Forever Changed:
All The Bright Places Experience
Summary
A book-to-life immersive experience that invites participants to bear witness to the protagonist’s – Finch’s – journey and how it impacted mine. Accompanied by a booklet carrying my voice, participants are encouraged to reflect upon their journey and ponder about their trajectory from hereon.
The experience was met with huge success and its runtime was requested to be extended to allow for more visitors by esteemed professors and participants. Over 50 participants were impacted by the experience and most left teary-eyed and insatiably curious about the book that the experience was based on.
Scroll down for the detailed process or contact me for more information. 📩
Role: Independent Producer (Ideation, Conceptualization, Iteration, Production, Implementation)
Duration: 5 weeks
Technics: Figma, Procreate, CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator, Rabbit Laser Machine, Foamcore
Skills: Interview, Roleplay Test, Design Research, Copywrite
Context: Produced as part of Experience Innovation Master-level course at Carnegie Mellon University
The Book
As an Experience Designer, I believe that with every experience, we are Forever Changed as we think and feel slightly different from before; I dive further into that here. In particular, some experiences impact us extensively more than others and we can speak of them with more clarity than other events despite the flow of time.
For me, it was ‘All the Bright Places’ by Jennifer Niven. The book heavily resonated with my mental health journey at the time of reading and when the story concluded, it left an indelible impression and an immense impact on my perspective of the finite life we have. As a result, my life was changed (as dramatic as it sounds).
Inspiration
The exploration of this experience sprouted from my curiosity to discover ways to ignite vulnerability in an experiential physical space. Upon reflecting on personal experiences with the theme of vulnerability in mind, I began the exploration of re-creating the (intangible) impact that the book had on me in a tangible form.
Book-to-life
While there have been many attempts to bring books to life, most of these experiences typically design art installations that imitate the aesthetics of the story. For instance, ‘The Dr. Seuss Experience’ is an interactive immersive world created to invite participants to physically live in the stories created by Dr. Seuss.
In this project, I aimed to explore non-traditional methods - aside from re-creating the aesthetics in the story - to convey the impact of my changed perspective on finite life while also evoking self-reflective sentiments in the participants.
How might I convey a heavy intangible impact of the protagonist’s journey on its readers and prompt the participant to reflect on their own journey?
Target Audience
As the experience invited one to be self-reflective, the participant must be able to understand and ponder about themes of life and death. Given the applicability of the finiteness of life and the potential complexity and abstract tones of the experience, the target audience was anyone above 18 years old.
Design Method
This experience was designed with the guidance of my own Experience Model, EREISE; which can be read in detail here.
Forever Changed: The Experience
Click play to begin the experience:
—Trigger Warning: The experience contains content relating to depression, bipolar disorder, and suicide. Please scroll with discretion. —
"Thank you for joining Finch and me on this journey.
This booklet is for you.
Do you prefer a pen or marker?"
Upon introducing the experience concept and obtaining consent from participants, each participant was given a booklet to interact with before entering the space.
This same booklet accompanied them throughout the experience and it was theirs to bring home afterward.
24 pages, 5 sections
The booklet was curated to enhance the experience for each designed space, with a section for each space.
Section 1: Asleep
Using simple prompts, the first section of the booklet was designed to regulate participants’ emotions and transition their headspace to that of Finch, the protagonist, before entering the room.
When they were ready to enter the room, they would come to me and say, "I'm ready."
"Here's the key."
To unlock and enter the experience, participants were given a laser-cut key designed as a ceremonial item as well as a memento for the experience which was crucial to the context of the book’s story.
Section 2: Falling Asleep
These are Finch’s thoughts — before he fell asleep forever in the blue hole.
This space provided a quick yet deep dive into the thoughts of the protagonist from the start to the end of the book, especially for non-readers of the book. Ultimately, participants learned that Finch said his goodbyes and took his life. To prevent triggering content, the language used to convey this action was done mindfully. Other subtle hints were included to represent this as well.
Hint 1
Knots were tied below each thought. While they were initially tight, the knots began to loosen and at the final thought, the knot was released.
This was a metaphor for Finch letting go of being awake.
Hint 2
Behind every thought, there was a representative icon of Finch and Violet (co-protagonist). The thoughts began with just Finch’s icon, represented as a bird symbolising freedom.
Thereafter, there were 2 icons representing both Finch and Violet.
On the final thought, only Violet’s icon remains.
Section 3: Jolting Awake
This section revealed that Finch's thoughts were once a reflection of mine, but I chose to depart from his story.
Moving past Finch's final thought, participants would see a reflective mirror that asks the question ‘do I go into the blue hole as well?’. This was the question that I asked myself back then when I finished the book.
As a turning point of the experience, the physical space was designed to create a turning motion as well.
On the wall in this space, blue structures were being reduced in size as one walked further in; this was a metaphor that signified one coming out of the blue hole.
Section 4: Awake
Here, participants witnessed the impact of departing from Finch's journey and creating one's own.
In this space, participants viewed the artifacts that could exist as a result of being Forever Changed, instead of what would have been the end of one’s journey.
The artifacts chosen allowed particpants to investigate further or simply take a glance.
Reasons that I am glad I did not go into the blue hole:
I loved and received love.
I collected miniatures.
I experienced the wonders of this world.
I travelled to places.
I made things I enjoy.
Section 5: Staying Awake
The final section before exiting the room, participants were invited to sit, soak in the experience, and ponder about their own journey.
In the final section of the booklet, participants found prompts in light-colored pages. The questions chosen were simple to not overload the sensory input as this section was meant to slowly ease participants out of the immersion.
In this space, participants were invited to think about the bright things in life.
To Bright Places.
Before exiting the room, participants were invited to snip off the negative introspection that they had penned down before entering the room.
This signified new beginnings and to only move forward with positive introspection.
Post-comments from participants
Detailed Process
1. Design Research
A fan of directed research, I began by listing the over-arching topics of the experience and discovering knowledge gaps.
Thereafter, I conducted structured, generative interviews and domain research to conceptualize the first concept.
Research Questions
On Artifacts
Have individuals been similarly affected by artifacts (movies/books)?
What are the artifacts? How do they feel about it?
Why do they think might have triggered said feelings?
Did their mindsets or perspectives change after being affected by said artifact?
On Physical Experiences
Have they been through a physical experience that they felt strongly about?
Did the experience change their mindset or affect their actions/behavior in real life?
What are the existing book-to-life experiences like?
Are there existing installations that attempt to convey a certain impact relating to the finiteness of life?
On Finite Life
How frequently does the thought of finite life occur?
What triggers the thought of finite life?
What is their perspective on finite life?
Key Interview Findings
All artifacts (book/movie) chosen by interviewees to describe as ‘having affected them greatly’ taught them something new about themselves.
All experiences chosen were events that surprised them, positively or negatively. The commonality among negative events was that danger was present in some form.
Birthdays and the passing of close ones were the most common triggers for interviewees to think about the finiteness of life.
Most interviewees want to travel and see the many offerings of the world before death. I found this similar to the theme of ‘leaving a mark’ present in the original inspiration of this project.
Interesting finding: An interviewee mentioned that he does not connect what he wants to do with the idea of the finiteness of life/death, but mentioned several things that he wanted to achieve “before [he] dies”. This made me think about framing as I wonder if the things mentioned later truly had no link to the finiteness of life or are subconscious thoughts of the finiteness of life.
Domain Research
Domain research confirmed that there are currently no book-to-life experiences that are implicit (impact) and usually choose to showcase the explicit content of the book (scenes and graphics).
This is a concept model that shows what present book-to-life experiences lack: the impact of the book such as new thoughts or lessons from it. The impact of the book is therefore a must-have element in the ultimate experience.
An image of Up (by Pixar/Disney) struck a chord during research. It resonated with the level of subtlety in the topic of finite life that I wish to approach in the experience to convey the impact the book had on me.
Photo Courtesy of: Carl and Ellie Fine Wall Art by Rob Kaz
If you are not well-versed in the movie Up, the movie begins with the beautiful story of the couple below and how they fell in love. Four minutes into the movie, the wife passes and the plot self-explains how the man turned into a bitter old guy. He then goes on to try and fulfill the common dream that they had together.
This short but touching love story is universally well-known and deals with both themes of finite life and leaving your mark in the world. While my interview showed me how vastly different everyone experiences life, these universal stories and their underlying tones could be a unifying factor to invite participants to reflect on finite life in the magnitude that I hope to achieve.
With that in mind and the findings from interviews, the prototyping process began.
2. Conceptualising & Prototyping
There were 3 iterations conducted over 4 weeks, and evaluations for each iteration were conducted via interviews, roleplay, and physical prototyping. Storyboards were used in all 3 iterations as they were detailed and easy to use for concept testing and validation.
Concept 1: High-level
It started with a high-level thinking of what the experience could be like to convey the impact of the book.
Larry Keeley's 5E Experience Model aided in unfolding the storyboard below which attempted to break down the many details of the book into stages that could:
- Share the essence of the story
- Allow participants to physically engage with artifacts
- Be reflective
Test & Validation:
Generative Interviews
This concept was tested through generative and unstructured interviews. At this discovery stage, many questions asked were "what do you think about..." and "how do you think...".
The goal here was exactly to discover. I discovered that people were keen on physically interacting with artifacts in the experience to immerse themselves in the topic.
Concept 2: Interactions
Following evaluations of the high-level concept, I began experimenting with the level and type of interactions between participants and artifacts by breaking them down into specific actions.
The goal at this stage was to test immersion methods that can help participants understand the story while evaluating ways to not overload information and validate the technics of the immersion method.
Test & Validation:
Roleplay Test
To achieve these goals, a roleplay test was implemented and live feedback was obtained. This allowed me to act out what the experience could be like, witness the live interaction between the participant and artifacts, and alter parts of the experience to test quickly.
Taking the concept to life, especially from my figment of imagination, was pivotal in changing the direction of the entire experience. Here, I discovered the beauty in organic interactions and the capability to be self-vulnerable in solo interactions.
Prototypes created to test the experience:
Roleplay test setup:
Post-roleplay feedback sorted via affinity mapping:
Diorama
With many potential interactions, I wanted to test the feasibility of all concept ideas. A diorama created out of foam core was a quick way of shifting and navigating the space orientation without moving furniture around (especially as a one-man show!).
Concept 3: Define Impact
Following brainstorming sessions through thinking about what forms an impact could take, the method that came through the clearest was Before & After.
A re-model of the 5E Experience Model, EREISE, was also birthed to meet the immersion goals of this experience and shaped the final experience design. This broke down the entire experience into 6 clear stages that intentionally aimed to immerse participants in the impact of the book; which was reflective and introspective.
Test & Validation:
Co-Design
This coincided with Thanksgiving week when most people were away and therefore, a virtual Miro Co-design session was held to test Concept 3. The insights from the co-design shaped the final experience outcome.
3. Production
Production occurred over 1 week. This included testing the space, sourcing materials, laser-cutting artifacts, designing, printing and creating booklets, cutting and painting foam core, and setting up the space.
Space Testing
Foam Core
Laser Cut
20231129_135135.mp4
Set up
