 2006).

In a physical-digital future, it may be impossible to make sense of the world without balancing

technology with the body. More research is needed on integrating the body into social media, and

trends indicate that in the near future, TEI storytelling will mature into an equal challenger for

mainstream social media platforms (National Research Council). In the years to come, those who

are embracing technology will discover new ways to expand the affordances and audiences of their

products, and those people who are moving away from technology will have much to contribute to

the conversation about the role of physical objects and sensory experiences in meaning-making. All

artifacts have politics, whether tangible and universal or branded and digitally-augmented.

39
 The core question for this project is how to thoughtfully integrate technology with physical

spaces and objects to facilitate individual and collective meaning-making. There is a hierarchy and

bias in consumer attitudes towards technology, which say that fancier is better, sleeker is better,

more data is better, and more photographic accuracy is better. However, the movement towards

experiential and embodied meaning-making is growing, and there is a corresponding need for more

sacred (but secular) third places where reflection can occur. This need is intimately tied to the

reclamation of public spaces from corporate ownership and surveillance for profit. Libraries are one

of few third places that have declared and maintained a practice of welcoming people from all

backgrounds and hosting free discussion of diverse ideas; it is in these third places where the future

of physical-digital meaning-making lies.

There are other applications for the insights generated by this project. The discoveries made

possible by the Room for Truth platform could help inform design trends, as market researchers

might uncover consumer preferences for shapes, colors, and objects as they design products and

advertising materials. Room for Truth is also well situated to help stakeholders work through shared

issues, and it is possible that forward-thinking family therapists or conflict mediators may wish to

bring Room for Truth to their communities.

As a next step, Room for Truth will become a fully functioning application with accessibility

features for blind, deaf, mobility-impaired users, and non-English speakers. Early testers indicated a

desire for greater personalization of the visuals, so the next iteration would include touchscreen-

based methods for tweaking visualizations to alter the noise, color, and shape of the animations.

Another important future feature is the ability for users to bring their own objects into the Room by

affixing an NFC tag and selecting an animation effect. Once the app is ready, formal user tests can

be conducted with people in their own homes using their own objects, which was not in the scope of

40
this iteration. User tests will measure outcomes related to ability to tell the truth, self-knowledge,

sense of connection to others, connection to the visuals, and relationship with technology. Two

topics which merit further research are how people relate to abstract visuals and how they interpret

the physical theming of telling the truth. With sufficient developer support, the application can be

made available to the public. The initial launch phase of a project like Room for Truth requires a

strategic approach, because the app will provide more value as more people use it, which builds up

the repository of stories and images.

Overall, the simple user journey at the core of Room for Truth is a universal model of personal

transformation: arrive with a story, undergo a transformation with the aid of storytelling, and leave

with a different story and a physical token to remember the journey. A physical-digital version of

this process could have profound implications for personal development, community organizing,

and even religious gatherings. Room for Truth offers people a familiar interface (social media and

touchscreens), familiar objects (treasured items around them or visiting a library), and secular

language (telling the truth) to move them towards the kind of benefits that meditation, prayer, and

being in community in sacred spaces or accessing justice in court rooms can offer. The process of

developing Room for Truth provides useful information about how digital tools might help people

access their own data in meaningful ways, transform that data into a meaningful story, and transmit

that data into an object imbued with a new story so it leads to a desired state of being. If Room for

Truth grows popular enough to connect people from many different abilities, languages, and

locations, it materializes a sort of universal human story as told through moments, objects, and

embodied storytelling. Room for Truth could serve as a sort of living dictionary with the ability to

poll and track the changing moods of a community or nation around hot topics.

41
 Ultimately, Room for Truth aspires to facilitate self-reflection, and the potential benefits of the

Room’s multimodal, public-private storytelling are manifold: more physical and mental self-

awareness, more thoughtful political decision-making and curiosity about other stakeholders, and a

growing desire and ability to center the truth as individuals and community members. Room for

Truth presents just one way to integrate the body and physical objects into digital storytelling, but it

is firmly located in a vision for a physical-digital future in which the visual language for truth-

telling is contextual, the technology is connective, and the opportunities are immeasurable.

42
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