UX of Mould

Studio Practices Week Four

The ’mould-task’ at hand continues but we must have actual mould this time round.

Brief

Design a way to materialise the qualities of mould.

Group members

Anshu Agarwal
Jumleena Bhagawati
Keyi Cao
Reagan Bbengo
Xiyuan Han

Time frame

20-27 October 2022

A re-think

Round-table

The biggest challenge we had during the last presentation was not being inclusive enough of the audience, so off we went idea-hunting for one that could redeem inclusivity.

Keyi's noodles

Keyi had a pack of noodles stored at room temperature and was caught by surprise it had mould on it. It quickly became an area of interest and she opted to keep it open and unrefridgerated to get as much mould in the pack as we possibly could before presentation day.

Fresh pack of noodles © Google

Mouldy noodles © Keyi Cao 2022

The grand idea

Having observed afterwards how colourful the moulded-noodle texture was, it drove us into focussing on restaurants and that's when an idea struck, a skit. One that stayed relevant with food and mould but could also be engaging and participatory for our audience.

Story boarding

Hatching the plan

The idea was to have a restaurant that serves food you cannot eat and rewards you for going through the disturbing experience afterwards. Having been sure a skit was our final output for the project, we hatched a plan on how to bring a restaurant to D211, our MA UX studio room. So we made a list for the project to go according to plan:

List of items:

Restaurant name
Branding
Reception
Dinner table
Menu
Food
Reward

Assigning ourselves roles:

Anshu Agarwal - Waitress
Jumleena Bhagawati - Chef
Keyi Cao - Founder and Owner
Reagan Bbengo - Receptionist
Xiyuan Han - Manager

Re-writing the love letter

Dear mould,

It is unbelievable how beautiful you are to look at, am almost jealous. I just cannot get over how you display your majesty with texture, colour, and pattern. I think I now know why architectural, textile, art and other designers cannot get enough of you.

Nothing compares to your size in the life cycle. you are literally the end and the beginning of life. Can you believe we have always been told whales are the largest organisms and yet there you have always been!

Your survival skills are unmatched when it comes to the fact that you adapt to into new forms when conditions are unfavourable for you. you are literally immortal!

It is amazing how intelligent you are with so little effort. Your ability to slowly but surely "colonise" things without giving up is an inspiration to my daily efforts.we have

You have been the reason for some of the tastiest foods ever made like cheese, soy sauce, some meats, and others. you are the thing that I run to each time I am unsure.

A round of applause to the millions if not billions of sick people you have cured just by taking a sip of your natural penicillin juice coupled with the fact that you have boosted some children’s immune systems when carefully exposed to you at early stages.

With love, Group 8

Branding material

These include a message for our guests to read, a receipt for the ordered food, a certificate for successfully staring at inedible food, staff tags and the signage.

Message © Jumleena Bhagawati 2022

Receipt © Jumleena Bhagawati 2022

The setup

Since we were dealing with food, one with mould at that, we could not have the set up any other time apart from the presentation day and so we did just that, woke up very early in the morning and very carefully but artistically put everything in place ready for Hould of Mould presentation.