Mood squeezer: Lightening up the workplace through playful and lightweight interactions

Sarah Gallacher, Jenny O'Connor, Jon Bird, Yvonne Rogers, Licia Capra, Daniel Harrison, Paul Marshall

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

57 Citations (Scopus)
70 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Many companies would like to redesign their workspaces to make them more pleasant and even fun places to work in. An assumption is it will result in social and economic benefits. However, it can be difficult to achieve because of cost, level of disruption and regulations. We present an alternative approach that provides an injection of playfulness into "drab" office buildings. A lightweight technology intervention was designed-Mood Squeezer-that asks people to reflect on their mood by squeezing a colored ball from a box set. The squeezes are mirrored back as an aggregate colorful visualization on a public floor display. An in-The-wild study showed how this intervention was successful at getting people to squeeze their mood, leading to a diversity of conversations throughout the building. We discuss how this lightweight approach to office augmentation can provide new opportunities for opening up a "closed" workplace.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCSCW 2015
Subtitle of host publicationproceedings of the 2015 ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherACM
Pages891-902
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)9781450329224
ISBN (Print)9781450337663, 9781450337670
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Feb 2015
Externally publishedYes
Event18th ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2015 - BC, Canada
Duration: 14 Mar 201518 Mar 2015

Publication series

NameCSCW 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

Conference

Conference18th ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2015
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityBC
Period14/03/1518/03/15

Keywords

  • In the wild
  • Mood
  • Physical computing
  • Playful technology
  • Public visualization
  • Tangible interface
  • Work

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