Objective

The objective of this project was to make meditation engaging and interactive for those who feel like they cannot successfully meditate. By strengthening our tools of perception, humanity pursues greater truths that improve our quality of life. This website serves to rejuvenate and question our perceptions. It asks us to absorb information in unconventional ways. Mindfulness has been removed from its community centered origins and corrupted by capitalism. This website responds to capitalism by stimulating healthy curiosity around our perceptions. This experiential website is a space that reflects the expansive reality of the human experience. Hopefully, through this website users will explore, question, and observe the passage of time. Technology allows us a free world to build, which hopefully varies from the capitalistic imagination if navigated mindfully.

Today’s world is oversaturated with media that tries to shape our perception of self. A healthy self perception helps identify when we are being coerced to think a certain way. The forces that shape our perceptions extend beyond the physical and into the virtual. Over time, our digital self is easily exploited for capitalist purposes. This project proposes an unbranded space so that we may adapt our physical perceptions into digital ones, authentically.

Research & Inspiration

Perception is one of the most basic parts of the mind. It can bring suffering or health. This concept has been extensively studied. Many cultures have reached the conclusion that perception can be improved through meditative practices. Training perception through meditation helps us overcome harmful ways of being and promises us a calmer and more present life. At its core, meditation simply allows us to perceive the passage of time.

I started my research with what types of meditations I would like to include. I also researched the effects of meditation. I knew I wanted the website to be able to structure an experience for the user, rather than just information. My next step was to find websites that engaged the user in an experience. Clicking the images below will redirect to the websites that inspired the form of this project.

These websites informed me that most experiential websites do not immediately reveal information, it is mainly up to the viewer to navigate through the experience. However, I wanted the way finding of the website to be authentic to the South Asian origins of meditation. Many meditations were captured in maps such as the one pictured. These artworks are highly illustrative and yet hold information like maps. However, these maps depict spiritual principles as well as two continents, two oceans, and celestial realms. The concentric circles of the map show the viewer how interconnected all the information presented is. This form of conveying information allows for exploration and curiosity. I wanted the way finding of this website to emulate that of these elaborate South Asian maps.

Approach

Iterations- exploring ways of navigating through the site and organizing information

Iterations- after participating in a specific method of meditation I made iterations of infographic posters

The concentric circles serve as the viewport as well as lead you to different meditations, indicated by hover and then click. The dot in the different locations of the circles indicates what page the user is on. In case the user does not catch onto the command center navigation, there is a “next” button.

Image shows hover indication

Image shows “next” button located on bottom right of page

Challenges & Constraints

I struggled finding ways to prompt the viewer to move around in this expansive space. I found that zooming in on the maps urges the viewer to scroll to see more information.

I wondered how to give the viewer more information if they wanted it, and how to direct them if they did not understand the map navigation. With enough exploration, the user would hovers the title and gets more information, as shown by the video below.