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Personal Project

For my degree's culminating project, I developed Subchat, an immersive chat platform that conveys tone of voice and subtext. In other words, it's a form of indirect communication where visual cues are used to convey what is not explicitly stated in the text. Subchat provides an additional level of interpersonal interaction, allowing for a novel approach to interpreting chat dynamics, and analyzing them.

I have encountered situations where lack of communication in messaging has caused me stress and anxiety. With the COVID-19 pandemic and increased reliance on chat communication, I decided to investigate and improve upon the existing chat conventions.

The basic components of chat include conversation bubbles, message recipients, text input, send button, and scrolling. I have introduced two new parameters of intensity and color that can be subjectively interpreted by users to convey personalized meaning. This provides additional layers of communication beyond facial expressions and links the color to specific emotions or codes within a social context. Overall, these additions aim to enhance the effectiveness of chat communication.

This tool serves as an additional dimension of communication, much like facial expressions convey emotions for an individual. Similarly, colors can also convey certain emotions or messages for a given individual.

The Sand button allows me to send messages of different lengths, with the goal of giving the message strength. Should I whisper "I'm sorry" or do I want to give it power? A message with more power will linger longer. For example, I send a message saying "I love you" and want its color to still be integral to the conversation tomorrow.

I drew inspiration for the concept of "strength" from various worlds, such as music, physics, photography, and of course, communication and empathy.

For example, the concentration gradient - the difference in concentration between two solutions. The lower the concentration of a substance, the faster the diffusion, meaning it dissipates quickly. This can be demonstrated using a glass of water and ink. In music, there are instructions for compositions, such as piano forte and crescendo.

Regarding the chat interface, I saw an opportunity to give attention to the parameter of time, which has not been done before. This parameter amplifies the strength of messages in space. (The rule was simple: every minute, it's 8 pixels, so it's possible to create an image of up to 85 minutes, which is a full screen.)

Regarding the transparency of messages, the Sand button allows me to choose whether or not to make a message transparent. The goal is to symbolize whether I want to create transparency for my emotions or not - whether I want to create a combination with my emotions before sending the message or not. The inspiration for this came from the local and somber paintings of Matisse and also from wave breakers in the sea, which disrupt the flow and do not continue with the same empathy.

Thanks to the systematic of the colors, I was able to analyze relationship systems between the correspondent and another correspondent. The analysis gives us an overview of the entire correspondence on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. This way, we are less likely to attribute more weight to a particular message compared to the entire period.

There are moments in a conversation that we want to remember - a good, emotional conversation, or simply a beautiful interplay of colors. These are the moments where we can capture a snapshot and hold onto it. It is these moments where the meaning of the conversation transcends what is explicitly written or said.