Jong Hwa Yoon (Kenneth)

JONG HWA YOON is a London based Korean designer, currently pursuing MA Design Products at the Royal College of Art, London.

While studying his Bachelors Arts degree in Design at Goldsmiths College, his work is based on the idea of creating a bridge between the user and the essence. ‘How to engage people think’ is the main concern in his design work. He seeks the opportunities to make people ask questions, search for deeper meanings and answers of the essence based on the design developed from strategic, and in-depth research. Every design process, he has accumulated a data of tests and develop ideas through experiment, and the application of appropriate methodology.

Quarantine has allowed us to experiment with new habits and new lifestyles. We want to keep some of the new routines going, even in a post-lockdown world. In psychology, habits are defined as learning actions that are triggered automatically by particular contexts.

Rather than providing answers to the specific problem, I would like to provide an opportunity for users to think and reflect on themselves through design. The transformation of habits into furniture, one and only form, will create a relationship with the user with our everyday life, reflecting the user’s habit or behaviour. Habiture is placed in everyday life, reminds you of your chair every time you find it, and brings a constant awareness stream.

As a designer, I aim to explore diverse ways through where a rapport can be found between the essence and the users with community. And by doing so, I complete the connection whereby the many become one through true communication.

Working in diverse fields of design has enhanced my communication, determination and developed useful transfer skills. Regardless of scale and medium of design, I approached my roles with enthusiasm. The experience as a designer has enriched my outlook on life.

— Habiture, the project about tracking your habit, and creating your own unique chair.

— Habiture creates a unique chair based on how the user track their own habits. In which it will create a relationship with the user with everyday life reflecting the user’s habit or behaviour. There are three key features; create unique shape of furniture based on the habits, adding nudge as small piece of furniture to redeem the user, and building strong relationship with the object.

Components — The following is the appearance and composition of the chair. The seat consists of 21 layers based on 21 days of habit tracking. This is based on the minimum days require to form an habit. The filler layers are intended to fill any unachieved days that may have been missed, to help to smooth the seat of the chair. Finally, the QR codes engraved on each layer store the data collected through the Habiture app for tracking habit.

How to use the application — When the Habiture app is turned on, the user chooses the type of the chair that he or she wants to make through Habit Tracking; Wave and Panorama.The user can get reference of what might suit the user by looking the the post user have hash-tag on Instagram.

Setting profile — Put your information Name, habit, goal and project duration.

Habit tracking process — A simple habit tracking page to log your daily habit. If the user have achieved their goal. They would press ‘Yes’ which gain +1. If they say ‘No’ they will have -1 And zero points if not tracked. This point will feedback into how the chair will be shaped.

Shape of layers — The first shape of the layer start as a triangle and progress to rectangle as the user achieved their goal. This works the other way around , if the user constantly not achieve the goal and gets -1 it will go back to triangle.

— This is a data collected of going outside habit. It started at 0 and was added +1 each day until 7 days, -1 each from 11 days, and +1 every day afterwards. The accumulated data values of 21 days are expressed as the most positive layers, which look like this.

— These are examples of other test users' tracking data and their layers.

Visualisation — With a yes or no click on goal each day. Write down the comments, leave comments on each day and save on the app. Then the layer corresponding to that day will appear.

— You can see the layers on the main page.

1:1 scale MDF model

Feedback and Insights- Slump and Encouragement — Professionals in terms of behavioral psychology pulled out the most important points and these could be seen as product issues. These are what they pointed out and suggestions.

Fillers — As the first outcome of Habiture can be uncomfortable, the filler layers are introduced to create a more comfortable seat by contributing extra redeeming days.

Shape of Filler — This is an example of how the combination of filler and normal layer piece looks like for ‘Day 10’. The round shape is added by additional rectangle. In addition, every layer comes with a QR code which contain the log of the specific day of how the user behaved during the habit tracking.

— You can choose the days you want to add the filler layer and proceed tracking again. In order for the user to get the filler they would need to track additional day ( 1 filler – 1day).

Slump and Encouraging message — And at a time when the data is certain due to a slump, the user sees the following screen the next day. In the same situation, people who have already experienced a slump and have overcome you can receive messages of support or advice through voice mail.

— This is an example of other users' redeeming additional habit tracking days with their filter layers after the initial 21 days of habit tracking.

Fillers and nudge point — Intentionally, the layer is designed to be 1cm higher that the height of the filler, allowing the user to feel the minimal inconvenience as a nudge point.