Marble

Marble is a solution on a social scenario which can best described as coming together with a group of acquainted people to watch a movie together and generally have a good time. But a problem arises, which movie is the group going to watch?

It was decided to focus on the active decision making process that precedes the actual watching of a movie. The aim is to design a shared system that is able to make this active decision making process more efficient and more enjoyable, instead of tiresome and prone to longlasting discussion. Furthermore, it was aimed to neutralize the shared information bias within the group by making sure that every user’s preference is being taken into account, resulting in an increase of user satisfaction.

A concept was designed in the form of a tangible marble track combined with a mobile application and a tv-screen application in order to encounter the design conditions. User testing the designed concept resulted in interesting findings from which most striking was observing the participants evolving from small, unpretentious interactions to vast and exuberant interactions whilst using the designed concept. Finally – being well aware that the designed concept represents a metaphor – an attempt has been made towards translating the metaphor into a more concrete product that can be visualised within the concept.