Speedy Walker

Speedy Walker

April 2024

⏱ ~ 6 min

Design Concept

“Speedy Walker” is inspired by the practice of walking meditation. It adjusts the tempo of the music you’re listening to in parallel with your walking speed. As you slow down your pace, the music also slows down. It raises the question of whether the rhythm of music can influence people’s walking speed, and if so, could slower music encourage a slower, more mindful pace of walking.

Behind the scene

The primary aim of this project was to create a low-fidelity prototype designed for mindfulness practice. My initial inspiration came from conducting ethnographic research where I observed activities in a cafeteria. This observation revealed two intriguing points: diverse walking paces among individuals and the prevalent use of technology, like phones and music devices, while walking or conversing.

Another source of inspiration was a mindfulness exercise involving a walk on campus. I divided our class into two groups: one group simply walked, and the other documented their observations using their phones and images. The feedback was positive, with some participants expressing a preference for walks without any tasks, allowing them to focus on simply being mindful.

According to Zhu et al., 2017, the paper suggests that engaging with the digital artifact should naturally evoke a state of mindfulness through the interaction itself, without the artifact simply being an instrumental tool to practice mindfulness exercises.

Hypothesis

If walking speed correlates with music tempo, will people be more mindful of how they walk?

I tested the hypothesis with a quick prototype on TouchDesigner (TD), using gravity data from the iOS app ZIG SIM. One axis of the gravity data was used as a reference for the speed of the soundtrack. The acceleration data didn’t work well with the equation I set up, so I used gravity data instead. I also attempted, but failed, to time-stretch the audio, as this feature isn’t supported in TD. Consequently, I used less melodic music to ensure that changes in pitch with the music speed wouldn’t be too noticeable.

Prototype

The tempo of music is adjusted according to isomorphic relations with the walker’s physiology. (positive symmetry)

In the presentation of the idea of The Speedy Walker, my classmates gave positive reactions to the concept. Some saw potentials in developing the idea related to heartbeat. For example the music matches with the the participant’s heartbeat, or the participant listening to their own heartbeat while walking. Some were curious about the idea of having ambient sound and if it will actually promote a calming effect.

Zhu et al., 2017 suggest that symmetries may not always be ideal, using their “YU” prototype as an example. They found that mapping increased heart rate to faster fish movement could escalate heart rate, while the opposite had a calming effect. They advise considering both symmetric and non-symmetric mappings and even breaking isomorphism to mimic nature. They recommend experimenting with different mappings for each prototype, drawing analogies from nature. However, they admit that extensive validation and testing of these approaches are yet to be done.

Future Iterations

Could a reverse symmetry mapping (negative symmetry) e.g. an increased heart rate engendered slower music speed, have a calming effect on the walker?

Based on these insights, I propose future iterations of this prototype to test reverse symmetry mappings, explore different music genres, and incorporate biometric sensor connections. Specifically, I’m interested in examining whether a reverse symmetry mapping, where an increased heart rate engenders slower music speed, could have a calming effect on the walker.

Reference

Zhu, B., Hedman, A., & Li, H. (2017). Designing Digital Mindfulness: Presence-In and Presence-With versus Presence-Through. Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2685–2695. ACM Full-Text Collection. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025590