How did I Get Here?

Day 1:

I have always seen them. Didn't know what they were called but yes I had definitely seen them. They dwell everywhere sometimes in darkest of webs and sometimes found laying harmlessly minding it's own business like "the one you see right now when you scroll to the bottom of the screen". They are seen laughing ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶, Crying (ಥ﹏ಥ) always expressing.

The first time I found out what they were called was in late March of 2021.I had a great opportunity to meet the Kaomoji Expert stephanie marie cedeño. She seemed to know a lot about them.

So, the first day she made us understand that to get to know anything whether it be Kaomoji or just simple verbs we must inspect where they live, what is their habitat like. I was surrounded with fellow curious individuals who were interested just like me. We, me and everyone started researching as a simple task of finding verbs or special words in the vast jungles of Websites.

Oh there were many. "Verbs everywhere" laid scattered all over the internet's rainforests. Once we found more than many, Stephanie asked us to research other terms for them. We listed their synonym, some even termed them in different languages.

So, that was the first day but these verb we found would be used to create new habitat for Kaomoji and many others to come. All of us would create our own Utopia with these verbs.

What verbs and words did I find in the internet? "Explore" , "Trending" and "Reality". Stephanie introduced us to a tool called Figma. And this would a tool we would create a living interface based on the verbs and words we found.

The day ended with that but I was already eager to now what were to come. We all had to note down reflection on that day of workshop. I might still have that reflection note with me somewhere. I believe it was here.

Day 2:

Bit early with a giant mug of frothy coffee I joined in the second day's workshop. Stephanie asked us to create statements with the one of the verbs or words we searched yesterday. For some reason the word "reality" struck out to me. Modernization brought many changes but "realism" seemed to be lost in these deep jungle of web interfaces. This thought process led me to write a paper on that matter that day. The paper is there in my blog drawer. Here you can take a look.

So with the word realism I came up with the statement "Design for Realism in the interface" as my statement.

Day 3:

All these time doing those task made me completely forget about The Kaomoji's. But I knew I would surely encounter them. The third day of the workshop began. Stephanie asked us to talk about our statement and asked us if there were any changes we would like to make to that. Deep down I felt somehow as much as I liked realism I hated it equally as well. I changed my statement to "Trending with Wording"

Then I started building this statement into a interface with Figma. As a person who loves to build stuff sometimes grand structures of games, sometimes tiny Hamok of interactives while some laying huge tiles of codes, I found that Figma as a building tool was very easy to manoeuvre. I started with scribbling my first draft of idea.

For the first concept I decided to make prototype for a social media platform where you share words and phrases. It was supposed to be Instagram but just for words.

User Story for the first Prototype

As a Logophile, I want to have a social platform
within the community of everyone who is engulfed in the beauty of words so that we can get keep growing this community bigger

This design idea felt right at that moment but realized I was building more of application rather than interactive interface.

Then came the Kaomoji's. They came in hundredths. More than I ever expected. These were some emotional characters some were full of joy, some were surprised while some were just confused.

(* ^ ω ^) (´ ∀ ` ) ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶ ☆:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆

(´｡• ᵕ •｡) ( ´ ▽ ) (￣▽￣) ╰(´︶`)╯

It all happened when Stephanie brought up a idea for my statement to have a button that releases these Kaomoji's. A whole screen world filled with Kaomoji.

Day 4:

The day started, Taking from inspiration provided by Stephanie I decided to build new prototypes. I felt with new concept i had to change the User story. I came up with this User story at the end

As a Trendy user, I want to be bombarded with all the current popular trends within a single frame.

By this time I was very much used to what Figma as a tool had to offer and was very much familiar with Kaomoji. Then I started iterating the design concepts with them.

Then at the end I had these Kaomoji choreographed like a beautiful dance routine.

From a point of not knowing these joyful creatures and to now having spent days with them, I shall bring them along with me to my future blog post where more journeys lie ahead.