Emotion Capsule: A New Form of Communication Designed Together with Teenagers

In recent times, emerging digital technologies have been entering the field of education, introducing new possibilities on reaching and sharing information, enhancing the teaching experience and continuously changing the way we communicate. Starting from this phenomenon, Co-story project asks critical questions about the use of technology, involving teenagers in the design process in order to explore and fulfill their needs and desires. The project is a practice based action-research that embraces co-design workshops with students in order to design a new technological artefact answering their own problems. The research team, including a designer and an anthropologist, firstly conducted a series of co-design workshops together with 24 participants (14-15 years old) and as a result of this process, an object called “Emotion Capsule” has been created. The prototype of the capsule is embedded with digital sensors and actuators, collecting the participants’ unexpressed emotions, thoughts and feelings and share them with others in an anonymous way. The capsule prototype was tested with twelve different cohorts of students (9-15 years old) in Scandicci (Florence) and the qualitative and quantitative data obtained during various activities in these classes were analyzed through design and anthropological perspectives. This article addresses the methodology and tools used during the workshops and introduces the concept of the artefact “Emotion Capsule” and its process in an ecological perspective. It reflects and opens new questions related to technology and new forms of social communication based on the results derived from the experiences with participants of the project.