Purrble - Anxious Pet

Technology Probe Toy Design

// a social wearable prototype designed to augment co-located social interaction of players in the New Gyr LARP (live action role play) game in April 2018 in Marine County, CA.

+ Published in the proceedings of CSCW 2018.

+ Adapted to a commercial product called Purbble.

+ Project Timeline: 3 months.

+ Collaborators: Petr Slvák, Nikki Theofanopoulou, Alessia Cecchet, Peter Cottrell
, Ferran Altarriba Bertran, Ella Dagan, Julian Child, Katherine Isbister, Committee For Children

+ Design Type: Tangible Computational Toy

'True Colors' is a social wearable prototype designed to augment co-located social interaction of players in a LARP (live action role play). We designed it to enable the emergence of rich social dynamics between wearers and non-wearers.

True Colors is Y-shaped, worn around the upper body, and has front and back interfaces to distinguish between actions taken by the wearer (front), and actions taken by others (back).

To design True Colors, we followed a Research-through-Design approach, used experiential qualities and social affordances to guide our process, and co-designed with the LARP designers of Event Horizon.

13 True Colors wearables were deployed in a 3-day LARP event, attended by 109 people. From all the functionalities and interactivity the device afforded, players gravitated towards ones that emphasized the social value of experiencing vulnerability as a prompt to get together.

Prototype Video

More Photos