Social Cloud
UX Design / Product Design
Project Detail
Academic UX & Interaction Design
Speculative Product Experience
Role
UX Design
Interaction Design
Duration
3 Months
Overview.
Social Cloud is a conceptual mobile experience that visualizes social energy through cloud-like forms. By combining quick emotional check-ins with body signals, it helps users understand whether they feel open to connection or need distance. The app supports three modes—Join, Observe, Stay Quiet—allowing users to set social boundaries without pressure.
The Challenge
Social Cloud addresses the challenge of making internal emotional and social readiness visible without forcing explicit self-reporting. The project explores how abstract visuals, minimal choices, and passive body signals can communicate whether a user feels open to connection, needs distance, or simply wants to observe—without turning emotional states into numbers or judgments.
The Outcome
A product–app system that uses a wearable device to signal social readiness and a companion app to support reflection and decision-making, enabling softer, non-verbal social interaction.
Product + Wearable Design
Features & System Design
Entry / Invitation
An opening prompt that invites users to reflect on their current openness to social connection, without pressure to engage.
A companion app designed to support a wearable social-sensing device. It visualizes emotional states, contextual data, and interaction choices to reduce social pressure and encourage self-aware connection.
Visualizes the user’s current emotional state based on physiological signals collected by the wearable device.
Emotional State
Vitals & Influences
Social Choice
Reflection & Summary
Provides contextual data and emotional cues to help users understand what may be shaping their current state.
Offers multiple levels of social engagement, allowing users to choose how — or whether — to participate in the moment.
Summarizes social patterns over time, encouraging reflection rather than performance or comparison.
In a 2020 survey jointly released by China Youth Daily, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Tantan, more than 40 percent of respondents said they were "social terrorists."
Social Anxiety
The cause of social terrorism
The scene of social terrorism
Data
Social anxiety data of college students
Interview
Background
Background
Research
Social anxiety disorder is a type of anxiety disorder characterized by feelings of fear and anxiety in social situations that cause considerable distress and impaired functioning in at least some aspects of daily life
According to the China Youth Daily, the results of a questionnaire on "social
Cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar points out that "our emotional lives are recorded on the heart." Although the heart is not the source of emotion, emotion can have a direct physical impact on the human heart.
To test my idea, I followed two users, recorded their non-social and social scenes, and recorded their heart rate changes. I recorded the heartbeat changes of Zhou Li and Cao Gefei when they were at home, when they were socializing and when they were reluctant to communicate.
I want to use the shape to make this product. These clouds give me a feeling of freedom, comfort, roundness and softness. I want to integrate this element into the product, so that people can use it without pressure and feel comfortable.
Ideation
Process
Ideation
Draft
Color
Normal Heart
Sad Heart
Research shows that when people are angry and desperate, their bodies pump out stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, which produce different heart rates.
I tried to draw some different shapes, trying to show a more rounded, comfortable feeling.
Design
Model
Utilize Technique
Process
Three views
I designed three styles with different shapes and colors and modeled them. The colors were all light colors of Macaron color, because according to the survey of users, they did not like bright and dazzling colors and did not want to attract attention.
The principle of the Apple Watch ECG measurement is achieved through a technology called photoelectric volume pulse wave method. In addition, it uses a feature called an electrode sensor to detect electrocardiogram signals.
I put a light bulb and a heart rate monitor inside the product. The color of the lamp can change with the heart rate. I put the heart rate monitor at the bottom of the product to monitor the accurate heart rate change.
I bought the drops, mixed them and recorded them multiple times, put a light bulb in them and added the heartbeat monitor, and the color changed accordingly
Display
Reflection
Working on Social Cloud pushed me to rethink how design can respond to emotional states without attempting to define or fix them. Rather than creating a system that tells users how they should feel, I focused on designing subtle signals and interactions that support personal awareness and social boundaries. Through this project, I learned that emotional design is often about restraint—knowing when to step back and allow space for interpretation. This experience strengthened my understanding of designing for ambiguity, and how products can quietly assist social interaction without becoming intrusive.
