Timestamp
Your own little time stopper
“…by equating ‘real’ with ‘efficient’, we mistakenly perpetuate the idea that acceleration is the principal goal not only of performance, but of life itself.” –Jessica Helfand, “The Myth of Real Time”
When was the last time you were in the zone — when you weren’t thinking about time or the next deadline? It seems that our modern sources of distraction have made it increasingly difficult to maintain focus on a single task, making these moments of Flow, which is an important concept in positive psychology, harder to come by. We asked ourselves how could we make these rare but golden moments occur more often?
The Timestamp is a self-inking analog clock stamp that allows you to physically and consciously mark the start and end times of each task, giving you a sense of structure and accomplishment throughout the day. What’s interesting is what happens in the background: When used to start a task, it shuts down all modern sources of distraction – social networks, email, instant messaging, mobile phones, and even your computer – allowing you to work in much-needed peace. At the end of each task, the stamp is used to lift the freeze, bringing everything back to normal. The stamp emits a red glow when busy and green when not, alerting those in the physical world of your current status.
The rationale: To go from distraction to focus and concentration
The Timestamp system is comprised of the stamp and a desktop and mobile application that controls which “distractions” to affect. After doing some body storming, we saw the need to set up custom profile settings based on different tasks.
This was a project for Fundamentals of Interaction Design taught by Carla Diana, who asked us to design something around the concept of time. Done with classmates Minseung Song and Shanshan Gao. My roles included concept design, product design, wireframing, research, illustration, personas, storyboarding. This project was mentioned by web anthropologist and futurist, Stowe Boyd, on the technology blog GigaOm.
DELIVERABLES
Settings can be controlled through the mobile app
Settings can also be controlled through a desktop app
User Journey 1 displays first level of functionality
User Journey 2 displays second level of functionality
User Journey 3 displays third level of functionality
RESEARCH
Our kick-off brainstorm session where each member brought three ideas to the table
Initial sketch of the analog clock stamp idea
When we observed how people prepared themselves for work, we noticed that despite many digital tools available today, very immediate to-do’s are still written down by hand. When asked why, one of our respondents said, “I just feel a more direct connection between writing and my brain.”
In the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience”, the phenomenon is said to have these major components: Bite-sized tasks, ability to concentrate, clear goals and immediate feedback, removal of stress, a sense of control, a stronger sense of self upon emergence, and an altered sense of time.
For the physical form, we started with a simple cylinder shape, but later decided on a tear drop shape that would let the user know which way was 12 o’clock. Our material of choice was the oven-curing Sculpey in white, which gave the object a calming matte white finish and a good weight.
Mapping out the functionality
Wireframes for the mobile app interface